Miscellanies 2.8.36–2.13.59

Here the followers of Basilides, interpreting this saying, say that the Ruler himself, having heard the declaration of the ministering Spirit, was astonished at what he heard and saw, having received good news beyond his hopes; and that his astonishment was called fear, which became the beginning of a wisdom that separates the races, distinguishes, perfects, and restores. For the God over all sends forth, having distinguished not only the world but also the elect. Valentinus too seems to have had something of the kind in mind when he writes in a letter in these very words: “And just as fear came upon the angels in the presence of that formed man, because he uttered things greater than his formation, owing to the one who had invisibly placed in him a seed of the substance from above and who spoke boldly; so also in the generations of worldly men, the works of men become objects of fear to those who made them, such as statues and images and everything that hands fashion in the name of a god. For Adam, formed in the name of Man, inspired fear of the preexisting Man, since that very one stood in him; and they were terrified and quickly destroyed the work.”

But since there is one first principle, as will be shown later, these men will be seen to be inventing chirpings and warblings. Since it seemed good to God that people should be trained beforehand by the Lord through the law and the prophets, “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” was said, given by the Lord through Moses to the disobedient and hard of heart; for those whom reason does not win, fear tames. The instructing Word, foreseeing this from above, fitted an instrument to each of the two ways, purifying each appropriately for godliness. Astonishment, then, is fear arising from an unusual impression, or at an unexpected impression, … such as news; while fear is excessive wonder at something that has happened or exists. They do not see, then, that by making him subject to passion through astonishment, they have made the greatest God, praised by them too, to have been in ignorance before the astonishment. And if ignorance preceded the astonishment, and the astonishment and fear, the beginning of wisdom, has become the fear of God, then ignorance runs the risk of being the originating cause of the wisdom of God and of the whole creation of the world, and indeed of the restoration of the elect itself.

Is ignorance, then, among good things or bad? If among good things, why does it cease through astonishment? And the minister, the preaching, and the baptism are superfluous for them. But if among bad things, how is evil the cause of the best things? For if ignorance had not existed before, the minister would not have come down, nor would astonishment have seized the Ruler, as they themselves say, nor would he have received a beginning of wisdom from fear for the separating of the elect and of the worldly. And if fear of the preexisting Man made the angels plot against their own formation, because the invisible seed of the substance from above was set in the thing created, then either they were jealous from an empty supposition, which is unlikely, since angels would then have become the destroyers of the creation entrusted to them, as of a child of their own, and would stand convicted of complete ignorance; or they were moved as being held by foreknowledge, but then they would not have plotted against what they foreknew, when they made the attempt, nor would they have been terrified at their own work, having understood the seed from above by foreknowledge; or, finally, they dared it trusting in knowledge. But this too is impossible: that, having learned the difference, they should plot against the Man in the Pleroma, and moreover against the one after the image, in whom they had received the archetype, and, together with the rest of the knowledge, incorruptibility.

To these very people, then, and to certain others, especially the followers of Marcion, Scripture cries out, though they do not listen: “He who hears me will rest in peace, confident, and will be quiet without fear of any evil.” What, then, do they want the law to be? They will not call it evil, but just, distinguishing the good from the just. But the Lord, in commanding us to fear evil, does not rid us of evil by evil, but destroys the opposite by its opposite. And evil is the opposite of good, as the just is of the unjust. If, then, he has called abstinence from evils “fearlessness,” which the fear of the Lord produces, fear is good; and the fear that comes from the law is not only just but also good, since it takes away vice. And introducing fearlessness by fear, it produces not freedom from passion by passion, but moderation of passion by training. When, then, we hear, “Honor the Lord and you will be strong, and apart from him fear no other,” we understand that to fear to sin and to follow the commandments given by God is honor to God.

Awe is fear of the divine. But even if fear is a passion, as some would have it, because fear is a passion, not every fear is a passion. Superstition, at any rate, is a passion, being fear of demons who are frenzied and subject to passion; conversely, then, fear of the God who is free from passion is free from passion. For one fears not God, but falling away from God; and the one who dreads this fears falling into evils, and dreads evils; and the one who dreads falling wishes himself to be incorruptible and free from passion. “The wise man, fearing, turned aside from evil, but the fool mingles with it, confident,” says Scripture; and again it says, “In the fear of the Lord is the hope of strength.”

