Miscellanies 2.22.131–3.1.4

Plato the philosopher, indeed, says that the goal is twofold: the one that is shared in and exists first in the Ideas themselves, which he calls the Good; and the one that shares in that and receives likeness from it, which arises in men who lay claim to virtue and true philosophy. That is why Cleanthes too, in the second book of On Pleasure, says that Socrates taught on every occasion that the just man and the happy man are the same, and cursed the first who separated the just from the advantageous as having done an impious thing; for truly impious are those who separate the advantageous from the just according to law. And Plato himself says that happiness (eudaimonia) is having one's daimon well, and that the ruling part of our soul is called the daimon, and that happiness is the most perfect and complete good. Sometimes he calls it a life in agreement and harmony, and sometimes the most perfect life according to virtue; and he places this in the knowledge of the good and in likeness to God, declaring the likeness to be becoming just and holy with prudence. For do not some of our own writers understand that man received “according to the image” at once, at his creation, but will receive “according to the likeness” later, at his perfection?

For example, Plato, teaching that this likeness will come to the virtuous man with humility, interprets somewhere that saying, “Everyone who humbles himself will be exalted.” He says, at any rate, in the Laws: “God, as the ancient saying has it, holding the beginning, middle, and end of all things, goes straight to his goal, moving according to nature; and Justice always follows him, the avenger of those who fall short of the divine law.” Do you see how he too brings caution to the divine law? He adds, at any rate: “Holding fast to her, the one who is to be happy follows, humble and orderly.” Then, joining what follows to these and admonishing by fear, he adds: “What conduct, then, is dear to God and follows him? One, having one ancient principle: that like will be dear to like, when it is measured, while unmeasured things are dear neither to one another nor to the measured. The one who is to become dear to God, then, must necessarily become like this himself as far as possible.”

“And according to this reasoning the self-restrained among us is a friend of God, for he is like him; while the one who is not self-restrained is unlike and different.” By saying that this doctrine is ancient, he hinted at the teaching that had come to him from the law. And in the Theaetetus, granting that evils necessarily haunt mortal nature and this place, he adds: “That is why we must try to flee from here to there as quickly as possible; and flight is likeness to God as far as possible; and likeness is to become just and holy with prudence.” And Speusippus, Plato's nephew, says that happiness is a perfect state in things according to nature, or a state of good things; a condition all men desire, while the good aim at freedom from disturbance; and the virtues would be productive of happiness. Xenocrates of Chalcedon defines happiness as the possession of one's proper virtue and of the power that serves it. Then he clearly says that that in which it arises is the soul; that by which, the virtues; that from which, as parts, noble actions and good states, dispositions, motions, and relations; that without which it cannot be, bodily and external things. And Polemon, Xenocrates' pupil, seems to wish happiness to be self-sufficiency in all goods, or in the most and greatest. He teaches, at any rate, that there could never be happiness without virtue, and that virtue, even without bodily and external goods, is sufficient for happiness.

Let these things stand thus; refutations of the opinions mentioned will be set out in due time. But for us the aim is to reach an endless end by obeying the commandments, that is, God, and living by them blamelessly and with understanding through the knowledge of the divine will. And the goal is likeness, as far as possible, to right reason, and restoration to perfect adoption through the Son, always glorifying the Father through the great high priest who has thought us worthy to be called brothers and fellow heirs. And the apostle, briefly describing the goal in the letter to the Romans, says: “But now, having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you have your fruit for sanctification, and the end, eternal life.” And knowing that hope is twofold, one expected, the other received, he teaches that the goal is the restoration of hope: “For endurance,” he says, “produces character, and character hope; and hope does not put to shame, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” Because of this love there is also the restoration to what is hoped for, which elsewhere he calls the rest laid up for us.

