Learning through Practice and Example

Living in luxury and wasting away, a weakling and a woman's slave, a profligate of lust, he is not a king of men. For how could he have ruled others without first learning to rule himself? He set one care, so that he might cut off from the city the teacher of piety and self-control.

And, jealous of Herod's mindset, he led the apostles into prison, just as that Herod did to John; but having, in similarity, another Herodias, the unrestrained and lustful-minded one, seeking the heads of both Peter and Paul, he raised them both to the crown of martyrdom; having crucified the one on the wood, and having cut off the head of Paul, leaving to us and to the world the occasion for a festival and such a feast of the passion of the saints. These things, O thrice-blessed ones, the annual law has brought to you, proclaiming everywhere that you are athletes of the common habitation, and improving the minds of men through your honor. For virtue, being honored, raises many to zeal; in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom belongs the glory and the power, now and forever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

Encomium of Asterius, Bishop of Amaseia, to the holy hieromartyr Phocas. The memory of the great things of the saints is good and profitable to those practicing asceticism. For it does not instruct by word alone those desiring virtue and piety, but it also sets forth the actions of those who have lived rightly as manifest teachers. Therefore also our Lord says, giving the pledges of those who have perfected the best: 'Whoever does and teaches, the same shall be called great' (Matt 5:19); and elsewhere: 'Let your light shine before men, so that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in the heavens' (Matt 5:16). For the logical instruction of practical energy is a lesser and weaker teacher; and the more we say that hearing is a more precise vision, the more the practice of the word is judged to hold sway. In this way we learn the skills.

In this way we are trained in skills, first being led by word toward learning, and then grasping the subtle things by hand and by experience. For a geometer, though he does much with the book and has been filled by the hearing of the teacher, will not grasp the power of the various figures unless he learns the points, the lines, and the circles upon the tablet. Nor does the word alone instruct the diligent student desiring the star of law, unless the teacher, having rotated the sphere for him with knowledge, presents the movement of the pole to the eyes. Likewise, a physician who does much according to Hippocrates and the other instructors is an unskilled healer before he has walked among the many sick and learned from them how to heal.

So also we, the disciples of the martyrs, making the actions of patient men our teachers before our own confession, learn to guard piety even unto the most extreme dangers, looking upon their sacred shrines as if they were pillars engraved with letters, clearly declaring the struggle of the testimony. Just as those approaching the oak of Mamre or the fragrant cave, which Ephron the Hittite gave for the burial of Sarah (Genesis 23), where also the patriarch himself lies with the children, immediately renew their imagination through the sight of the places and see with their intellect the faithful patriarch, the firstfruits of piety, and the circumcision in him; and they also consider those who sprang from his root, Isaac and Jacob, and with the memory of the men, the whole history concerning them becomes a spectacle.

In the same way, I today, having grasped the honored tomb of the thrice-blessed Phocas, am filled from the place with the memory of all the narratives told about him; I see the gardener's skill, the unblemished...