Miscellanies 4.25.155–4.26.172

“Blessed is he who has gained learning in inquiry, not rushing to the harm of citizens or to unjust deeds, but beholding the ageless order of immortal nature, where and … how and in what way it was composed. To such men the practice of shameful deeds never clings.” Fittingly, then, Plato too says that the one who contemplates the Ideas will live as a god among men; and mind is the place of the Ideas, and God is mind. He has said, then, that the one who contemplates the invisible God lives as a god among men. And in the Sophist Socrates called the Eleatic stranger, being a dialectician, a god, such as the gods “who, like strangers from abroad, visit the cities.” For when the soul, rising above becoming, is by itself and associates with the forms, like the leader of the chorus in the Theaetetus, having become already like an angel, it will be with Christ, being contemplative, always looking to the will of God; truly “he alone has understanding, while the others flit like shadows.” For “the dead bury their own dead.” That is why Jeremiah says: “I will fill it with earthborn dead, whom my anger struck.”

God, then, being indemonstrable, is not an object of scientific knowledge; but the Son is wisdom, knowledge, truth, and whatever else is akin to these; and indeed he admits demonstration and exposition. All the powers of the Spirit, becoming collectively one thing, contribute to the same, the Son; but he is not fully expressed by the concept of each of his powers. And the Son does not become simply one as one, nor many as parts, but as all one. Hence he is also all things; for he is the circle of all the powers rolled and united into one.

That is why the Word is called Alpha and Omega, of whom alone the end becomes the beginning and ends again at the original beginning, nowhere admitting a break. That is why believing in him and through him is to become one, being united in him without distraction; while disbelieving is to be in doubt, to stand apart, and to be divided. That is why the Lord says this: “Every foreign son, uncircumcised in heart and uncircumcised in flesh,” that is, unclean in body and spirit, “shall not enter the holy places among the foreigners in the midst of the house of Israel, but only the Levites.” And he called foreigners those who did not wish to believe but chose to disbelieve.

Only those who live purely, then, are truly priests of God. That is why, though all the tribes were circumcised, those anointing high priests, kings, and prophets were counted holier. For this reason he commands them not to touch the dead nor to go in to the departed; not as though the body were polluted, but because sin and disobedience are fleshly, bodily, dead, and therefore abominable. Only to father and mother, son and daughter, when they have died, is the priest allowed to go in, because these alone are kin of flesh and seed, from whom the priest has received the immediate cause of his entry into life. And these are purified for seven days, the days through which creation is completed; for on the seventh the rest is celebrated, and on the eighth he brings a propitiation, as is written in Ezekiel, according to which propitiation one may receive the promise.

Perfect purification, I think, is faith through the law and the prophets into the gospel; and propitiation is purity through all obedience, together with laying aside worldly things, up to the thankful surrender of the tent at the release of the soul. Whether, then, it is time which, through the seven numbered periods, restores to the highest rest, or seven heavens, which some count by ascent, or whether the fixed region, which borders on the intelligible world, is called the eighth, he says that the one who knows must rise out of becoming and sin. At any rate, after the seven days the victims are sacrificed for sins; for there is still caution about change, and it touches the seventh cycle.

Job the righteous himself says: “Naked I came out of my mother's womb, naked I shall also depart there”; not naked of possessions (for this is small and common), but as a righteous man he departs naked of vice and sin and of the formless image that follows those who have lived unjustly. For this was the meaning of what was said, “Unless you turn and become like children,” pure in flesh and holy in soul by abstaining from evil deeds; God showing that he wishes us to be such as he has also begotten us from the womb of water. For birth succeeding birth by progress wishes to make immortal; “but the lamp of the ungodly will be quenched.”

