Discourses - Book III   

it, the thing become truly an emetic, a crude food and unfit to eat.
But after digestion show us some chance in your ruling faculty, as
athletes show in their shoulders by what they have been exercised
and what they have eaten; as those who have taken up certain arts show
by what they have learned. The carpenter does not come and say,
"Hear me talk about the carpenter's art"; but having undertaken to
build a house, he makes it, and proves that he knows the art. You also
ought to do something of the kind; eat like a man, drink like a man,
dress, marry, beget children, do the office of a citizen, endure
abuse, bear unreasonable brother, bear with your father, bear with
your son, neighbour, compassion. Show us these things that we may
see that you have in truth learned something from the philosophers.
You say, "No, but come and hear me read commentaries." Go away, and
seek somebody to vomit them on. "And indeed I will expound to you
the writings of Chrysippus as no other man can: I will explain his
text most clearly: I will add also, if I can, the vehemence of
Antipater and Archedemus."
Is it, then, for this that young men shall leave their country and
their parents, that they may come to this place, and hear you
explain words? Ought they not to return with a capacity to endure,
to be active in association with others, free from passions, free from
perturbation, with such a provision for the journey of life with which
they shall be able to bear well the things that happen and derive
honour from them? And how can you give them any of these things
which you do not possess? Have you done from the beginning anything
else than employ yourself about the resolution of Syllogisms, of
sophistical arguments, and in those which work by questions? "But such
a man has a school; why should not I also have a school?" These things
are not done, man, in a careless way, nor just as it may happen; but
there must be a (fit) age and life and God as a guide. You say,
"No." But no man sails from a port without having sacrificed to the
Gods and invoked their help; nor do men sow without having called on
Demeter; and shall a man who has undertaken so great a work
undertake it safely without the Gods? and shall they who undertake
this work come to it with success? What else are you doing, man,
than divulging the mysteries? You say, "There is a temple at
Eleusis, and one here also. There is an Hierophant at Eleusis, and I
also will make an Hierophant: there is a herald, and I will
establish a herald; there is a torch-bearer at Eleusis, and I also
will establish a torch-bearer; there are torches at Eleusis, and I
will have torches here. The words are the same: how do the things done
here differ from those done there?" Most impious man, is there no
difference? these things are done both in due place and in due time;
and when accompanied with sacrifice and prayers, when a man is first
purified, and when he is disposed in his mind to the thought that he
is going to approach sacred rites and ancient rites. In this way the
mysteries are useful, in this way we come to the notion that all these
things were established by the ancients for the instruction and
correction of life. But you publish and divulge them out of time,
out of place, without sacrifices, without purity; you have not the