Exhortation to the Greeks 1.2

How is it, then, that you have believed empty myths, supposing that animals are charmed by music, while the bright face of truth alone, it seems, looks to you like a mask and falls under the eyes of unbelief? Cithaeron and Helicon, and the mountains of the Odrysians and the Thracians, the initiation halls of error, have been made divine and celebrated in hymns because of the mysteries. For my part, even if they are myths, I cannot bear so many calamities turned into tragedy; but for you even the records of evils have become dramas, and the actors of the dramas a delightful spectacle. But let us shut up the dramas and the poets of the Lenaean festival, who are by now quite drunk, crowned with ivy, raving wildly in Bacchic rites, satyrs and frenzied throng and the rest of the chorus of demons, on Helicon and Cithaeron, which have grown old; and let us bring truth down from heaven above, together with most radiant wisdom, to the holy mountain of God and to the holy chorus of the prophets. Let truth, shining out her far-flashing light, illumine on every side those who wallow in darkness, and set people free from error, stretching out her right hand, understanding, which is supreme, for their salvation. And let them look up and lift their heads, and leave Helicon and Cithaeron and dwell in Zion: “for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem,” the heavenly Word, the true contestant, crowned on the stage of the whole world. My Eunomus sings neither the tune of Terpander nor that of Capion, nor the Phrygian or Lydian or Dorian mode, but the eternal tune of the new harmony, which bears the name of God, the new song, the song of the Levites. “Soothing grief and anger, bringing forgetfulness of all ills,” a sweet and true remedy for sorrow is blended with this song.