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St Photius the Great, tr. Freese, 1920; selections
26. Codex 26: Synesius of Cyrene, On Providence, On the Kingdom
Read the orations of Synesius,1 bishop of Cyrene, On Providence,2 On the Kingdom, and some other subjects. His style is lofty and dignified,3 but somewhat inclined to be over-poetical.
Also read various letters of his, distilling grace and charm, at the same time vigorous and full of closely-packed4 ideas.
He originally belonged to a heathen school of philosophy, but was favourably disposed to the inspired truths of Christianity and ready to accept all its doctrines except that of the Resurrection. Although this was his attitude, he was admitted into our Church and even raised to the episcopate, by reason of his goodness and purity and in the conviction that a man of such holiness of life could not fail to be illuminated by the light of the Resurrection. Nor were these hopes disappointed. For as soon as he became bishop he readily assented to that doctrine. Synesius was an ornament to Cyrene at the time when Theophilus was patriarch of Alexandria.
Notes
- Neo-Platonist and bishop of Ptolemais in Cyrenaica (378-431). The speech On the Kingdom was delivered at Constantinople before the emperor Arcadius.
- Also called Egyptian Discourses, a sort of historical romance, in which there are allusions to the history of the time, disguised as the mythical stories of Osiris and Typhon.
- Perhaps “massive” might express the idea of ὂγκος.
- Or “shrewd.”
3 385-412.