Sentences of Sextus, The by Henry Chadwick
Translated by Henry Chadwick & C.H. Dodd
Number of quotes: 13
Book ID: 270 Page: 107
Section: 4A
Part II: Studies 2. The Evidence of OrigenThe earliest testimony to the existence of the Sextine collection comes from Origen, writing in the late forties of the third century A.D. On two occasions he cites from the maxims explicitly naming Sextus as their author. We shall shortly see that these two occasions are not the only instances where Origen can be shown to be quoting from the collection.
Quote ID: 6805
Time Periods: 23
Book ID: 270 Page: 109
Section: 2E2
Part II: Studies 2. The Evidence of OrigenThe other place where Sextus is named occurs in Origen’s Commentary on St Matthew XV, 3, where he is expounding the problematic text Matt. XiX. 12: ‘There are eunuchs who were so born from their mother’s womb; and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men; and there are eunuchs who made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake.’
Quote ID: 6806
Time Periods: 3
Book ID: 270 Page: 110
Section: 2E2
Part II: Studies 2. The Evidence of OrigenJustin Martyr found a powerful argument to refute the vulgar accusation that Christians met to indulge in gross and immoral practices in a story about a youthful Christian of Egypt who had so deep a desire for bodily purity that he had asked the local surgeons to emasculate him. Castration being contrary to Roman law, the surgeons refused to perform the operation without the permission of the prefect Felix. {3} A formal application was made through the official channels of the civil service; but a permit was not forthcoming, and the young man had to content himself as he was.
Quote ID: 6807
Time Periods: 2
Book ID: 270 Page: 111
Section: 2E2
Part II: Studies 2. The Evidence of OrigenFor example, the first canon of Nicaea prohibits those who have been mutilated, where it has not been necessitated by medical reasons, from being ordained, ….
. . . .
Nothing however is there said of the need to curb lay enthusiasm; the Nicene fathers were only concerned with castration as a bar to ordination. In the 23rd of the Apostolic Canons, however, it is laid down that a layman who mutilates himself is to be excommunicated for three years, ‘for he conspires against his own life’.
. . . .
Nevertheless, among the monks the practice was not so very rare. It is violently attacked by St. John Chrysostom as a current abuse. {2} Epiphanius comments that in the Egyptian desert ‘not a few monks went so far as to castrate themselves’. {3}
Quote ID: 6808
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 270 Page: 113
Section: 4A
Part II: Studies 2. The Evidence of OrigenGwynn challenges the notion that Origen regarded Sextus as a pagan writer. Commenting on the passage in the Contra Celsum he observes: ‘It is not easy to avoid the conclusion that a book quoted thus to yield evidence on a matter of Christian teaching the usage—a book which “most Christians” (oί πολλοί, not merely many) knew familiarly—must have been a Christian work.’ And discussion the text in the Commentary on St Matthew he remarks that Origen ‘here distinctly classes Sextus as a writer held in repute among many Christians, as one of the teachers by whom enthusiastic spirits were in danger of being misled in this matter; a fact which surely leads, as before, to the conclusion that he knew him as a Christian writer’. {1}
Quote ID: 6809
Time Periods: 23
Book ID: 270 Page: 114
Section: 4A
Part II: Studies 2. The Evidence of OrigenAccordingly, he continues, ‘I gladly profess the opinion uttered by a wise and believing man which I often quote: “It is dangerous to speak even the truth about God.” For not only false statements about him are risky; there is also danger to the speaker in true statements if they are made at an inopportune time.’ {1}
. . . .
The Christian teacher is none other than Sextus, and the maxim quoted is no. 352.
Quote ID: 6810
Time Periods: 23
Book ID: 270 Page: 115/116
Section: 4A
Part II: Studies 2. The Evidence of OrigenOrigen’s remark that this aphorism was a favourite of his reminds us how much of his work has failed to survive. I have been able to discover only one other occasion in his extant writings where the same maxim is quoted, this time in company with yet another from the Sextine collection. The two citations occur in the preface to Origen’s Commentary on the First Psalm. This has not survived in the manuscript tradition, but is extant only in a short citation from the preface given by Epiphanius ….
