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ABOUT the same period God brought into observation another
faithful person, deeming it worthy that through him faith might be
witnessed unto: this was Didymus, a most admirable and eloquent man,
instructed in all the learning of the age in which he flourished. At a
very early age, when he had scarcely acquired the first elements of
learning, he was attacked by disease in the eyes which deprived him of
sight. But God compensated to him the loss of corporeal vision, by
bestowing increased intellectual acumen. For what he could not learn
by seeing, he was enabled to acquire through the sense of hearing; so
that being from his childhood endowed with excellent abilities, he soon
far surpassed his youthful companions who possessed the keenest sight.
He made himself master of the principles of grammar and rhetoric with
astonishing facility; and proceeded thence to philosophical studies,
dialectics, arithmetic, music, and the various other departments of
knowledge to which his attention was directed; and he so treasured up
in his mind these branches of science, that he was prepared with the
utmost readiness to enter into a discussion of these subjects with those
who had become conversant therewith by reading books. Not only this,
but he was so well acquainted with the Divine oracles contained in the
Old and New Testament that he composed several treatises in
exposition of them, besides three books on the Trinity. He published
also commentaries on Origen's book Of Principles, in which he
commends these writings, saying that they are excellent, and that
those who calumniate their author, and speak slightingly of his works,
are mere cavilers, 'For,' says he, 'they are destitute of
sufficient penetration to comprehend the profound wisdom of that
extraordinary man.' Those who may desire to form a just idea of the
extensive erudition of Didymus, and the intense ardor of his mind,
must peruse with attention his diversified and elaborate works. It is
said that after Anthony had conversed for some time with this
Didymus, long before the reign of Valens, when he came from the
desert to Alexandria on account of the Arians, perceiving the
learning and intelligence of the man, he said to hire, 'Didymus,
let not the loss of your bodily eyes distress you: for you are deprived
of such eyes merely as are the common possession of gnats and flies;
rather rejoice that you have eyes such as angels see with, by which the
Deity himself is discerned, and his light comprehended.' This
address of the pious Anthony to Didymus was made long before the times
we are describing: in fact Didymus was then regarded as the great
bulwark of the true faith, answering the Arians, whose sophistic
cavilings he fully exposed, triumphantly refuting all their vain
subtleties and deceptive reasonings.
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