Miscellanies 1.19.91–1.21.116

That the Greeks too are attested to teach some truths can be seen from this as well. Paul, in the Acts of the Apostles, is recorded as saying to the Areopagites: “I see that you are very religious. For as I passed through and looked at the objects of your worship, I found an altar on which was inscribed: To an unknown god. What you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and all things in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all life and breath and all things. And he made from one every race of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, having determined appointed seasons and the boundaries of their habitation, to seek the divine, if perhaps they might feel after it or find it, though it is not far from each one of us; for in him we live and move and have our being, as some of your own poets have said: For we are also his offspring.” From this it is clear that, using poetic examples from the Phaenomena of Aratus, he approves what was well said among the Greeks, and hinted that through the unknown god the Greeks honored, by a roundabout way, God the Creator, but that one must receive and learn him with full knowledge through the Son.

“For this reason, then, I have sent you to the Gentiles,” it says, “to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a share among those sanctified by faith in me.” These opened eyes of the blind, then, are the knowledge of the Father through the Son, the grasp of what the Greeks expressed in a roundabout way; and to turn from the power of Satan is to change from sin, through which slavery had come about. We do not, however, simply accept all philosophy, but that of which Socrates too speaks in Plato: “For there are, as those concerned with the initiations say, many thyrsus-bearers, but few Bacchants,” hinting at many called and few chosen. At any rate he adds clearly: “And these, in my opinion, are none other than those who have philosophized rightly. Of whom I too, as far as possible, left nothing undone in my life, but in every way was eager to become one. Whether I was rightly eager and accomplished anything, we shall know clearly when we come there, if God wills, a little later.”

Does he not seem to you, from the Hebrew Scriptures, to make clear the hope of the righteous after death, which belongs to faith? And in the Demodocus, if the work is really Plato's, he says that to philosophize is not this, to live bent over the arts or learning many things, but something else, since I at least thought that a reproach. For he knew, I think, that “much learning does not teach one to have sense,” according to Heraclitus. And in the fifth book of the Republic he says: “Shall we call all these, then, and others learned in such things, and those of the petty arts, philosophers? Not at all, I said, but like philosophers. And whom do you call the true ones? he said. Those, I said, who love to behold the truth.” For philosophy is not in geometry, which has postulates and hypotheses, nor in music, which is a matter of guesswork, nor in astronomy, stuffed with physical, fluctuating, and probable arguments, but it is knowledge of the good itself and of the truth, those other things being different from the good, but like roads toward the good. So he himself does not grant that encyclical education contributes to the good itself, but that it works together to rouse the soul and to exercise it together toward intelligible things.

Whether, then, they say that the Greeks uttered some things of the true philosophy by chance, the chance is of the divine plan (for no one, out of rivalry with us, will deify accident); or by coincidence, the coincidence is not without providence; or if someone should say that the Greeks had a natural conception, we know that the Creator of nature is one, just as we have called righteousness natural; or if they had a common mind, let us consider who is its father and the father of the righteousness that corresponds to the distribution of mind. For if someone speaks of foretelling and attributes it to joint utterance, he is speaking of forms of prophecy. Others would have it that some things were said by the philosophers by a reflection of the truth. The divine apostle writes of us: “For now we see as through a mirror,” knowing ourselves by reflection in him and contemplating, as far as possible, the efficient cause from the divine in us. “For you have seen your brother,” it says, “you have seen your God.” I think the Savior is here called God for us; but after putting off the flesh, “face to face,” then definitely and comprehensively, when the heart has become pure. And by reflection and transparency those who philosophized accurately among the Greeks see God; for such are the true impressions because of our weakness, as an image is seen in water and we see things through transparent and clear bodies.

Well, then, does Solomon say, “He who sows righteousness works faith.” “And there are those who sow their own and make more.” And again: “Take care of the green things in the field, and you will shear the grass, and gather ripe hay, that you may have sheep for clothing.” You see how care must be taken also for outward covering and protection. “And you will know the souls of your flock well.” “For when Gentiles who do not have the law do by nature the things of the law, these, not having the law, are a law to themselves,” the uncircumcision keeping the ordinances of the law, according to the apostle, both before the law and before the coming. As if comparing those from philosophy with the so-called heretics, the Word says very plainly, “Better is a friend near than a brother living far off. But the one who leans on falsehoods feeds the winds and chases winged birds.” I do not think the Word here means philosophy, though in many things philosophy argues and persuades what is probable; rather he rebukes the heresies. At any rate he adds: “For he has left the ways of his own vineyard and has wandered from the tracks of his own field.” These are the heresies that leave the church that existed from the beginning. Thus the one who has fallen into heresy “passes through a waterless desert,” abandoning the God who truly is, deserted by God, seeking waterless water, coming to the uninhabited and thirsty land, “gathering fruitlessness with his hands.”

