Sigalion in the Shield of Croesiades or Apologetic Dialogue for the Mystery of Detected Syncretism

if they do not admit it, there will be others of others, to whom I prefer to have pleased as guests rather than as cooks, who will be attentive; if they are not to be propitious and agreeing, they will at least be truthful, eager for justice, and more desirous of listening: for such is the age now that that terrible kind of disputing—which people who are pragmatic, but otherwise not sufficiently acquainted with theological controversies, possess—they do not admit to judgment with that ease and patience that the old Academic, dialogistic, and enigmatic kind does. It is more hidden, and as it pleased the Savior himself, in that it is parabolic, it commits matter to matter, and reason to reason, under a hidden name. Jerome leads the way in his Ctesiphontic Epistle. We shall divide the solid day into two scenes, and ask the revived Croesus not to consider it unworthy of his majesty to converse again with Solon, and to hear the Tarsian Sage referring to St. Paul as the arbiter of the contention. That we shall do in the morning; from midday, by a double and most similar dialogue, we shall produce Croesus, Solon, and a student of Pauline discipline, wearing breeches and dressed in Teutonic garb: where Croesus the Teuton will arm his tongue as a defender for his own self, for he is able to speak, and has the age for it; nor will it seem base to him to have yielded to Solonic and Pauline truth, and to have recanted more happily. Come, Croesiades, let us be confident, and let us receive with an avid ear the games that Sigalion is about to perform.

Nature (so Valerius Maximus, book 5, chapter 4, example 6) instructed the son of Croesus—not that other one, whom those who read authors with alien eyes call Atys, whose fate Herodotus narrates in book 1, chapter 34 and following—who lacked the use of speech, in the ministry of the voice, to protect the safety of his father. For when Sardis was taken by Cyrus, when one from the number of Persians, ignorant of the man, was carried in a rush toward his slaughter, as if forgetful of what fortune had denied him at birth, he—lest he kill King Croesus—by proclaiming (Man, do not kill Croesus, by the authority of Herodotus) recalled the blade already almost pressed to the throat. Thus, he who had lived mutely for himself until that time, became vocal for the safety of his parent. No one here does not praise the piety: but if the son’s tongue had been unbridled, if he had thrown insults at the Persian who was about to spare him, and had said, "Man, you are inept, improvident, and I will not say dishonest," would he have carried that off with impunity? If he had wanted to return like for like, would he not at least have called upon Sigalion to impose a curb on the biting tongue and say, "You who were mute a while ago, if you do not know how to use your tongue better, be silent!" I have need of such an advocate now, who might curb the immodesty of the one who has thus far been a mute Croesiades, but who is all too easily inclined to challenge judgment with a pen and an apology tinctured with biting vinegar, rather than laboring to compose disputes, and who might put a hand to the mouth of the same person who could have remained a philosopher if he had kept silent.