You would find similar things in Ezekiel too, thus: “The soul that sins, it shall die. And a man who is righteous and does judgment and righteousness has not eaten on the mountains, and has not lifted his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel, and has not defiled his neighbor's wife, and has not approached a woman in the separation of her uncleanness” (for he does not wish the seed of man to be insulted); “and he will not oppress a man,” it says; “he will return the debtor's pledge; he will not commit robbery; he will give his bread to the hungry and clothe the naked; he will not give his money at interest, and will not take increase; he will turn his hand away from injustice; he will do true judgment between a man and his neighbor; he will walk in my ordinances and has kept my judgments to do the truth: he is righteous, he shall surely live, says Adonai the Lord.” And Isaiah, exhorting the believer to dignity of life and the one who knows to understanding, and showing that the virtue of man and of God is not the same, says: “Seek the Lord, and when you find him call on him; and when he draws near to you, let the ungodly forsake his ways and the lawless man his ways, and let him turn to the Lord, and he will be shown mercy,”

as far as “and your thoughts from my thought.” We, then, according to the noble apostle, “by faith wait for the hope of righteousness. For in Christ neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but faith working through love.” “And we desire each of you to show the same eagerness for the full assurance of hope,” as far as “having become a high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.” All-virtuous Wisdom says things like Paul's: “But the one who hears me will dwell confident in hope”; for the restoration of hope is called hope by the same name. That is why to the word “will dwell” it very finely added “confident,” showing that such a one is at rest, having received the hope he hoped for. That is why it adds: “And he will be quiet without fear of any evil.” And the apostle, in the first letter to the Corinthians, says plainly: “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ,” so that this may come about: if you are imitators of me, and I of Christ, then you are imitators of Christ, and Christ of God. He sets forth, then, as the aim of faith likeness to God, as far as possible, becoming just and holy with prudence; and as the goal, the restoration of the promise upon faith. From these, then, flow the springs of the doctrines about the goal that we mentioned before. But enough of these.

Since marriage seems to fall under pleasure and desire, we must discuss it too. Marriage, then, is the first lawful union of a man and a woman for the sowing of legitimate children. The comic poet Menander, at any rate, says: “For the plowing of legitimate children I give you my own daughter.” We ask whether one should marry, which belongs among the things called relative. For who should marry, and in what condition? And whom, and in what condition? For not everyone should marry, nor at every time; but there is a time when it is fitting, a person to whom it is suitable, and an age up to which it is. So not everyone should marry every woman, nor always, nor altogether and without restraint; but the one in a certain condition, and the right kind of woman, and when it is necessary, and for the sake of children, and a woman alike in every way, who does not love the man who loves her by force or compulsion.

That is why Abraham, making the excuse that his wife was his sister, says: “She is my sister from my father, but not from my mother, and she became my wife,” teaching that sisters by the same mother must not be taken in marriage. Let us go briefly through the record of opinions. Plato places marriage among external goods, providing for the immortality of our race and, as it were, a kind of continuance handed on like a torch to children's children. Democritus refuses marriage and the begetting of children because of the many annoyances they bring and the distraction from more necessary things. Epicurus agrees with him, and all who place the good in pleasure and freedom from disturbance, and also in freedom from pain. Again, according to the Stoics marriage and the rearing of children are indifferent; according to the Peripatetics, good. In short, these, having carried their doctrines only as far as the tongue, were enslaved to pleasures, some using concubines, others courtesans, most of them boys. And that wise foursome in the Garden, with the courtesan, glorified pleasure in deeds.

So those will not escape the curse of Bouzyges who, not judging something to be advantageous for themselves, urge others to do it, or the reverse. Scripture has shown this briefly, saying: “What you hate, you shall not do to another.” But those who approve of marriage say: “Nature made us fit for marriage, as is clear from the constitution of the bodies of male and female”; and they continually cry out, “Increase and multiply.” But even if this is so, let it seem shameful to them that the human being, created by God, should be less self-controlled than the irrational animals, which do not mate with many and without restraint, but with one of the same kind, such as pigeons, wood pigeons, the race of turtledoves, and the like. Further, they say, the childless man falls short of the perfection according to nature, since he has not put his own successor in his place; for he is perfect who has made his like from himself, and still more when he sees that one has done the same, that is, when he establishes the begotten in the same nature as the begetter.