“And I exhort those who lack sense,” says Wisdom, meaning those involved in the heresies, “Touch hidden bread with pleasure, and sweet stolen water,” Scripture plainly applying bread and water to none other than the heresies that use bread and water in the offering not according to the rule of the church. For there are those who even celebrate the Eucharist with plain water. “But leap away, do not linger in her place”; “place” means the synagogue, not calling it “church” by the same name. Then it adds: “For so you will pass through strange water,” reckoning heretical baptism not proper and genuine water, “and you will cross a strange river,” which carries one along and sweeps one down into the sea, into which the one who has turned aside from the firm foundation of truth is poured out, flowing back again into the heathen and disorderly waves of life.

As the many men who drag a ship down to the sea would not be called many causes, but one cause from many (for each is not the cause of the ship being dragged, but with the others), so philosophy too, being an inquiry into truth, helps toward the apprehension of truth, not being the cause of apprehension, but a cause together with the others and a fellow worker. Perhaps a joint cause is also a cause. And as, happiness being one, the virtues that are many are its causes; and as the sun, fire, the bath, and clothing are causes of being warmed; so, truth being one, many things help toward seeking it, but the finding is through the Son. At any rate, if we consider, virtue is one in power; but it happens that, arising in these matters, it is called prudence, in these self-control, in these courage or justice. By the same reasoning, since truth is one, in geometry there is the truth of geometry, in music that of music, and in right philosophy there would be Greek truth. But the sovereign truth alone is unassailable, which we learn from the Son of God.

In the same way we say that one and the same drachma, given to the shipmaster, is called fare; to the tax collector, tax; to the landlord, rent; to the teacher, fee; and to the seller, deposit. And each virtue, or truth, called by the same name, is the cause only of its own result; and from their joint use comes living happily (for we are not made happy by names), when we call the right life happiness and the one whose soul is adorned with virtue happy. And if philosophy helps from afar toward the finding of truth, reaching by various approaches toward our knowledge, which touches the truth directly, yet it does help the one who is eager to lay hold of knowledge rationally. But Greek truth is distinct from ours, even if it has received the same name, both by the greatness of knowledge, by more authoritative demonstration, by divine power, and the like; for we are taught by God, learning truly sacred letters from the Son of God. Hence they do not move souls in the same way, but by different teaching.

If we must also make distinctions because of the fault-finders, calling philosophy a joint cause and fellow worker in the true apprehension, being an inquiry into truth, we will acknowledge it as a preliminary training of the one who knows, not making the joint cause a cause, nor the fellow worker a sustaining cause, nor philosophy that without which it cannot be; since almost all of us, without the encyclical education and Greek philosophy, and some even without letters, moved by the divine and barbarian philosophy, have received in power the word about God through faith, taught by a wisdom that works by itself. What acts together with another, being incomplete to act by itself, we call a fellow worker and joint cause, named from being a cause with a cause, or from becoming a cause by joining another, but unable by itself to produce the true result. Yet philosophy once justified the Greeks even by itself, though not to the whole righteousness, toward which it is found a fellow worker (as the first and second step are for one going up to the upper room, and the schoolmaster for one who will philosophize); nor does its removal make the whole account deficient or destroy the truth, since sight, hearing, and voice contribute to truth, but it is the mind that knows it naturally. But among fellow workers some contribute more power, others less. Clarity at any rate works together for the handing on of truth, and dialectic for not falling to the heresies that attack.

The teaching according to the Savior, then, is complete in itself and needs nothing, being “the power and wisdom of God”; and Greek philosophy, coming to it, does not make the truth more powerful, but, making the sophistic attack against it powerless and repelling the treacherous plots against the truth, it has fittingly been called the hedge and wall of the vineyard. The truth according to faith is necessary for life like bread; preliminary training is like relish and dessert, “a sweet sweetmeat at the end of dinner,” according to Pindar of Thebes. Scripture has said outright: “The innocent who understands will be more shrewd, and the wise will receive knowledge.” And “he who speaks from himself seeks his own glory,” says the Lord, “but he who seeks the glory of the one who sent him is true, and there is no unrighteousness in him.” Conversely, then, the one who appropriates the things of the barbarians and boasts of them as his own does wrong, increasing his own glory and falsifying the truth. Scripture calls him a thief. At any rate it says, “My son, do not be a liar; for lying leads to theft.” Yet the thief really has what he has taken, whether gold, silver, word, or doctrine. What they have stolen, then, is partly true, but they know it by guesswork and the necessities of argument. When they become disciples, then, they will know it with understanding.

