See, says the tragedy,
"The consort of Ulysses was not killed
By Telemachus; for she did not take a husband in addition to a husband,
But in the house the marriage-bed remains unpolluted."[1]
Reproaching foul adultery, he showed the fair image of chastity in affection to her husband.
The Lacedæmonians compelling the Helots, their servants (Helots is the name of their servants), to get drunk, exhibited their drunken pranks before themselves, who were temperate, for cure and correction.
Observing, accordingly, their unseemly behaviour, in order that they themselves might not fall into like censurable conduct, they trained themselves, turning the reproach of the drunkards to the advantage of keeping themselves free from fault.
For some men being instructed are saved; and others, self-taught, either aspire after or seek virtue.
"He truly is the best of all who himself perceives all things."[2]
Such is Abraham, who sought God.
"And good, again, is he who obeys him who advises well."[3]
Such are those disciples who obeyed the Word. Wherefore the former was called "friend," the latter "apostles;" the one diligently seeking, and the other preaching one and the same God. And both are peoples, and both these have hearers, the one who is profited through seeking, the other who is saved through finding.
"But whoever neither himself perceives, nor, hearing another,
Lays to heart—he is a worthless man."[4]
The other people is the Gentile—useless; this is the people that followeth not Christ. Nevertheless the Instructor, lover of man, helping in many ways, partly exhorts, partly upbraids. Others having sinned, He shows us their baseness, and exhibits the punishment consequent upon it, alluring while admonishing, planning to dissuade us in love from evil, by the exhibition of those who have suffered from it before.