Indeed the all-wise Moses, using repetition strikingly, has indicated the purity in both body and soul which the one who knows pursues, describing the incorruption of both body and soul in the case of Rebecca thus: “The virgin was beautiful; she was a virgin; no man had known her.” And Rebecca is interpreted “glory of God,” and the glory of God is incorruption. This is true righteousness: not to be greedy in either, but to be wholly a sanctified temple of the Lord. Righteousness, then, is peace and stability of life, to which the Lord dismissed, saying, “Go in peace.” For Salem is interpreted “peace,” of which our Savior is recorded as king, as Moses says: “Melchizedek king of Salem, the priest of God Most High,” who gave the wine and the bread as sanctified food, as a type of the Eucharist. And indeed Melchizedek is interpreted “righteous king”; and righteousness and peace are synonymous.

Basilides supposes that Righteousness and her daughter Peace, as existing beings, remain arranged in the Ogdoad. But we must pass from the more natural matters to the plainer ethical ones; for the account of those will follow after the treatise in hand. The Savior himself, then, simply, as in the tragedy, initiates us, “seeing those who see, and he gives the rites.” And if you ask, “What form do these rites have for you?” you will hear again: “It is not permitted for the uninitiated among mortals to know.” And if someone busies himself about what they are, let him hear again: “It is not lawful for you to hear, but they are worth knowing; the god's rites hate the one who practices impiety.” But God is without beginning, the perfect beginning of all things, maker of the beginning. Insofar as he is being, he is the beginning of the physical field; insofar as he is the Good, of the ethical; insofar as he is mind, of the logical and critical field. That is why the Word alone is teacher, the Son of the Father, who is Mind, who educates man.

Unreasonably, then, do those run down the formation of man and speak ill of the body, not seeing that man's structure was made upright for the contemplation of heaven, that the organs of the senses contribute to knowledge, and that the limbs and parts are fitted for the good, not for pleasure. Hence this dwelling becomes able to receive the soul, most precious to God, and is counted worthy of the Holy Spirit through the sanctification of soul and body, perfected by the Savior's equipping. And indeed the mutual implication of the three virtues is found in the man who knows, dealing with the divine ethically, physically, and logically. For wisdom is knowledge of divine and human things, justice the harmony of the parts of the soul, and holiness the service of God. And if someone should say that the flesh, and through it birth, is slandered, citing Isaiah: “All flesh is grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass; the grass withered and the flower fell; but the word of the Lord remains forever,” let him hear the Spirit interpreting the question through Jeremiah: “And I scattered them like brushwood blown by the wind into the desert.

This is the lot and portion of your disobedience, says the Lord. As you forgot me and hoped in lies, I too will uncover your back parts before your face, and your dishonor will be seen, your adultery and your neighing,” and so on. For this is the flower of grass: walking according to the flesh and being fleshly, according to the apostle, being in sins. The soul is admitted to be the better part of man and the body the lesser; but neither is the soul good by nature nor the body evil by nature; nor is what is not good at once evil. For there are intermediate things, and among the intermediate, things preferred and things not preferred. The composition of man, being in the sensible world, had to consist of things different, but not opposed: body and soul.

So good actions, as better, are always attached to the better, spiritual part, while pleasure-loving and sinful ones are ascribed to the lesser, sinful part. For example, the soul of the wise man and the one who knows, as though lodging as a guest in the body, behaves toward it with dignity and respect, not with passion, ready to leave the tent whenever the time of departure calls. “I am a sojourner on the earth and a stranger with you,” it says. And from this Basilides has taken occasion to say that the elect is foreign to the world, as though being supramundane by nature. But this is not so. For all things belong to one God, and no one could be foreign to the world by nature, since the substance is one and God is one; but the elect lives as a stranger, knowing that all things are to be acquired and to be relinquished.

The three kinds of goods the Peripatetics speak of he uses, and the body too, as someone setting out on a long journey uses inns and lodgings along the road, caring for and adorning the place where he stays, but leaving the dwelling and the possession, as also the use, without passion, following gladly the one who leads him out of life, never turning back for any reason, having given thanks for his sojourn, and blessing his departure, welcoming the dwelling in heaven. “For we know that if our earthly house, the tent, is dissolved, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, longing to put on our dwelling from heaven, if indeed, having put it on, we will not be found naked. For we walk by faith, not by sight,” as the apostle says. “And we are well pleased rather to be away from the body and at home with God.” “Rather” is in comparison; and comparison is of things falling under likeness, as the braver of the brave is braver, but the bravest of cowards.

