Miscellanies 1.4.25–1.9.45

Homer calls even a carpenter wise, and of Margites, if the poem is really his, he writes something like this: “The gods made him neither a digger nor a plowman, nor wise in anything else; he failed in every art.” And Hesiod, having said that Linus the lyre-player was “skilled in every kind of wisdom,” does not hesitate to call a sailor wise, writing, “not at all wise in seamanship.” And Daniel the prophet says, “The mystery that the king asks, it is not in the power of the wise, the magi, the enchanters, the Gazarenes to declare to the king; but there is a God in heaven who reveals.” And indeed he calls the Babylonians “wise.” That Scripture calls every worldly science or art by the common name “wisdom” (and there are many devised by combination through human reasoning), and that artistic and wise invention comes from God, will be clear if we set out this passage: “And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ‘See, I have called Bezalel the son of Uri, son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, and I have filled him with the divine spirit of wisdom and understanding and knowledge in every work, to devise and to direct the building, to work gold and silver and bronze, blue, purple, and scarlet, and stonework and carpentry in wood, to work in all kinds of works.’”

Then he adds a general statement: “And to everyone understanding in heart I have given understanding,” that is, to the one able to receive it through labor and exercise. And again it is written expressly in the name of the Lord: “And you, speak to all who are wise in mind, whom I have filled with the spirit of perception.” Those wise in mind have some proper natural quality, and, when they have made themselves fit, they receive from the supreme wisdom a twofold spirit of perception. For those who pursue the mechanical arts enjoy a surplus in the senses: the one commonly called a musician in hearing, the modeler in touch, the singer in voice, the perfumer in smell, the engraver of images on seals in sight. And those occupied with education are supplied with a shared perception, by which the poets grasp meters, the sophists style, the dialecticians syllogisms, and the philosophers their own kind of contemplation. For perception is inventive and creative, persuasively urging one to apply oneself; and exercise toward knowledge increases the application.

Fittingly, then, the apostle has called the wisdom of God “manifold,” showing its power for our benefit “in many parts and in many ways”: through art, through knowledge, through faith, through prophecy. For “all wisdom is from the Lord and is with him forever,” as the Wisdom of Jesus says. “For if you call for prudence and perception with a loud voice, and seek it like treasures of silver and eagerly track it out, you will understand godliness and find divine perception.” The prophet said this by contrast with the perception that comes by philosophy, which he teaches us to search out magnanimously and magnificently for advancement toward godliness. He set against it, then, the perception that is in godliness, hinting at knowledge, and saying this: “For God gives wisdom from his own mouth, perception together with prudence, and stores up help for the righteous.” For to those justified by philosophy, help is stored up, the perception that leads to godliness.

Before the Lord's coming, then, philosophy was necessary to the Greeks for righteousness; and now it becomes useful for godliness, being a kind of preliminary training for those who reap faith through demonstration. For “your foot will not stumble,” it says, if you refer good things to providence, whether they are Greek or ours. For God is the cause of all good things, but of some primarily, like the old and the new covenant, and of others consequentially, like philosophy. And perhaps it was given primarily to the Greeks at that time, before the Lord called the Greeks too; for it too was a schoolmaster to bring the Greek mind to Christ, as the law was for the Hebrews. Philosophy, then, is a preparation, paving the way for the one who is being perfected by Christ. Thus Solomon says, “Fortify wisdom, and it will exalt you; and it will shield you with a crown of delight”; since you too, having fortified it with a wall through philosophy and right expenditure, may keep it unassailable by the sophists.

