Miscellanies 5.8.44–5.10.66

Not only the most rational of the Egyptians, but also as many of the other barbarians as desired philosophy, emulated the symbolic form. They say, at any rate, that Idanthyrsus too, king of the Scythians, as Pherecydes of Syros relates, threatening war on Darius when he had crossed the Ister, sent a symbol instead of letters: a mouse, a frog, a bird, an arrow, a plow. There being perplexity about these, as was to be expected, Orontopatas the commander of a thousand said that they would surrender the rule, inferring the dwellings from the mouse, the waters from the frog, the air from the bird, the weapons from the arrow, and the land from the plow. But Xiphodres interpreted it the opposite way; for he said: “Unless we fly up like birds, or dive into the earth like mice, or into the water like frogs, we will not escape their arrows; for we are not masters of the land.” And they say that Anacharsis the Scythian, when sleeping, held his genitals with his left hand and his mouth with his right, hinting that one must master both, but that it is greater to master the tongue than pleasure.

And why dwell on the barbarians, when it is possible to show that the Greeks themselves made great use of concealment? Androcydes the Pythagorean, at any rate, says that the so-called Ephesian letters, famous among many, have the order of symbols, and that Askion means darkness, for it has no shadow; Kataskion light, since it illuminates the shadow; Lix is the earth by an ancient name, Tetrax the year because of the seasons, Damnameneus the sun that subdues, and ta Aisia the true voice. The symbol signifies, then, how divine things are ordered: as darkness to light, the sun to the year, and the earth to every kind of natural birth. Dionysius Thrax the grammarian too, in his work On Expression, says word for word about the symbol of the little wheels: “Some signified actions not only by speech but also by symbols: by speech, as the so-called Delphic precepts, ‘Nothing in excess’ and ‘Know yourself’ and the like; by symbols, as the wheel turning in the precincts of the gods, drawn from the Egyptians, and that of the branches given to worshipers.” For Orpheus the Thracian says: “Of all the works that concern mortals on earth, … none has one fixed lot in the mind, but all things circle around, and it is not lawful to stand in one place; but each keeps, as they began, an equal share of the course.” The branches are either a symbol of the first food, or, so that the many may know that the fruits flourish and grow throughout, lasting a very long time, while they themselves have received a short span of life, for this reason they wish the branches to be given; and perhaps also so that they may know that, as these are burned, so they too must quickly leave this life and become the work of fire.

Most useful, then, is the form of symbolic interpretation for many things, contributing to right theology, to piety, to the display of intelligence, to the practice of brevity, and to the showing of wisdom. “For it belongs to the wise man,” says Didymus the grammarian, “to use symbolic expression skillfully, and to recognize what is indicated by it.” Indeed the elementary teaching of children has included the interpretation of the four elements. For it says the Phrygians call water bedy, as Orpheus too: “And bedy, the bright water of the nymphs, is poured down.” And Dion the sacrificer also clearly writes: “And taking bedy, pour it over your hands and turn to the inspection of the victims.” Conversely the comic poet Philyllius understands bedy as the air, being life-giving (biodōros), in these words: “I pray to draw in the saving bedy,” which is the greatest part of health, to draw in pure air, not polluted.

Neanthes of Cyzicus too agrees with this opinion, writing that the priests of the Macedonians in their prayers invoke bedy to be propitious to them and their children, which they interpret as air. Some have ignorantly taken zaps for fire, from zesis (“boiling”); but the sea is so called, as Euphorion says in his Replies to Theodoridas: “And zaps, destroyer of ships, rages by the rocks.” Likewise Dionysius Iambus: “The briny zaps of the raging sea groans around.” And likewise Cratinus the younger comic poet: “The zaps brings out shrimps and little fish.” And Simmias of Rhodes: “The briny zaps was the mother of the Ignetes and the Telchines.” Chthōn is the earth, spread out in size. And plēktron some take as the pole, others as the air, which strikes (plēssōn) and moves all things to nature and growth, or as what fills (plērōtikon) all things.