Such fear, then, leads up both to repentance and to hope. Hope is the expectation of good things, or a confident expectation of an absent good. Indeed a good disposition is also taken into hope, which we have learned leads by the hand to love. Love would be agreement in matters of reason, of life, and of manner, or, to put it briefly, fellowship of life, or the intensity of friendship and affection with right reason in the treatment of companions. And a companion is another self; which is why we call brothers those who have been reborn by the same Word. Close to love lies hospitality, which is a certain skill in the treatment of strangers; and strangers are those to whom worldly things are strange. For by the worldly we understand those who hope in the earth and in fleshly desires. “Do not be conformed,” says the apostle, “to this age, but be transformed by the renewal of the mind, so that you may prove what is the will of God, the good, acceptable, and perfect.” Hospitality, then, is concerned with what benefits strangers; and strangers are guests, and guests are friends, and friends are brothers: “Dear brother,” says Homer. Philanthropy too, through which also affection, being a friendly treatment of human beings, and affection, being a certain skill in loving friends or kinsfolk, accompany love.

And if the true man within us is the spiritual one, philanthropy is brotherly love toward those who share the same Spirit. Affection, again, is the preservation of goodwill or of loving; and loving is complete acceptance; and to love is to be pleased with a character, being drawn and drawn along; and people are drawn into sameness through concord, which is the knowledge of common goods; for like-mindedness too is agreement of judgments. “Let love,” it says, “be without hypocrisy” for us; and let us ourselves be “abhorring what is evil, holding fast to the good in brotherly love,” and so on, until “if possible, as far as it depends on you, living at peace with all people.” Then it says, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” And the same apostle confesses that he bears witness to the Jews “that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For, not knowing the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to the righteousness of God.” For they neither knew nor did the intention of the law, but what they themselves supposed, this they thought the law also intended. Nor did they believe the law as prophesying; they followed the bare word and fear, but not disposition and faith. “For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness,” he who was prophesied by the law, “to everyone who believes.”

That is why it was said to them through Moses: “I will make you jealous by those who are not a nation; by a senseless nation I will provoke you to anger,” that is, by the nation that has become ready for obedience. And through Isaiah he says: “I was found by those who did not seek me; I became manifest to those who did not ask for me,” clearly before the Lord's coming; after which those prophesied words are now fittingly said to Israel too: “I stretched out my hands all day long to a disobedient and contrary people.” Do you see that the cause of the calling from the Gentiles is clearly said by the prophet to be the disobedience and contrariness of the people? Then the goodness of God is shown even toward them; for the apostle says: “But by their trespass salvation has come to the Gentiles, to make them jealous” and wish to repent. And the Shepherd, using the expression simply of those who had fallen asleep, knows that some among the Gentiles and among the Jews were righteous, not only before the Lord's coming but even before the law, by being well pleasing to God, like Abel, like Noah, like any other righteous person.

At any rate he says that the apostles and teachers who preached the name of the Son of God and fell asleep preached, in power and faith, to those who had fallen asleep before them. Then he adds: “And they gave them the seal of the preaching. They went down with them, then, into the water and came up again. But these went down alive and came up again alive; while those who had fallen asleep before went down dead, but came up alive. Through these, then, they were made alive and came to know the name of the Son of God. That is why they also came up with them and were fitted into the building of the tower, and were built in with them without being hewn; for they had fallen asleep in righteousness and in great purity, and lacked only this seal.” 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,” according to the apostle.