There is, then, one way of truth, but streams flow into it, as into an ever-flowing river, from different places. So it is said inspiredly: “Hear, my son, and receive my words, that you may have many ways of life. For I teach you the ways of wisdom, that the fountains may not fail you,” the fountains that gush from the same earth. He did not enumerate many saving ways of one righteous man only, but adds many other ways of many righteous, indicating something like this: “But the ways of the righteous shine like light.” And the commandments and the preliminary trainings would be ways and starting points of life. “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often I wished to gather your children as a hen her chicks.” Jerusalem is interpreted “vision of peace.” He shows prophetically, then, that those who have peacefully contemplated have been trained in many ways for their calling. What then? He wished, but was not able. How often, or where? Twice: through the prophets and through his coming. The words “how often” show that wisdom is manifold; and in each way, of quality and of quantity, it surely saves some, both in time and in eternity, since “the Spirit of the Lord has filled the world.” And if someone forcibly says that “Do not give heed to a worthless woman, for honey drips from the lips of a harlot” means Greek education, let him listen to what follows: “who for a time smooths your throat,” it says; but philosophy does not flatter. Whom, then, does he hint at as the one who has played the harlot? He adds expressly: “For the feet of folly lead those who use her down with death to Hades, and her tracks are not firmly set.” “So keep your way far from foolish pleasure; do not stand at the doors of her house, lest you give your life to others.” And he adds the witness: “Then you will repent in old age, when the flesh of your body is worn out.” For this is the end of foolish pleasure. So much for this. But when he says, “Do not be much with a strange woman,” he advises us to use worldly education, but not to linger and remain in it; for the things given at the proper times to each generation for its benefit are a preliminary training for the Lord's word. For already some, lured by the charms of the maidservants, have neglected their mistress, philosophy, and have grown old, some in music, others in geometry, others in grammar, and most in rhetoric.

But as the encyclical studies contribute to philosophy, their mistress, so philosophy itself works together for the acquisition of wisdom. For philosophy is the pursuit of wisdom, and wisdom is the knowledge of things divine and human and their causes. Wisdom, then, is mistress of philosophy, as philosophy is of preliminary education. For if philosophy promises control of the tongue, the belly, and what is below the belly, and is to be chosen for its own sake, it will appear more venerable and more sovereign if it is pursued for the honor and knowledge of God. Scripture will provide testimony to what has been said in these words: Sarah was long barren, the wife of Abraham. Sarah, not bearing, allows her own maidservant, named Hagar the Egyptian, to Abraham for the begetting of children. Wisdom, then, the companion of the faithful man (and Abraham was reckoned faithful and righteous), was still barren and childless in that generation, having not yet borne anything virtuous to Abraham; and she fittingly thought it right that he, being already at the time for advancement, should first lie with worldly education (Egypt is allegorized as the world), and afterward, coming to her too, according to divine providence, beget Isaac.

Philo interprets Hagar as “sojourning” (for here it is said, “Do not be much with a strange woman”), and Sarah as “my rule.” So it is possible, after preliminary training, to come to the most sovereign wisdom, from which the race of Israel grows. From this it is shown that the wisdom Abraham pursued is teachable, as he passed from contemplating the heavens to faith and righteousness according to God. Isaac shows what is self-taught; that is why he is found to be a type of Christ. He is the husband of one wife, Rebekah, whose name they translate “patience.” Jacob is said to have been with several, since he is interpreted “the one who exercises” (and exercises are through many and different doctrines); hence he is renamed Israel, the truly clear-sighted one, as experienced and practiced. There might be something else shown through the three forefathers: that the seal of knowledge is sovereign, composed of nature, learning, and exercise. You might also have another image of what has been said in Tamar, who sat at the crossroads and gave the appearance of a harlot; whom Judah, a lover of learning (the name is interpreted “powerful”), who left nothing unexamined and uninvestigated, looked upon and turned aside to her, keeping his confession to God.

That is why Abraham too, when Sarah was jealous because Hagar was preferred to her, as one who chose only what is useful in worldly philosophy, said, “Behold, the maidservant is in your hands; use her as is pleasing to you,” showing: I welcome worldly education as younger and as your handmaid, but your knowledge I honor and revere as the perfect mistress. “And Sarah afflicted her,” which is equivalent to “chastened and admonished her.” It is well said, then: “My son, do not despise the instruction of God, nor faint when you are reproved by him; for whom the Lord loves he disciplines, and he scourges every son whom he receives.” In other places, however, the passages of Scripture just quoted, when examined, appear to show other mysteries. We say, then, from this plainly, that philosophy is an inquiry into truth and the nature of things (and this is the truth of which the Lord himself said, “I am the truth”); and that the preliminary training for the rest in Christ exercises the mind and rouses the understanding, producing an inquiring sharpness through true philosophy. Having found it, or rather having received it from the Truth itself, the initiated possess it.

