310 ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 



laws of nature to the creatures and the Christian law to 

 men. And hence we read that some of the elect and holy 

 men, in an ecstasy of charity and impatient desire of the 

 good of communion, rather wished their names blotted out 

 of the book of life than that their brethren should miss of 

 salvation. 11 



This being once laid down and firmly established, will 

 put an end to some of the soberest controversies in moral 

 philosophy. And first, it determines that question about 

 the preference of a contemplative to an active life, against 

 the opinion of Aristotle; as all the reasons he produces for 

 a contemplative life regard only private good, and the 

 pleasure or dignity of an individual person, in which re 

 spects the contemplative life is doubtless best, and like 

 the comparison made by Pythagoras, l2 to assert the honor 

 and reputation of philosophy, when being asked by Hiero 

 who he was, he answered, &quot;I am a looker-on; for as at the 

 Olympic games some come to try for the prize, others to sell, 

 others to meet their friends and be merry, but others again 

 come merely as spectators, I am one of the latter.&quot; But 

 men ought to know that in the theatre of human life it is 

 only for God and angels to be spectators. Nor could any 

 doubt about this matter have arisen in the Church, if a 

 monastic life had been merely contemplative and unexer- 

 cised in ecclesiastical duties as continual prayer, the sacri 

 fice of vows, oblations to God, and the writing of theological 

 books, for propagating the Divine law as Moses retired in 

 the solitude of the mount, and Enoch, the seventh from 

 Adam, who, though the Scripture says he walked with God, 

 intimating he was the first founder of the spiritual life, yet 

 enriched the Church with a book of prophecies cited by St. 

 Jude. But for a mere contemplative life, which terminates 

 in itself, and sends out no rays either of heat or light into 

 human society, theology knows it not. 



11 St. Paul, Rom. ix. 



12 lamblicus life, in the Tus. Qusest. v. 3. Cicero substitutes Leontius, 

 prince of the Phoenicians, for Hieron. 



