Chapter XXXV.—Tatian Speaks as an Eye-Witness.
The things which I have thus set before you I have
not learned at second hand. I have visited many lands; I have followed
rhetoric, like yourselves; I have fallen in with many arts and inventions;
and finally, when sojourning in the city of the Romans, I inspected the
multiplicity of statues brought thither by you: for I do not attempt,
as is the custom with many, to strengthen
80my own views by the opinions of others,
but I wish to give you a distinct account of what I myself have seen
and felt. So, bidding farewell to the arrogance of Romans and the idle
talk of Athenians, and all their ill-connected opinions, I embraced
our barbaric philosophy. I began to show how this was more ancient
than your institutions,509509 but left my task unfinished, in order
to discuss a matter which demanded more immediate attention; but now it is
time I should attempt to speak concerning its doctrines. Be not offended
with our teaching, nor undertake an elaborate reply filled with trifling
and ribaldry, saying, “Tatian, aspiring to be above the Greeks,
above the infinite number of philosophic inquirers, has struck out a new
path, and embraced the doctrines of Barbarians.” For what grievance
is it, that men manifestly ignorant should be reasoned with by a man
of like nature with themselves? Or how can it be irrational, according
to your own sophist,510510
to grow old always learning something?
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