We shall discuss a little later how the doctrines of the philosophers were devised from the Hebrews; but first, as was fitting, we must now speak about the times of Moses, by which it will be shown beyond dispute that the philosophy of the Hebrews is the most ancient of all wisdom. This has been discussed accurately by Tatian in his work To the Greeks, and also by Cassian in the first book of his Exegetica; nevertheless our record requires us too to run over what has been said on the subject. Apion the grammarian, surnamed Pleistonices, in the fourth book of his Egyptian Histories, though he was hostile to the Hebrews, being an Egyptian by race, so that he even composed a book against the Jews, when mentioning Amosis, king of the Egyptians, and his deeds, cites as witness Ptolemy of Mendes. His words run thus: “Amosis destroyed Avaris, having lived in the time of Inachus of Argos, as Ptolemy of Mendes wrote in his Chronicles.” This Ptolemy was a priest, and, setting out the deeds of the Egyptian kings in three whole books, he says that it was in the time of Amosis, king of Egypt, that the Jews made their departure from Egypt, led by Moses; from which it is seen that Moses flourished in the time of Inachus.

The oldest of Greek history is that of Argos, I mean from Inachus, as Dionysius of Halicarnassus teaches in his Chronicles; the Attic, from Cecrops, the two-natured and earthborn, is younger than these by … forty generations, as Tatian says word for word, and the Arcadian, from Pelasgus, by nine (he too is said to be earthborn). Younger than these by two more is the Phthiotic, from Deucalion. From Inachus to the time of the Trojan War, twenty generations or one more are counted, and roughly four hundred years or more. If the Assyrian history is many years older than the Greek, from what Ctesias says, it will appear that the departure of Moses from Egypt, in the time of Amosis the Egyptian and Inachus the Argive, was in the four hundred and second year of the Assyrian empire and the thirty-second of the reign of Beluchus the eighth. In Greece, in the time of Phoroneus, who came after Inachus, there was the flood in the time of Ogyges and the kingdom in Sicyon, first of Aegialeus, then of Europs, then of Telchis, and that of Cres in Crete. For Acusilaus says that Phoroneus was the first man; hence the poet of the Phoronis too said that he was “father of mortal men.”

Following Acusilaus, Plato writes in the Timaeus: “And once, wishing to lead them on to talk about ancient things, he tried to tell the most ancient things of this city, about Phoroneus, who was called the first, and Niobe, and what happened after the flood.” In the time of Phorbas was Actaeus, from whom Attica was called Actaea. In the time of Triopas were Prometheus, Atlas, Epimetheus, Cecrops the two-natured, and Io. In the time of Crotopus, the conflagration under Phaethon and the deluge under Deucalion. In the time of Sthenelus, the reign of Amphictyon, the coming of Danaus to the Peloponnese, and the founding of Dardania by Dardanus, “whom first,” says Homer, “cloud-gathering Zeus begot,” and the carrying of Europa from Phoenicia to Crete. In the time of Lynceus, the rape of the Maiden, the founding of the precinct at Eleusis, the agriculture of Triptolemus, the coming of Cadmus to Thebes, and the reign of Minos. In the time of Proetus, the war of Eumolpus against the Athenians. In the time of Acrisius, the crossing of Pelops from Phrygia, the arrival of Ion at Athens, the second Cecrops, the deeds of Perseus and Dionysus, and Orpheus and Musaeus.

Ilium was taken in the eighteenth year of Agamemnon's reign, in the first year of Demophon son of Theseus as king at Athens, on the twelfth of the month Thargelion, as Dionysius of Argos says; Agias and Dercylus in their third book say on the eighth day before the end of the month Panemus; Hellanicus says the twelfth of Thargelion. And some of those who wrote Attic histories say the eighth day before the end, in the last year of Menestheus' reign, at full moon: “It was midnight,” says the author of the Little Iliad, “and the bright moon was rising”; others say the same day of Scirophorion. Theseus, an emulator of Heracles, is one generation older than the Trojan War. At any rate Homer mentions Tlepolemus, a son of Heracles, as having fought against Ilium.