Readiness for seeing what is needed contributes much through preliminary exercise. The intelligible things would be exercise for the mind; and their nature is threefold, contemplated in quantities, magnitudes, and propositions. For reasoning from demonstrations implants exact conviction in the soul of the one who follows it, so that he cannot think that what has been demonstrated is otherwise, and it does not let us fall to those who creep in by deceit. In these studies, then, the soul is purified from sensible things and rekindled, so that at some time it may be able to see through to the truth. For nourishment and good education, when preserved, make good natures; and good natures, receiving such education, grow better than those before, both in other respects and in begetting, as among other living creatures too. That is why it says, “Go to the ant, you sluggard, and become wiser than it,” which at harvest lays up much food of every kind against the threat of winter; “or go to the bee and learn how industrious it is”; for it too, feeding on the whole meadow, produces one honeycomb.

If you pray in your inner room, as the Lord taught, worshiping in spirit, your management would no longer be of the house only, but also of the soul: what must be given it, and how and how much; what must be laid up and stored in it; and when these must be brought out, and to whom. For people become noble and good not by nature but by learning, like physicians and pilots. We all see the vine and the horse alike, but the farmer will know whether the vine is good or bad for bearing fruit, and the horseman will easily distinguish the spiritless horse from the swift. That some are better suited by nature to virtue than others shows that those so gifted have certain aptitudes compared with others, but it does not prove perfection in virtue in any of those better endowed, since those badly suited to virtue, when they receive the fitting education, have generally attained excellence, and on the other hand those naturally fit have become bad through neglect. But by nature God created us sociable and just.

Hence we must not say that justice appears from the mere enactment of law, but must understand that the good of creation is rekindled by the commandment, the soul being trained by learning to choose willingly what is best. But as we say it is possible to be a believer even without letters, so we acknowledge that it is not possible to understand what is said in the faith without having learned. For to accept what is well said and not accept what is alien is produced not simply by faith, but by faith joined with learning. If ignorance is lack of education and learning, teaching implants the knowledge of things divine and human. But as it is possible to live rightly in poverty, so also in abundance; and we acknowledge that one may hunt virtue more easily and quickly with preliminary training, though it can be caught without it too, but even then by those who have learned and whose senses have been exercised. “For hatred,” says Solomon, “stirs up strife, but instruction guards the ways of life,” so that we may not be deceived or robbed by those who have practiced evil arts to harm their hearers. “Instruction without reproof goes astray,” it says; and the element of refutation must be present in order to repel the deceitful opinions of the sophists.

Well, then, does Anaxarchus the Eudaemonist write in his work On Kingship: “Much learning greatly benefits and greatly harms its possessor: it benefits the one who is clever, but harms the one who readily utters every word before every crowd. One must know the measures of the right moment; for this is the definition of wisdom. But those who sing at doors, even if they sing something sensible, are not counted among the wise, but have the reputation of folly.” And Hesiod: “of the Muses, who make a man of many words, inspired, eloquent”; for by “of many words” he means one fluent in speech, by “eloquent” one who is skilled, and by “inspired” one who is experienced, a lover of wisdom, and knowledgeable of the truth.

It appears, then, that Greek preliminary education, together with philosophy itself, came to human beings from God, not primarily, but in the way that showers burst upon the good land, on the dunghill, and on the housetops. Grass and wheat spring up alike; the fig tree grows even on tombs, and any of the more shameless trees, and what grows puts forth a likeness of the true, because it enjoyed the same power of the rain; but it did not have the same grace as what grew in rich soil, being either withered or plucked up. Here too the parable of the sowing, which the Lord interpreted, is useful. For there is one farmer of the soil that is in human beings, who from the foundation of the world sows the nourishing seeds from above, who has rained down the Lord, the Word, at each season; but the times and the receiving places produced the differences. Besides, the farmer does not sow wheat alone (though there are many varieties of it too), but also other seeds: barley, beans, peas, vetch, garden vegetables, and flower seeds. And planting belongs to the same husbandry: working what goes into nurseries, gardens, and orchards, and in general the growing and tending of trees of every kind. Likewise not only shepherding, but also cattle-herding, horse-breeding, dog-breeding, and beekeeping, all the arts, in short herding and animal husbandry, differ from one another in more and less, but all are useful for life. And by philosophy I do not mean the Stoic, or the Platonic, or the Epicurean and Aristotelian, but whatever has been well said by each of these schools, teaching righteousness with pious knowledge: this whole selection I call philosophy. But whatever they have cut off from human reasonings and falsified, I would never call divine.