How the virtues follow one another, what need is there to say, since it has already been shown that faith rests on repentance and hope, caution on faith, and that perseverance and exercise in these, together with learning, are completed in love, and love is perfected in knowledge? But this must of necessity be noted in passing: that only the divine must be understood to be wise by nature. That is why wisdom, which taught the truth, is also a power of God; and somewhere here the perfection of knowledge has been grasped. The philosopher loves and cherishes the truth, having now come to be regarded as a friend through love, from being a true servant. Its beginning is to wonder at things, as Plato says in the Theaetetus, and as Matthias, exhorting in the Traditions, says, “Wonder at what is before you,” laying this down as the first step of the knowledge beyond. So also in the Gospel according to the Hebrews it is written: “He who wonders will reign, and he who has reigned will rest.” It is impossible, then, for the unlearned, as long as he remains unlearned, to philosophize, at least one who has not received a conception of wisdom, since philosophy is a longing for what truly is and for the studies that contribute to it. And even if some have trained themselves to do well, yet to know how one must use, act, and work together is the means by which one becomes like God, God, I mean, the Savior, serving the God of the universe through the high priest, the Word, through whom what is truly beautiful and just is beheld. Godliness is conduct that follows and conforms to God.

Our philosopher, then, holds fast to these three things: first, contemplation; second, the fulfilling of the commandments; third, the forming of good men. When these come together they make the one who knows perfect; whatever of them is lacking, the things of knowledge limp. That is why Scripture divinely says: “And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them: I am the Lord your God. You shall not act according to the practices of the land of Egypt, in which you lived; and you shall not act according to the practices of the land of Canaan, into which I am bringing you; and you shall not walk in their customs. You shall do my judgments and keep my ordinances, to walk in them: I am the Lord your God. And you shall keep all my ordinances and do them. The man who does them will live in them: I am the Lord your God.”

Whether, then, Egypt and the land of Canaan are a symbol of the world and deceit, or of passions and vices, the oracle shows us what must be avoided and what must be practiced as divine and not worldly. And when it says, “The man who does them will live in them,” it calls both the correction of the Hebrews themselves and the training and progress of their neighbors, ourselves, life, theirs and ours. For those “dead in trespasses” are “made alive together with Christ” through our covenant. And Scripture, by often repeating “I am the Lord your God,” shames us most effectively, teaching us to follow God who gave the commandments; and it quietly reminds us to seek God and try, as far as possible, to know him, which would be the greatest contemplation, the contemplation of the initiated, the knowledge that truly is, which becomes unshakable by reason. This alone would be the knowledge of wisdom, from which just action is never separated.

But the knowledge of those who are wise in their own conceit, whether barbarian heresies or the philosophers among the Greeks, “puffs up,” according to the apostle. But faithful knowledge would be a scientific demonstration of what is handed down according to the true philosophy. We would say that it is reasoning that provides faith in disputed matters from what is agreed. And since faith is twofold, the one scientific, the other based on opinion, nothing prevents us from calling demonstration twofold too, the one scientific, the other based on opinion; since knowledge and foreknowledge are also said to be twofold, the one having its own nature exact, the other defective. And may not our demonstration alone be true, since it is supplied from the divine Scriptures, the sacred writings, and the wisdom taught by God, according to the apostle? Learning, at any rate, is also obeying the commandments, which is believing God. And faith is a certain power of God, being the strength of the truth.

For example, he says: “If you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will move the mountain”; and again: “According to your faith let it be done to you.” And one is healed, receiving healing by faith, and another who is dead is raised through the strength of the one who believed that he would be raised. But demonstration based on opinion is human, and comes from rhetorical arguments or even dialectical syllogisms. For the highest demonstration, which we have hinted is scientific, implants faith, through the setting forth and opening up of the Scriptures, in the souls of those who long to learn; and this would be knowledge. For if what is taken up for the question is accepted as true, being divine and prophetic, it is clear that the conclusion drawn from them will also consequently be true; and knowledge would rightly be for us a demonstration.

When, at any rate, it was commanded that the memorial of the heavenly and divine food should be consecrated in a golden jar, “the gomor,” it says, “was the tenth of the three measures.” For in ourselves three measures, three criteria, are indicated: sense for things perceived by the senses; speech for things said, both names and words; mind for things known by the intellect. The one who knows, then, will abstain from sins of speech, of thought, and of sense and action, having heard how “he who looks with desire has committed adultery,” and taking to heart that “blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God,” and knowing this too, that “it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out through the mouth, that defiles a person; for out of the heart come thoughts.” This, I think, is the true and just measure according to God, by which what is measured is measured: the decad that holds the human being together, which the three measures just mentioned showed in summary. It would be body and soul, the five senses, the power of speech, the power of generation, and the intellectual or spiritual power, or whatever you wish to call it.

