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Translated by W. Moore and H. A. Wilson
St Gregory of Nyssa Resources Online and in Print
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This Part: 128 Pages
Page 11
But although his bread became thereby well buttered he thought he ought not to remain in such a profession; so he gradually gave up the medical, after the tinkering. Arius, the enemy of God, had already sown those wicked tares which bore the Anomaeans as their fruit, and the schools of medicine resounded then with the disputes about that question. Accordingly Aetius studied the controversy, and, having laid a train of syllogisms from what he remembered of Aristotle, he became notorious for even going beyond Arius, the father of the heresy, in the novel character of his speculations; or rather he perceived the consequences of all that Arius had advanced, and so got this character of a shrewd discoverer of truths not obvious; revealing as he did that the Created, even from things non-existent, was unlike the Creator who drew Him out of nothing.
With such propositions he tickled ears that itched for these novelties; and the Ethiopian Theophilus [73] becomes acquainted with them. Aetius had already been connected with this man on some business of Gallus; and now by his help creeps into the palace. After Gallus [74] had perpetrated the tragedy with regard to Domitian the procurator and Montius, all the other participators in it naturally shared his ruin; yet this man escapes, being acquitted from being punished along with them. After this, when the great Athanasius had been driven by Imperial command from the Church of Alexandria, and George the Tarbasthenite was tearing his flock, another change takes place, and Aetius is an Alexandrian, receiving his full share amongst those who fattened at the Cappadocian's board; for he had not omitted to practice his flatteries on George. George was in fact from Chanaan himself, and therefore felt kindly towards a countryman: indeed he had been for long so possessed with his perverted opinions as actually to dote upon him, and was prone to become a godsend for Aetius, whenever he liked.
All this did not escape the notice of his sincere admirer, our Eunomius. This latter perceived that his natural father--an excellent man, except that he had such a son--led a very honest and respectable life certainly, but one of laborious penury and full of countless toils. (He was one of those farmers who are always bent over the plough, and spend a world of trouble over their little farm; and in the winter, when he was secured from agricultural work, he used to carve out neatly the letters of the alphabet for boys to form syllables with, winning his bread with the money these sold for.) Seeing all this in his father's life, he said goodbye to the plough and the mattock and all the paternal instruments, intending never to drudge himself like that; then he sets himself to learn Prunicus' skill [75] of short-hand writing, and having perfected himself in that he entered at first, I believe, the house of one of his own family, receiving his board for his services in writing; then, while tutoring the boys of his host, he rises to the ambition of becoming an orator. I pass over the next interval, both as to his life in his native country and as to the things and the company in which he was discovered at Constantinople.
[73] Probably the Indian' Theophilus, who afterwards helped to organize the Anomoean schism in the reign of Jovian.
[74] Gallus, Caesar 350-354, brother of Julian, not a little influenced by Aetius, executed by Constantius at Flanon in Dalmatia. During his short reign at Antioch, Domitian, who was sent to bring him to Italy, and his quaestor Montius were dragged to death through the streets by the guards of the young Caesar.
[75] The same phrase occurs again: Refutation of Eunomius' Second Essay, p. 844: hoi te prounikou sophi& 139; engumnasthentes; ex ekeines gar dokei moi tes paraskeues ta eiremena proenenochenai; In the last word there is evidently a pun on prounikou; propheres, in the secondary sense of precocious,' is used by Iamblichus and Porphyry, and prounikos appears to have had the same meaning. We might venture, therefore, to translate that knowing trick' of short-hand: but why Prunicus is personified, if it is personified, as in the Gnostic Prunicos Sophia, does not appear. See Epiphanius Haeres. 253 for the feminine Proper name. The other possible explanation is that given in the margin of the Paris Edition, and is based on Suidas, i.e. Prunici sunt cursores celeres; hic pro celer scriba. Hesychius also says of the word; hoi misthou komizontes ta onia apo tes agoras, hous tines paidarionas kalousin, dromeis, tracheis, oxeis, eukinetoi, gorgoi, misthotoi. Here such porter's' skill, easy going and superficial, is opposed to the more laborious task of tilling the soil.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/nyssa/against-eunomius.asp?pg=11
