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‘Lest Men, Like Fishes’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 July 2017

Wilfrid Parsons
Wilfrid Parsons*
Affiliation:
The Catholic University of America
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Extract

In the second century, A.D. (c. 177), the Christian philosopher and apologist, Athenagoras, inveighing against the pagans for immoralities forbidden by their own codes, incorporated in his harangue an expression which was to have a long and interesting history in Christian literature.1 These are his words:

These adulterers and pederasts defame the eunuchs and the once-married, while they themselves live like fishes; for these swallow up whatever falls in their way, and the stronger pursues the weaker. Indeed, this is to feed on human flesh, to do violence to the very laws wh!ch you and your ancestors, with due care for all that is fair and right, have enacted.

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Type
Miscellany
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Traditio , Volume 3 , 1945 , pp. 380 - 388
Copyright
Copyright © 1945 by Cosmopolitan Science & Art Service Co., Inc. 

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References

1 Acknowledgments. Dean Martin R. P. McGuire supplied me with several quotations from Greek and Latin classical writers. Dr. Johannes Quasten called my attention to the work of Dölger, quoted below, in which were found some references not already acquired. Father Walter J. Burghardt, S.J. supplied references from Cyril of Alexandria and was helpful in checking translations from the Greek. Several students supplied references from English and American writers.Google Scholar

2 Athenagoras, Legat. pro Christianis 34 (Schn. pp. 24–5): Google Scholar

3 In Adv. haer. 5, 24, 1, Irenaeus tells us that some in his time sought to avoid the clear words of Rom. xiii by saying that the ‘higher powers’ are not the political authorities, but angels, devils, etc. It is known that Origen took somewhat the same line; cf. Comm. on Romans 9, 25–30; Comm. on Matth. tom. 17, 25–28.Google Scholar

4 Irenaeus, Adv. haer. 5, 24, 4 (Harvey II, 389): ‘Ad utilitatem ergo gentilium terrenum regnum positum est a Deo, sed not a diabolo, qui nunquam omnino quietus est, imo qui ne ipsas quidem gentes vult in tranquillo agere; ut timentes regnum hominum, non se alterutrum homines vice piscium consumant, sed per legum positiones repercutiant multiplicem gentilium iniustitiam.'Google Scholar

5 As illustrating this, cf. Felix, Minucius, Octavius 25; Cyprian, De idolor. van. 5; Clem. Hom. 20, 2; Chrysostom, Hom. on Rom. 23; Hom. on Empire, Power and Glory 21; Hom. on Gen. 4, 2; Augustine, Quaest. in Gen. 1, 152; De civ. Dei 19, 15; Gregory I, Moralia 21, 22; Reg. Past. 2, 6; Isidore of Seville, Sentent. 3, 47, 1–2.Google Scholar

6 Basil, In Hexaemeron Hom. 7, 3 (PG 29, 152): Google Scholar

7 Chrysostom, Sermo in Gen. 4, 2 (PG 54, 597): Google Scholar

8 Chrysostom, Hom. in Rom. 23, 2 (PG 60, 617): Google Scholar

9 Ambrose, Exameron 5, 5, 13 (CSEL 32, 149, 12–18): ‘Sunt tamen qui invicem se devorent et sua carne pascantur. Minor apud illos est esca maioris, et rursus ipse maior a validiore invaditur et fit esca alterius praedator alieni. Itaque usu venit ut cum ipse alium devoraverit, ab alio devoretur et in unum ventrem uterque conveniant cum devoratore proprio devoratus sitque simul in uno viscere praedae vindictaeque consortium. Caveamus exempla, ne quis potior inferiori invaderet daturus in se potentiori exemplum injuriae'Google Scholar

10 Augustine, In Ps. LXIV, (PL 36, 780–1): ‘Mare in figura dicitur saeculum hoc salsedine amarum, procella turbulentum, ubi homines cupiditatibus perversis et pravis facti sunt velut pisces se invicem devorantes et cum devoraverit unus piscis maior minorem, devoratur et ipse a maiore. O piscis male, praedam vis de parvo, praeda efficieris magno!’ Cochrane, C. N., Christianity and Classical Culture (Oxford 1940) 492 quotes without reference the following from Augustine: ‘This world is a sea wherein men devour one another like fish.’ He may mean the passage above.Google Scholar

11 Concil. Trosl. praef. (Mansi 18, 265–66): ‘ potentior viribus infirmiorem opprimit, et sunt homines sicut pisces maris, qui ab invicem passim devorantur 'Google Scholar

12 Atto of Vercelli, Expos. in Rom. xiii, 1 (PL 134, 258): ‘deerat enim timor Dei hominibus; ideoque ne more piscium ab invicem consumerentur, datae sunt potestates etiam malis ut boni patientia probarentur, et mali legibus mundanis coercerentur, et punirentur.'Google Scholar