We must, so to speak, rise above all the others and stand upon the mind, just as, of course, in the universe too we must leap over the nine portions: first the one made of the four elements, set in one place because of their equal change; then the seven wandering stars; and the ninth, the fixed sphere; and so reach the perfect number, above the nine, the tenth portion, the knowledge of God; in short, longing for the Maker after the creation. That is why the tithes of the ephah and of the sacrifices were brought to God, and the feast of the Passover began from the tenth day, being a passing over from every passion and every object of sense. The one who knows is fixed in faith; but the one wise in his own conceit willingly does not lay hold of the truth, using unstable and unsettled impulses. Fittingly, then, it is written: “And Cain went out from the presence of God and dwelt in the land of Nod, opposite Eden.” Nod is interpreted “tossing,” and Eden “delight”; and the delight is faith, knowledge, and peace, from which the one who disobeys is cast out. But the one wise in his own conceit does not wish even to begin to listen to the divine commandments; but like a self-taught man who has thrown off the reins, he willingly moves into the heaving swell, going down to what is mortal and begotten from the knowledge of the unbegotten, holding different opinions at different times. “Those who have no guidance fall like leaves.” Reason and the ruling faculty, which remain unstumbling and lead the soul, are called its pilot; for truly the approach to the unchangeable is by what is unchangeable.

So Abraham was standing before the Lord, and drawing near he spoke; and to Moses it is said, “But you stand here with me.” The followers of Simon wish to be made like in character to the Standing One whom they worship. Faith, then, and the knowledge of the truth make the soul that has chosen them always the same and in the same state. Change, turning aside, and falling away are akin to falsehood, as quiet, rest, and peace are to the one who knows. As, then, conceit and self-importance have brought philosophy into disrepute, so false knowledge, which is called by the same name, has brought knowledge into disrepute; of which the apostle writes, “O Timothy, guard the deposit, avoiding the profane empty talk and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge, which some have professed and so missed the mark concerning the faith.” Convicted by this saying, those of the heresies reject the letters to Timothy. Come, then: if the Lord is truth and wisdom and power of God, as indeed he is, it would be shown that the one who has known him, and the Father through him, is truly the one who knows. For he perceives the one who says, “The lips of the righteous know high things.”

As faith, like time, is twofold, we would find two virtues dwelling with both. For of time, memory belongs to the past and hope to the future. We believe that past things have happened and that future things will be; and again we love, persuaded by faith that past things are so, and awaiting future things in hope. For love has passed through everything for the one who knows, since he knows one God; and “behold, all things” that he has made are “very good,” he knows and wonders at them. And godliness adds length of life, and “the fear of the Lord adds days.” As, then, days are a part of life that advances, so fear too is the beginning of love, becoming faith by growth, and then love. But not as I fear a wild beast and hate it (for fear is twofold), but as I also stand in awe of my father, whom I fear and love at the same time. Again, fearing lest I be punished, I love myself, choosing fear; but the one who fears to offend his father loves him. Blessed, then, is the one who becomes faithful, blended of love and fear. And faith is strength for salvation and power for eternal life.

Again, prophecy is foreknowledge, and knowledge is the understanding of prophecy, that is, knowledge of what was foreknown by the prophets from the Lord, who reveals all things beforehand. The knowledge of what was foretold, then, shows a threefold outcome: either one that happened long ago, or one already present, or one that is to come. Then the extremes fall under faith, either of things accomplished or of things hoped for, while the present working supplies persuasion for the confirmation of both extremes. For if, prophecy being one, part is now being fulfilled and part has been fulfilled, then from this the thing hoped for is trustworthy and the thing past is true. For it was first present, then it has passed for us; so that faith in past things is the apprehension of a past thing, and hope in future things the apprehension of a future thing. And not only the Platonists but also the Stoics say that assents rest with us.