Moses, then, is shown to precede the deification of Dionysus by six hundred and four years, if he is deified in the thirty-second year of the reign of Perseus, as Apollodorus says in his Chronicles. From Dionysus to Heracles and the heroes with Jason who sailed in the Argo, sixty-three years are reckoned; Asclepius and the Dioscuri sailed with them, as Apollonius of Rhodes testifies in the Argonautica. From the reign of Heracles at Argos to the deification of Heracles himself and Asclepius, thirty-eight years are reckoned, according to the chronographer Apollodorus; from then to the deification of Castor and Pollux, fifty-three years. About this time too was the capture of Ilium. And if we must believe Hesiod the poet too, let us hear him: “To Zeus, Maia, daughter of Atlas, bore glorious Hermes, herald of the immortals, having gone up into his holy bed; and Cadmean Semele, joined in love, bore him a splendid son, Dionysus of many joys.”

Cadmus, the father of Semele, came to Thebes in the time of Lynceus and became the inventor of Greek letters. Triopas was contemporary with Isis, in the seventh generation from Inachus (they say that Isis is also Io, because she went wandering through the whole earth); Ister, in his work on the colonization of the Egyptians, says she was the daughter of Prometheus. And Prometheus, in the time of Triopas, was in the seventh generation after Moses, so that Moses appears to have flourished even before the origin of man according to the Greeks. Leon, who wrote about the gods of Egypt, says that Isis is called Demeter by the Greeks; she lived in the time of Lynceus, eleven generations after Moses. Apis, king of Argos, founded Memphis, as Aristippus says in the first book of his Arcadica. Aristeas of Argos says that he was surnamed Sarapis and that he is the one the Egyptians worship; Nymphodorus of Amphipolis, in the third book of his Customs of Asia, says that the bull Apis, when it died and was embalmed, was placed in a coffin in the temple of the honored god; hence it was called Soroapis, and later, by a certain usage of the natives, Sarapis.

Apis is third from Inachus. Leto too lived in the time of Tityus, for “he assaulted Leto, the glorious consort of Zeus,” and Tityus was contemporary with Tantalus. Fittingly, then, does Pindar the Boeotian write: “In time was Apollo born”; and it is no wonder, since he is found serving Admetus along with Heracles “for a great year.” Zethus and Amphion, the inventors of music, lived about the age of Cadmus. And if anyone tells us that Phemonoe first gave oracles to Acrisius, let him know that twenty-seven years after Phemonoe came Orpheus, Musaeus, and Linus, the teacher of Heracles. Homer and Hesiod are much younger than the Trojan War, and much younger again than they are the Greek lawgivers, Lycurgus and Solon, and the Seven Wise Men, and Pherecydes of Syros and the great Pythagoras, who lived somewhere about the Olympiads, as we have shown. So Moses has been shown to be older than most of the gods among the Greeks, not only than their so-called wise men and poets.

Not only he, but the Sibyl too is older than Orpheus. For there are several accounts of her name and of the oracles attributed to her: that, being a Phrygian, she was called Artemis, and that she came to Delphi and sang: “O Delphians, servants of far-shooting Apollo, I have come to declare the mind of aegis-bearing Zeus, angry with my own brother Apollo.” There is also another, the Erythraean, called Herophile; Heraclides of Pontus mentions them in his work On Oracles. I pass over the Egyptian and the Italian, who lived in the Carmalum at Rome, whose son Evander founded at Rome the shrine of Pan called the Lupercal.

Having come here, it is worth examining the times of the other prophets among the Hebrews after Moses. After the end of Moses' life, Joshua succeeded to the leadership of the people, fighting for … years and resting in the good land another twenty-five. As the book of Joshua contains, the man just mentioned succeeded Moses for twenty-seven years. Then the Hebrews, having sinned, were handed over to Chushan, king of Mesopotamia, for eight years, as the book of Judges relates; and afterward, having prayed to God, they received as leader Othniel, the younger brother of Caleb, of the tribe of Judah, who killed the king of Mesopotamia and ruled the people for fifty years. And again, having sinned, they were handed over to Eglon, king of the Moabites, for eighteen years; and when they turned back, Ehud led them for eighty years, a man ambidextrous, of the tribe of Ephraim; he is the one who killed Eglon.

When Ehud died, they sinned again and were handed over to Jabin, king of Canaan, for twenty years. In his time Deborah, the wife of Lappidoth, of the tribe of Ephraim, prophesied, and the high priest was Uzzi, son of Rhiesus. Through her, Barak, son of Benner, of the tribe of Naphtali, leading the army, drew up against Sisera, Jabin's commander, and conquered; and from then Deborah ruled the people as judge for forty years. When she died, the people sinned again and were handed over to the Midianites for seven years. After these, Gideon, son of Joash, of the tribe of Manasseh, marching out with three hundred men and destroying a hundred and twenty thousand of them, ruled forty years. After him his son Abimelech, three years. Boleas (that is, Tola), son of Bedan, son of Charran, of the tribe of Ephraim, succeeded him, ruling twenty-three years. After him the people, sinning again, were handed over to the Ammonites for eighteen years.