But these have not read Cleanthes the philosopher, who plainly calls the sun plēktron; for, striking its rays at its rising, as though striking the world, it leads the light on its harmonious course; and from the sun he indicates the other stars too. And sphinx is not the binding together of the universe and the revolution of the world, according to the poet Aratus, but perhaps it would be the spiritual tension that pervades and holds together the world; better to take it as the ether, which holds together and binds (sphingōn) all things, as Empedocles too says: “Come, I will tell you first … the beginning, from which all things now seen became clear, earth and the many-waved sea and moist air, Titan and ether binding all things round in a circle.” And Apollodorus of Corcyra says that these lines were chanted by Branchus the seer when purifying the Milesians from plague. For he, sprinkling the crowd with laurel branches, began the hymn thus: “Sing, O children, of the Far-Darter and the Far-Darting goddess”; and the people, so to speak, sang in response: “Bedy, zaps, chthōn, plēktron, sphinx; knaxzbich, thyptēs, phlegmo, drōps.” Callimachus too mentions the story in his Iambi. Knaxzbich is disease, by derivation from knaiein (“to wear away”) and destroy; and thypsai is to burn with a thunderbolt. Thespis the tragic poet, however, says that something else is signified by these, writing thus: “See, I pour for you knaxzbich, pressing the white from the nursing goats; see, mixing thyptēs, cheese, with red honey, I set it for you, two-horned Pan, on your holy altars; see, I pour for you the fiery phlegmos of Bromius.” He hints, I think, at the first, milky food of the soul from the twenty-four letters, after which comes solid milk, the food, and last the blood of the vine of the Word, the fiery wine, the joy that perfects the training. And drōps is the active Word, who from the first instruction to growth into a man, to the measure of stature, kindles and enlightens the man.

A third children's copy line is handed down too: “Marpte, sphinx, klōps, zbychthēdon.” It signifies, I think, that through the ordering of the elements and the world our way must go to the knowledge of more perfect things, eternal salvation being won by force and toil; for marpsai is to grasp, sphinx the harmony of the world, zbychthēdon indicates difficulty, and klōps the hidden knowledge of the Lord and the day. What then? Does not Epigenes too, in his work On the Poetry of Orpheus, setting out Orpheus's peculiar expressions, say that by “curved shuttles” plows are meant, by “warp threads” furrows; that “thread” allegorizes seed, and “tears of Zeus” means rain; that the “Fates” are the parts of the moon, the thirtieth day, the fifteenth, and the new moon, which is why Orpheus calls them “white-robed,” being parts of light; again, that “flowery” is spring, from its nature, “white” is night, from its rest, “Gorgonian” is the moon, from the face in it, and Aphrodite is the time when one must sow, in the theologian's language?

The Pythagoreans hinted at such things too, allegorizing the planets as the dogs of Persephone and the sea as the tear of Cronus. And we would find countless things upon countless spoken enigmatically by philosophers and poets, since whole books too display the writer's intention concealed, such as that of Heraclitus On Nature, who for this very reason is called “the Obscure.” Like this book is the theology of Pherecydes of Syros too. For Euphorion the poet, the Aetia of Callimachus, Lycophron's Alexandra, and the like are set before the children of grammarians as an exercise in interpretation.

It is not unlikely, then, that the barbarian philosophy too, of which we propose to speak, prophesies in some places hiddenly and through symbols, as has been shown. Such, at any rate, are Moses' exhortations, these familiar ones: “You shall not eat the pig, nor the eagle, nor the hawk, nor the raven.” For the pig indicates pleasure-loving and unclean desire for food and sex, greedy and polluted licentiousness, always itching, material, lying in mud, fattened for slaughter and destruction. Conversely he permits eating what parts the hoof and chews the cud, showing, says Barnabas, that one must “cling to those who fear the Lord, and to those who meditate in their heart on the distinction of the word they have received, to those who speak the Lord's ordinances and keep them, to those who know that meditation is a work of gladness and who ruminate on the word of the Lord. And what is parting the hoof? That the righteous man both walks in this world and awaits the holy age.” Then he adds: “See how well Moses legislated. But how could they understand or grasp these things? We, rightly understanding the commandments, speak as the Lord wished. That is why he circumcised our hearing and our hearts, so that we might understand these things.”

Indeed, when it says, “You shall not eat the eagle, the hawk, the kite, and the raven,” it says, “You shall not cling to or become like such men, who do not know how to provide their food by toil and sweat, but live by plunder and lawlessness.” For the eagle indicates plunder, the hawk injustice, and the raven greed. And it is written: “With the innocent man you will be innocent, and with the chosen you will be chosen, and with the crooked you will be perverse.” It is fitting, then, to cling to the saints, because “those who cling to them will be sanctified.” From this Theognis writes: “From the good you will learn good things; but if you mix with the bad, you will lose even the mind you have.” And when again it says in the song, “For he has gloriously triumphed; horse and rider he threw into the sea,” the many-legged, beastly, and impetuous passion, desire, together with the charioteer mounted on it who has given the reins to pleasures, he threw into the sea, casting them into the disorders of the world.