13 Cf. for example, Jonas of Orléans, De instit. regia 4; Manegold of Lautenbach, Ad Gebehardum 30 (MGH, Lib. de lite 1, 365); Otto of Freising, Chronicle, Dedication, (MGH, Script. 20, 131); John of Salisbury, Polycraticus 4, 1 (ed. Webb, Oxford 1909, I, 235f.); Thomas Aquinas, In lib. II Sent. dist. xliv, q. 1, a. 3; Summa I, 96, iv, in c.Google Scholar

14 Barclay, Alexander, The Ship of Fools (ed. T. H. Jamieson, Edinburgh 1874) ‘Of Ryches Unprofytable,’ p. 101. Cf. Zeydel's translation of Brant's Narrenschiff (Col. Univ. Press), for the parallel passage, pp. 100–101.Google Scholar

15 Brit. Mus., MS Harl. 7368, quoted by Newdigate, B. H., ‘Shakespeare's Three Pages in “Sir Thomas More”,’ (London) Tablet 175, 5219 (May 18, 1940) 480, where the Shakespearean authorship is established.Google Scholar

16 Shakespeare, Pericles (ed. Deighton, K., Shakespeare, Arden, 2 ed.) Act II, Scene 1, lines 28–37 Cf. All's Well That Ends Well, Act IV, Scene 3, 11. 223–6: ‘PAROLLES: I knew the young count [Rousillon] to be a dangerous and lascivious boy, who is a whale to virginity, and devours up all the fry it finds.'Google Scholar

17 Quoted by Deighton, op. cit. Introduction, xvii.Google Scholar

18 Quoted by Deighton, ibid. Google Scholar

19 Ed. Engl. Text Society p. 145.Google Scholar

20 Williams, Roger, The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution for Cause of Conscience (London [?] 1644) Chap. CXXXI, p. 230.Google Scholar

21 Sidney, Algernon, Discourses concerning Government (ed. Edinburgh 1750) Vol. I, Chap. II, sect. xviii, p. 248.Google Scholar

22 Penn, William, An Essay toward the Present and Future Peace of Europe (ed. American Peace Society) p. 13.Google Scholar

23 Quoted in Bruun, Geoffrey, The Enlightened Despots 16.Google Scholar

24 Quoted in Ernest Sutherland Bates, The Story of Congress. Google Scholar

25 Hesiod, Works and Days, (ed. Rzach, Leipzig) 11, 276–280: Google Scholar

26 Sarkar, B. K., ‘The Hindu Theory of the State (The Logic of the Fish),’ Political Science Quarterly 36, 1 (March 1921) 80. The author is unaware of the later Christian applications.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

27 Horapollon, Hieroglyphica 1, 44 (ed. Leemans, p. 45), quoted by Dölger, Der heilige Fisch II, 63: Google Scholar

28 Habacuc i, 13–14. Modern scholars refer these verses rather to the following ones, and thus see no political significance i them: cf. Hubert Junker, Die zwölf kleinen Propheten, II.Hälfte, p. 47Google Scholar

29 Theodoret, Interpretatio Habacuc 1, 13–4 (PG 81, 1816): Google Scholar

30 Theophylact, Expositio in Habacuc Prophetam 1, 15 (PG 126, 845): Google Scholar

31 Cyril of Alexandria, In Oseam, 3, 67, 68 (Pusey, Cyrilli in XII Prophetas I, 95, 97). Google Scholar

32 Cyril of Alexandria, In Habacuc 1, 530 (Pusey II, 88): Google Scholar

33 Cornelius À Lapide, Comment. in Habacuc 1, 14. In his commentary on Romans xiii he echoes this: ‘the powers, even of the gentiles, which are and exist, are instituted and ordained by God, for this, namely, that men be withdrawn from many sins, and that all cherish justice and peace and do not, like the fishes, devour one another.'Google Scholar

34 Aristotle, De historia animalium 9, 2 (Dittmeyer 360): Cf. also ibid. 7, 2.Google Scholar

35 Varro, Saturae Menippeae 289 (Buechler 194):Google Scholar

natura humanis omnia sunt paria:
qui pote plus, urget, piscis ut saepe minutos,
magnu' comest, ut avis enicat accipiter.
Google Scholar

36 Polybius, Historiae 15,20,3 (Buttner-Wobst 111,290, lines 7-10: Google Scholar

37 Oppian, Halieutika 2,43-41. Quoted in Dölger, op. cit. 72, who believes that from Coelosyria (Varro) and Cilicia (appian) St. Paul may have drawn Gal. v, 15: ‘But if you bite and devour one another, take heed you be not consumed one of another.’Google Scholar

38 Sextus Empiricus, Adv. math. 2, 32 (p. 681, 15B), quoted in Rzach, op. cit. 176-177: Google Scholar