Let us also consider this: if ever those who do not know live well … to do good (for they have happened upon good deeds, and some even aim well, through understanding, at the account of truth), yet “Abraham was justified not by works but by faith.” So there is no benefit to them after the end of life, even if they do good now, unless they have faith. That is why the Scriptures were translated into the language of the Greeks, so that they might never be able to put forward the excuse of ignorance, being able to hear also what we have, if only they are willing. One speaks about the truth in one way, and the truth interprets itself in another. A guess at the truth is one thing, the truth another; likeness is one thing, the being itself another; the one is attained by learning and exercise, the other by power and faith. For the teaching of godliness is a gift, and faith is grace. “For by doing the will of God we know the will.” “Open, then,” says Scripture, “the gates of righteousness, that entering them I may give thanks to the Lord.” But the ways to righteousness, since God saves in many ways (for he is good), are many and varied, and lead to the Lord's way and gate. If you seek the royal and authoritative entrance, you will hear: “This is the gate of the Lord; the righteous will enter by it.” Of the many gates that are open, then, the one in righteousness is the one in Christ, in which blessed are all who enter and direct their course in the holiness of knowledge. Thus Clement, in his letter to the Corinthians, setting out the differences among those approved in the church, says word for word: “Let one be faithful, let one be able to utter knowledge, let one be wise in the discernment of words, let one be energetic in deeds.”

The sophistic art, which the Greeks have zealously pursued, is a power of appearances, producing through words false opinions as though true. For it provides rhetoric for persuasion and eristic for contention; and so these arts, unless joined with philosophy, would be harmful to everyone. At any rate Plato plainly called sophistry an evil art, and Aristotle, following him, declares it a kind of thievery, since it plausibly steals the whole work of wisdom and professes a wisdom it has not practiced. In short, as the beginning of rhetoric is the plausible, its work the argument, and its end persuasion, so the beginning of eristic is opinion, its work the contest, and its end victory. In the same way the beginning of sophistry is the apparent; its work is twofold, the continuous discourse that comes from rhetoric and the questioning that comes from dialectic; and its end is astonishment. And the dialectic so talked of in the schools is shown to be the exercise of a philosopher about what is probable, for the sake of skill in contradiction; but nowhere in these is the truth.

Fittingly, then, the noble apostle, disparaging these superfluous verbal arts, says: “If anyone does not come to sound words, but is puffed up with some teaching, knowing nothing, but sick about questions and disputes about words, from which come strife, envy, slander, evil suspicions, constant friction among people corrupted in mind and deprived of the truth.” You see how he is moved against them, calling their logical art, on which they pride themselves, a sickness; they who love this babbling evil art, whether they are Greek or barbarian sophists. Very finely, then, does the tragic poet Euripides say in the Phoenician Women: “The unjust word, being sick in itself, needs wise remedies.” For the saving word is called “sound,” being itself truth. And what is sound remains always immortal; but separation from what is healthy and divine is godlessness and a deadly disease. These are ravening wolves hidden in sheepskins, slave-dealers and smooth-tongued seducers of souls, stealing secretly but, when exposed, robbers, striving to catch by deceit and force us who are simple, so to speak, and less capable.