One should, then, certainly marry, both for the sake of one's country and for the succession of children and, as far as it rests with us, for the completion of the world. For the poets pity a marriage that is half-complete and childless, and bless the one blossoming on both sides. And bodily illnesses show most of all that marriage is necessary; for the care of a wife and the constancy of her presence seem to surpass the attentions of other relatives and friends, as much as she chooses to excel in sympathy and to sit by above all others; and truly, according to Scripture, she is a necessary helper.

The comic poet Menander, at any rate, while running down marriage, also sets its advantages against this, answering the one who said, “I am badly off with regard to the matter”: “(B.) That is because you take it from the left side.” Then he adds: “You see the troubles and the things that will grieve you in it, but you do not look at the good things,” and so on. Marriage helps also those advanced in years, presenting a wife to care for them and raising the children from her to support them in old age. “Children are the glory of a man who has died; like corks they hold up the net, saving the twisted line of flax from the deep,” according to the tragic poet Sophocles. And lawgivers do not allow the highest offices to be held by the unmarried. For example, the lawgiver of the Spartans set a penalty not only for not marrying, but for marrying badly, marrying late, and living alone. And the noble Plato commands the one who does not marry to pay the cost of a wife's maintenance to the public treasury and to render the proper expenses to the magistrates. For if they do not marry and do not beget children, they will, as far as it rests with them, create a scarcity of men and destroy both cities and the world made up of them.

And such conduct is impious, since it destroys divine generation. It is also unmanly and weak to flee a shared life with wife and children. For that whose loss is an evil, its possession is certainly a good; and so with the rest. But the loss of children is among the greatest evils, they say; so the possession of children is a good; and if so, marriage too. “Without a father,” it says, “there could never be a child, and without a mother not even the conception of a child.”

Marriage makes a father, as a husband makes a mother. Homer too sets as the greatest prayer “a husband and a home,” but not simply, rather “with noble like-mindedness.” For the marriage of others agrees in self-indulgence, but that of those who philosophize leads to the like-mindedness that is according to reason; it bids wives adorn not their appearance but their character, and commands husbands not to treat their wives as mistresses, making bodily wantonness their aim, but to make marriage a help for the whole of life and a means of the best self-restraint. For more precious, I think, than wheat and barley sown in their proper seasons is the human being who is sown, for whom all things grow; and farmers sow those seeds when sober. Every filthy and polluted practice, then, must be purged from marriage, so that we may not be reproached that the union of irrational animals agrees with nature better than human wedlock, according to the accepted definition.

Some of them, at any rate, having mated at the appointed season, at once go away, leaving the fashioning to providence. And in the tragic poets Polyxena, though being slain, is recorded, even while dying, to have taken great care to fall decently, “hiding what should be hidden from the eyes of men.” And for her the calamity was a marriage. To fall under and yield to the passions, then, is the worst slavery, as indeed to master them is the only freedom. The divine Scripture, at any rate, says that those who transgress the commandments are sold to foreigners, that is, to sins alien to nature, until they turn back and repent.

Marriage, then, must be kept pure from what defiles it, like a sacred image: rising from sleep with the Lord, going to sleep with thanksgiving and prayer, “both when you go to bed and when the holy light comes,” bearing witness to the Lord throughout our whole life, possessing godliness in the soul and carrying self-restraint even to the body. For it is truly dear to God to guide decency from the tongue to deeds; and shameful talk is a road to shamelessness, and the end of both is shameful action. And that Scripture counsels marriage and never allows the union to be dissolved, it plainly lays down: “You shall not put away your wife except for the reason of sexual immorality.” And it considers it adultery to marry again while either of those who have separated is alive.

What shows a wife to be above suspicion of slander is not beautifying herself nor adorning herself beyond what is fitting, devoting herself earnestly to prayers and supplications, avoiding frequent outings from the house, shutting herself off as far as possible from the sight of men who are not related to her, and considering the care of the home more important than untimely chatter. “And the one who takes a divorced woman commits adultery,” it says; “for if anyone divorces a wife, he commits adultery against her,” that is, he compels her to commit adultery. And not only does the one who divorced her become the cause of this, but also the one who receives her, giving the woman an occasion to sin; for if he did not receive her, she would go back to her husband.