Every opinion, then, and judgment, supposition, and learning, by which we live and are always in company with the human race, is an assent; and this would be nothing other than faith. And unbelief, being a departure from faith, shows that assent and faith are possible; for a privation of what does not exist could not be spoken of. And if one examines the truth, he will find that man is by nature misled into assenting to falsehood, but has starting points for faith in the truth. The virtue, then, that holds the church together, as the Shepherd says, is faith, through which the elect of God are saved; and the manly one is self-control. And following them are simplicity, knowledge, innocence, reverence, love; and all these are daughters of faith. And again: “Faith leads, fear builds up, and love perfects.” The Lord, then, he says, must be feared for building up, but not the devil for destruction. And conversely: the works of the Lord, that is, the commandments, must be loved and done; but the works of the devil must be feared and not done. For the fear of God trains and restores to love; but the fear of the works of the devil has hatred dwelling with it. The same writer also says that repentance is great understanding; for the one who repents of what he has done no longer does or says it, but, tormenting his own soul for the sins he committed, he does good. Forgiveness of sins, then, differs from repentance; but both show what rests with us.

The one who has received the forgiveness of sins, then, must sin no longer. For as to the first and only repentance for sins (this would be for sins committed before, in the first, pagan life, I mean the life in ignorance), at once there is set before those who have been called this repentance, which cleanses the place of the soul from offenses, so that faith may be founded. But the Lord, who knows the heart and foreknows the future, foresaw from the beginning both the changeableness of man and the treachery and cunning of the devil: how, jealous of man for the forgiveness of sins, he would contrive occasions of sin for the servants of God, wickedly and shrewdly, so that they too might fall together with him.

He therefore, being very merciful, gave to those who, even in faith, fall into some offense, a second repentance, so that if anyone should be tempted after the calling, being overpowered and deceived, he might receive one more repentance not to be repented of. “For if we sin willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment and a zeal of fire that will consume the adversaries.” But continual and repeated repentances for sins differ in nothing from those who have not believed at all, except only in being aware that they sin. And I do not know which of the two is worse, to sin knowingly, or, having repented of one's sins, to offend again. For in both cases sin appears by being convicted: in the one it is condemned by the worker of lawlessness in the act itself; in the other, by one who foreknows what he is about to do and undertakes it as bad. And the one perhaps gratifies anger and pleasure, not ignorant of what he gratifies; but the one who, repenting of what he gratified, then runs back again to pleasure, is joined with the one who sins willfully from the beginning. For the one who does again what he repented of, having condemned what he does,

does this willingly. The one, then, who has come to faith from the Gentiles and that former life has obtained forgiveness of sins once. But the one who has sinned after this and then repents, even if he obtains pardon, ought to feel shame, since he is no longer washed for the forgiveness of sins. For the one who is born, “not of blood nor of the will of the flesh,” but anew in the Spirit, must abandon not only the idols he formerly deified, but also the works of his former life. And this would mean not falling again into the same offense and repenting of it. For repenting often is, on the contrary, a practice of sins and a readiness for fickleness from lack of discipline.

The appearance of repentance, then, not repentance, is to ask often for pardon for the offenses we often commit. “But righteousness cuts straight blameless ways,” Scripture has cried out. And again: “The righteousness of the innocent will set his way straight.” Yes indeed, “As a father pities his sons, the Lord has pitied those who fear him,” David writes. “Those who sow in tears will reap in joy,” those who confess in repentance; “for blessed are all who fear the Lord.” Do you see the blessing like those in the Gospel? “Do not be afraid,” it says, “when a man becomes rich, and when the glory of his house is increased; for when he dies he will take nothing with him, nor will his glory go down with him.” “But I, in your mercy, will enter your house; I will worship toward your holy temple in fear of you. Lord, lead me in your righteousness.” Impulse, then, is a movement of the mind toward or away from something; and passion is an excessive impulse, or one exceeding the measures of reason, or an impulse carried away and disobedient to reason. Passions, then, are a movement of the soul contrary to nature, in disobedience to reason (and departure, frenzy, and disobedience rest with us, as obedience also rests with us; which is why voluntary acts are judged). Indeed, if one should go through each of the passions one by one, he would find them to be irrational desires.