When they repented, Jephthah the Gileadite, of the tribe of Manasseh, led them and ruled six years; after him Ibzan of Bethlehem, of the tribe of Judah, ruled seven years; then Elon the Zebulunite, eight years; then Abdon of Ephraim, eight years. Some join Elon's eight years to Ibzan's seven. After him the people, sinning again, came under foreigners, the Philistines, for forty years. When they turned back, Samson of the tribe of Dan led them, having conquered the foreigners in war; he ruled twenty years. After him, there being no ruler, Eli the priest judged the people forty years. Samuel the prophet succeeded him, with whom Saul reigned, holding power twenty-seven years. He also anointed David.

Samuel died two years before Saul, when Abimelech was high priest. He anointed Saul as king, who was the first to reign over Israel after the judges, whose whole number up to Samuel comes to four hundred and sixty-three years and seven months. Then, according to the first book of Kingdoms, Saul reigned twenty years after he was renewed as king. After Saul's death David, son of Jesse, of the tribe of Judah, reigned a second time in Hebron, forty years, as the second book of Kingdoms contains; the high priest was Abiathar, son of Abimelech, of the family of Eli, and Gad and Nathan prophesied in his time. From Joshua son of Nun until David received the kingdom, then, there are, as some say, four hundred and fifty years; but, as the chronology given above shows, five hundred and twenty-three years and seven months are reckoned to David's death.

After this Solomon, son of David, reigned forty years. In his time Nathan continued prophesying, who also exhorted him about the building of the temple; likewise Ahijah of Shiloh prophesied; and both kings, David and Solomon, were prophets. Zadok the high priest was the first to serve as priest in the temple Solomon built, being eighth from Aaron, the first high priest. From Moses to the age of Solomon, then, there are, as some say, five hundred and ninety-five years, or, as others say, five hundred and seventy-six. If someone adds to the four hundred and fifty years from Joshua to David the forty years of Moses' leadership and the other eighty years that Moses lived before the Hebrews' exodus from Egypt, and adds to these the forty years of David's reign, he will reckon six hundred and ten years in all.

But our chronology proceeds more exactly, if one adds to the five hundred and twenty-three years and seven months up to David's death the hundred and twenty years of Moses and the forty of Solomon; for he will reckon in all, to Solomon's death, six hundred and eighty-three years and seven months. Hiram gave his daughter to Solomon at the time when Menelaus arrived in Phoenicia after the capture of Troy, as Menander of Pergamum and Laetus say in their Phoenician Histories. After Solomon, Rehoboam his son reigned seventeen years, and the high priest was Abimelech, son of Zadok. In his time, when the kingdom was divided, Jeroboam, of the tribe of Ephraim, Solomon's servant, reigned in Samaria; and Ahijah the Shilonite still prophesied, and Shemaiah son of Elam, and the man who came from Judah to Jeroboam and prophesied against the altar.

After him Abijam his son reigned twenty-three years, and likewise his son Asa forty-one years; he had gout in his old age, and Jehu son of Hanani prophesied in his time. After him Jehoshaphat his son reigned twenty-five years; in his time Elijah the Tishbite prophesied, and Micaiah son of Imlah, and Obadiah son of Hanani. In Micaiah's time there was also a false prophet, Zedekiah son of Chenaanah. There follows the reign of Joram son of Jehoshaphat for eight years, in whose time Elijah prophesied and, after Elijah, Elisha son of Shaphat. In his time those in Samaria ate dove's dung and their own children. The time of Jehoshaphat extends from the last part of the third book of Kingdoms into the fourth. In the time of Joram, Elijah was taken up, and Elisha son of Shaphat began to prophesy, and prophesied six years, being forty years old. Then Ahaziah reigned one year; in his time Elisha still prophesied, and Abdadonaeus with him.

After him Athaliah, the mother of Ahaziah, reigned eight years, having killed the children of her brother; for she was of the family of Ahab. But Jehosheba, the sister of Ahaziah, stole away Joash, the son of Ahaziah, and later put the kingdom on him. In the time of this Athaliah Elisha still prophesied; after her, as I said before, reigned Joash, who was saved by Jehosheba, the wife of Jehoiada the high priest, and the whole comes to forty years. From Solomon to the death of the prophet Elisha, then, are reckoned, as some say, a hundred and five years, as others, a hundred and two; but, as the chronology given above shows, a hundred and eighty-one years from the reign of Solomon.