What, then, of the law? To check the proneness of the passions, it commands that the woman who has committed adultery and been convicted of it be put to death; and if she is a priest's daughter, it commands that she be given to the fire. The adulterer too is stoned, but not in the same place, so that not even death may be shared by them. The law, then, does not fight with the gospel, but agrees with it. For how could it not, since the one Lord is the giver of both? For the woman who has committed sexual immorality lives in sin but has died to the commandments; while the one who has repented, as though born again by the conversion of her life, has a rebirth of life: the old harlot having died, and the one born by repentance having come to life again. The Spirit bears witness to what has been said through Ezekiel, saying: “I do not desire the death of the sinner so much as that he turn back.” So they are stoned, as having died to the law through hardness of heart, since they did not obey it; and the punishment is increased for the priest's daughter, because “to whom more was given, from him more will be required.” Let our second Miscellany be brought to a close here, because of its length and the number of its chapters.

The followers of Valentinus, bringing down the unions in pairs from above, from the divine emanations, are pleased with marriage. But the followers of Basilides say that when the apostles asked whether it might not be better not to marry, the Lord answered: “Not all can receive this saying; for there are eunuchs, some from birth, others from necessity.” They explain the saying somewhat like this: “Some have a natural aversion to women from birth; these, following this natural constitution, do well not to marry. These,” they say, “are the eunuchs from birth. Those from necessity are those ascetics of the theater who master themselves because of the attraction of fame; and those who have been castrated by some misfortune have become eunuchs by necessity. Those, then, who are eunuchs by necessity do not become so by reason. But those who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the eternal kingdom,” they say, “take up this resolve because of what follows from marriage, fearing the preoccupation with providing necessities.”

And they say the apostle's words, “It is better to marry than to burn,” mean: do not throw your soul into the fire, holding out night and day and fearing lest you fall from self-control; for a soul given over to holding out is cut off from hope. “Hold fast, then,” says Isidore word for word in his Ethics, “to a woman who will fight with you, so that you may not be torn away from the grace of God; and when you have discharged the fire in seed, pray with a good conscience. But when your thanksgiving,” he says, “sinks to a petition, and you ask henceforth not that you may do right but that you may not stumble, marry. But suppose someone is young, or poor, or inclined to sensuality, and does not wish to marry according to the word; let him not separate from his brother. Let him say, ‘I have entered into the holy things; I can suffer nothing.’ And if he has a suspicion, let him say, ‘Brother, lay your hand on me, so that I may not sin’; and he will receive help both spiritual and sensible. Let him only wish to accomplish what is good, and he will attain it.

Sometimes we say with the mouth, ‘We do not wish to sin,’ but the mind is set on sinning. Such a one does not do what he wishes because of fear, lest the punishment be counted against him. Human nature has some things that are necessary and natural, and others that are only natural. Being clothed is necessary and natural; sexual pleasure is natural but not necessary.” I have set out these words to refute those Basilidians who do not live rightly, as though they had authority even to sin because of their perfection, or would in any case be saved by nature even if they sin now, because of their innate election; since not even the forefathers of their doctrines allow them to do the same things. Let them not, then, put on the name of Christ and, living more licentiously than the most intemperate of the Gentiles, bring blasphemy on the name. For such are “false apostles, deceitful workers,” as far as “whose end will be according to their works.”

Self-control, then, is disregard of the body in accordance with our confession toward God. For self-control is concerned not only with sexual pleasures but also with the other things that the soul wrongly desires when it is not content with what is necessary. There is self-control of the tongue, of possessions, of use, and of desire. It does not only teach us to be self-restrained; it provides self-restraint for us, being a power and divine grace. What, then, our own people think on the subject must be said. We bless the eunuchate, and those to whom it has been given by God; we admire monogamy and the dignity of the one marriage, saying that we must suffer with one another and “bear one another's burdens,” lest anyone who thinks he stands firmly should himself fall. And about second marriage the apostle says, “If you burn, marry.”