. . . .
And in tracking out the scripture we have not disregarded the fine sayings ‘When you speak about God you are judged by God’, and ‘There is no small danger in speaking even the truth about God’. {2}
These citations from Sextus (22 and 352) are not recognised by the erudite editor of Epiphanius, Karl Holl. The cause of this failure on the part of both Holl and Harnack to identify these quotations in Origen may conjecturally be attributed to the continuing prevalence of the notion that Origen did not regard the Sextine maxims as a Christian work. {1} Sextus has not therefore been even considered as offering a likely hunting-ground. It is noteworthy, for example, that in Holl’s invaluable collection of all the citations from ante-Nicene writers preserved in the Sacra Parallela of John of Damascus, he deliberately excludes from the scope of his book the quotations therein drawn from Sextus on the ground that as a theologian he is only interested in the Christian writers, and therefore the Sextine maxims are none of his concern—‘they belong to the philologists’. {2} It is no doubt this mental attitude which has led students of the Fathers to neglect one of the more remarkable monuments of second-century Christian piety.
Pastor John notes: John’s note: Origen!! (near the section with ‘And in tracking out the scripture….’)
Pastor John notes: John’s note: Wow, Wow (for section ‘he deliberately excludes from the scope of his book….’)
Quote ID: 6811
Time Periods: 23
Book ID: 270 Page: 131
Section: 3B
Part II: Studies 3. Rufinus and JeromeXystus II was a bishop who left a deep impression upon his Roman community despite the brevity of his episcopate. His martyrdom was the more intensely felt in that he had been surprised by the soldiery in the very act of ministering the divine word to his flock in the cemetery of Callistus, and had been thereupon summarily executed with four of his deacons, {2} the archdeacon Lawrence following him shortly afterwards.
Quote ID: 6812
Time Periods: 3
Book ID: 270 Page: 147
Section: 4A
Part II: Studies 4. Internal EvidenceHere again Sextus agrees with the Pythagorean maxims against Porphyry in having ἀνθρώποις at the end, {1} although at 3 he has a related form of the saying which is in agreement with Porphyry on this point. On the other hand, Porphyry and Py. agree against Sextus in the verb.
Quote ID: 6815
Time Periods: 23
Book ID: 270 Page: 147
Section: 4A
Part II: Studies 4. Internal EvidencePy. and Po. Agree against S in having σοφός. Clearly Sextus has changed σοφός to the Christian πιστός. S and Po. Agree against Py. in not having an appended second clause.
Quote ID: 6816
Time Periods: 23
Book ID: 270 Page: 153
Section: 4A
Part II: Studies 4. Internal EvidenceThe parallels in order between Porphyry and Sextus are striking:
Po. 9 contains S 205, 207, 208a, 202.
Po. 11 contains S 35, 49, 36, 97.
Po. 12 contains S 303, 113, 114, 122, 124, 125, 126.
Po. 34 contains S 274, 273, 472, 74, 75a, 75b.
Po. 35 contains S 335, 232, 345, 371.
Sextus seems to have taken over his selected aphorisms mainly in the order in which he found them in his source. His collection is in any event remarkable for its apparent formlessness and inconsequentiality. {1}
Quote ID: 6817
Time Periods: 23
Book ID: 270 Page: 160
Section: 4A
Part II: Studies 4. Internal EvidenceEthical exhortation runs to neutrality and Sextus was not the first, as he was certainly not the last, to adapt the highest heathen morality to Christian use. Ambrose had only to make small, though admittedly significant, changes in Cicero to produce his De Officiis. The Enchiridion of Epictetus circulated in two Christian recensions. {4}
Quote ID: 6818
Time Periods: 234
Book ID: 270 Page: 162
Section: 4A
Part II: Studies 4. Internal EvidenceAccordingly the ultimate question that is raised by the Sextine collection is a variant of the controversy between Rufinus and Jerome, namely, whether the ascetic and mystical ideal of the Neopythagorean sages has been an influence for good or for evil upon the spirituality of Christendom, and whether this process of incorporation did not tend to blur distinctions which might better have been kept more clearly in view.
Quote ID: 6819
Time Periods: 234
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