That is why he added: “Therefore we make it our aim, whether away or at home, to be pleasing to him,” clearly to the one God, whose work and creation all things are, both the world and what is above the world. I admire Epicharmus, who says clearly: “Being pious in mind, you would suffer no evil when you die; the spirit remains above in heaven.” And the lyric poet, who sings: “The souls of the ungodly flit under heaven on earth in murderous pains under inescapable yokes of evils; but those of the pious, dwelling in heaven, sing the great Blessed One in songs and hymns.” So the soul is not sent down here from heaven to worse things, for God works all things toward the better; but the soul that has chosen the best life from God and righteousness exchanges earth for heaven.

Fittingly, then, Job, having attained knowledge, said: “Now I know that you can do all things, and nothing is impossible for you. For who tells me what I did not know, great and marvelous things that I did not understand? And I despised myself, considering myself earth and ashes.” For the one in ignorance is sinful and earth and ashes; but the one established in knowledge, being made like God as far as he can, is already spiritual and so elect. And that Scripture calls the foolish and disobedient “earth,” the prophet Jeremiah will make clear, speaking against Joachim and his brothers: “Earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord; write this man down as an outcast man.”

And another prophet says: “Hear, O heaven, and give ear, O earth,” calling understanding “hearing,” and “heaven” the soul of the one who knows, who has taken up the contemplation of heaven and divine things and so has become an Israelite; while conversely he called “earth” the one who has chosen ignorance and hardness of heart, and named “give ear” from the organs of hearing, the ears, assigning fleshly things to those devoted to sensible things. These are the ones of whom the prophet Micah says: “Hear, peoples, the word of the Lord, you who dwell with pains.” And Abraham said, “By no means, Lord, you who judge the earth”; since the one who has disbelieved, according to the saving word, “has already been judged.”

And in the Kingdoms the judgment and sentence of the Lord is written thus: “God hears the righteous, but does not save the ungodly,” because they do not wish to know God; “for the Almighty will not do what is wrong.” What do the heresies still say against this saying, when Scripture proclaims the Almighty to be a good God and not responsible for vice and injustice, if ignorance arises from not knowing, and God does nothing wrong? “For this is our God,” it says, “and there is no savior besides him.” “For there is no injustice with God,” according to the apostle. And the prophet teaches still more clearly the will of God and the progress of knowledge in these words: “And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you, but to fear the Lord your God, walk in all his ways, love him, and serve him alone?” This he asks of you, who have the power to choose salvation.

Why, then, do the Pythagoreans command that one pray aloud? It seems to me not because they thought the divine could not hear those who speak quietly, but because they wished prayers to be just, such as no one would be ashamed to make with many knowing. We will treat of prayer at the proper time as the discussion proceeds; but we ought to have works that cry aloud, as walking in the day. “For let your works shine.” “And behold a man and his works before his face.” “For behold God and his works.” The one who knows must imitate God as far as he can. And the poets too seem to me to call the elect among them “godlike,” “divine,” “equal to gods,” “equal to Zeus in counsel,” “having counsels like the gods,” and “godlike,” nibbling at the “image and likeness.”

Euripides says: “Golden wings are about my back, and the lovely sandals of the Sirens are fitted on; I will go into the wide ether, lifted up, to join Zeus.” But I would pray that the Spirit of Christ would give me wings to my Jerusalem. For the Stoics too say that heaven is properly a city, but the things here on earth are no longer cities; for they are called so, but are not. For a city is something good, and the people a refined body and multitude of men governed by law, as the church is by the Word, a city on earth impregnable and free from tyranny, the divine will on earth as in heaven. The poets too build images of this city in their writings; for the Hyperborean and Arimaspian cities and the Elysian fields are commonwealths of the righteous. And we know Plato's city too, laid up as a pattern in heaven.