“Often a man caught by lack of eloquence, though he says what is just, fares worse than the eloquent. But now with flowing mouths they steal the truest things, so that what ought to seem right does not seem so,” says the tragedy. Such are these contentious people, whether they pursue heresies or practice dialectical tricks: those who pull down the finished work and weave nothing, says Scripture, zealous for futile labor, which the apostle called “the dice-playing of men” and “craftiness,” suited “to the scheming of error.” “For there are,” he says, “many insubordinate, empty talkers and deceivers.” So it was not said to all, “You are the salt of the earth.” For there are some even among those who have heard the word who are like sea fish, which, though reared from birth in brine, still need salt for cooking. I, at any rate, fully accept the tragedy that says: “My child, false words may be well spoken, and by the beauties of verse may conquer the truth; but this is not the most exact thing, but nature and what is right; he who conquers by eloquence is clever, but I always consider deeds better than words.” So we must never aim to please the many. For what pleases them we do not practice, and what we know is far from their disposition. “Let us not become vainglorious,” says the apostle, “provoking one another, envying one another.”

In this way the truth-loving Plato, as if inspired, says: “I am such as to obey nothing else but the reason that seems best to me when I consider.” At any rate he blames those who trust opinions without mind and knowledge, as though they wrongly abandoned right and sound reason to trust what shares in falsehood. For to be deceived about the truth is evil, but to speak truth and to hold opinions about what is, is good. People are deprived of good things unwillingly, but they are deprived nonetheless, either robbed, or bewitched, or forced, and … not believing. The one who has … believed willingly is now consumed …; the one who is persuaded to change his mind and the one who forgets are robbed, because time takes away from the one and argument from the other without their noticing; and pain and suffering, contentiousness and anger often force a change of opinion; and above all those are bewitched who are charmed by pleasure or terrified by fear. All these changes are involuntary, and none of them could ever drive out knowledge.

Some, thinking themselves naturally gifted, think they should touch neither philosophy nor dialectic, nor even learn the study of nature, but demand faith alone and bare, as if they expected to gather grapes right from the start without taking any care of the vine. The Lord is allegorized as the vine, from whom the fruit is to be gathered with care and the art of husbandry according to reason. One must prune, dig, tie up, and do the rest; there is need, I think, of the pruning hook and the mattock and the other tools of husbandry for the care of the vine, so that it may show us its edible fruit. And as in farming, so in medicine, the one who has acquired a variety of studies is well educated, so as to be better able to farm and to heal; so here too I call the well-educated person the one who refers everything to the truth, so as to gather what is useful from geometry, music, grammar, and philosophy itself, and to guard the faith against attack. The athlete too is looked down on, as has been said, though he contributes to the arrangement.

Thus we praise the much-experienced pilot, who “saw the cities of many men,” and the physician who has had experience of many cases; hence some even invent the empiric. The one who refers each thing to right living, bringing examples from Greek and barbarian sources, is a much-experienced tracker of the truth and truly “of many counsels”; like the touchstone (the Lydian stone, trusted to distinguish counterfeit from genuine gold), our man of wide learning and knowledge is able to separate sophistry from philosophy, cosmetics from gymnastics, cookery from medicine, rhetoric from dialectic, and magic and other heresies from the truth itself according to the barbarian philosophy. How is it not necessary for one who longs to attain the power of God to discuss intelligible things philosophically? How is it not useful to distinguish the ambiguous words and those used with the same name in the Testaments? For by an ambiguity the Lord outwitted the devil at the time of the temptation; and I no longer see here how the inventor of philosophy and dialectic, as some suppose, is led astray, deceived by the way of ambiguity.

If the prophets and apostles did not know the arts by which the exercises of philosophy are displayed, yet the meaning of the prophetic and teaching Spirit, spoken in a hidden way because the understanding ear is not for all, requires skilled teaching for clarity. For the prophets and the disciples of the Spirit knew that meaning surely; for they knew it by faith, in a way not easy for others, as the Spirit spoke. But those who have not learned cannot receive it in that way. “Write the commandments,” it says, “in a twofold way, with will and knowledge, to answer words of truth to those who put questions to you.” What, then, is the knowledge of answering? That which is also of asking; and this would be dialectic. What then? Is not speaking also a work? Doing comes from reason; for if we did not act by reason, we would act irrationally. And the rational work is carried out according to God: “and nothing came into being without him,” it says, the Word of God. Or did not the Lord too do everything by the Word? Cattle also work, driven by compelling fear. And do not those called “right believers” apply themselves to good works, not knowing what they do?