So Plato too, in his work On the Soul, says that the charioteer and the horse that rebelled (the irrational part, which is divided in two, into anger and desire) fall down. For this reason the myth too hints that Phaethon fell through the unruliness of his horses. Indeed, in the case of Joseph too: his brothers, jealous of him as young and foreseeing more in knowledge, stripped him of his many-colored tunic, took him, and threw him into a pit; “and the pit was empty; it had no water”: casting away the good man's varied knowledge from love of learning, or, using bare faith according to the law, they threw him into the pit empty of water, to sell him into Egypt, empty of the divine word. And the pit was empty of knowledge, into which the wise man, thrown and stripped of his knowledge, seemed like his brothers, bare of knowledge, escaping notice. In another sense the many-colored garment would be desire, leading into a yawning chasm. “And if anyone opens a pit or digs one,” it says, “and does not cover it, and a calf or a donkey falls in there, the owner of the pit shall pay silver and give it to his neighbor, and the dead animal shall be his.”

Here apply to me that prophecy: “The ox knew its owner and the donkey its lord's manger; but Israel has not understood me.” So that none of these, falling into the knowledge taught by you and becoming a hearer of the truth, may mishear and fall away, be careful, it says, in the use of the word; and shut off from those who approach irrationally the living spring in the depth, but hold out drink to those who thirst for the truth. Hiding it, then, from those not able to receive the depth of knowledge, cover the pit. The owner of the pit, then, the knower himself, will be penalized, it says, bearing the blame for the one who stumbled or was swallowed by the greatness of the word, being still small-minded; or for having moved the worker to contemplation and drawn him away by the pretext of an improvised faith. And he will give silver, rendering account and reckoning to the almighty will.

This, then, is the type of the law and the prophets up to John. And he, though he spoke more plainly, as no longer prophesying but now showing present the one proclaimed symbolically from the beginning, nevertheless says: “I am not worthy to loose the strap of the Lord's sandal.” For he confesses that he is not worthy to baptize so great a power; for those who purify must release the soul from the body and its sins, as the foot from its binding. Perhaps too he means the Savior's final, immediate activity toward us, that by his coming, hidden in the riddle of prophecy; for he who by his own sight showed the one prophesied, indicating that the coming long on its way into the open had arrived, truly loosed the end of the oracles of the arrangement, uncovering the meaning of the symbols. The practices of the Romans in wills too have their place: the scales and copper coins because of justice, the manumissions, and the touching of the ears; the first so that it may be done justly, the second for the division of the value, and the last so that whoever is present, as though a burden were laid on him, may stand and hear and take the place of a mediator.

But, it seems, I have unawares digressed further than necessary through eagerness to prove. For life would fail me in setting out the multitude of those who philosophized symbolically. For the sake of memory, then, and brevity, and of being drawn up toward the truth, such are the writings of the barbarian philosophy. For they wish the truly existing philosophy and true theology to belong only to those who have often associated with them and given proof both in faith and in their whole life. Indeed they wish us to need an interpreter and guide; for so, they judged, they would be studied more eagerly and benefit those worthy of them, and these would be undeceived, receiving them from those who know well. Besides, all things that appear through some veil show the truth greater and more dignified, as fruits seen through water and forms through veils, which lend them further suggestions. For full light exposes, besides making plain things understood in one way only.

It is possible, then, to take several meanings, as indeed we do, from what is said with concealment. This being so, the inexperienced and ignorant go astray, but the one who knows grasps it. Indeed they did not wish all things to be set out freely for anyone who happens by, nor the good things of wisdom to be shared with those whose soul has not been purified even in a dream; for it is not lawful to hold out to all comers what was acquired with so many struggles, nor to recount the mysteries of the Word to the profane. They say, at any rate, that Hipparchus the Pythagorean, accused of writing out the teachings of Pythagoras plainly, was expelled from the school, and a monument was set up for him as for a dead man. That is why in the barbarian philosophy too those who fall away from the doctrines and subject their mind to the passions of the soul are called dead. “For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness,” according to the divine apostle, “or what fellowship has light with darkness? What agreement has Christ with Beliar? Or what portion has a believer with an unbeliever?” “For the honors of the Olympians and of the dead are separate.” “That is why come out from their midst and be separate, says the Lord, and touch nothing unclean; and I will receive you, and I will be a father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters.”

Not only, then, did the Pythagoreans and Plato conceal many things, but the Epicureans too say that they have some secrets from Epicurus, and do not allow everyone to read those writings. The Stoics too say that some things were written by Zeno the first which they do not readily allow students to read, unless they have first given proof whether they philosophize genuinely. And the followers of Aristotle say that some of his writings are esoteric, others common and exoteric. And those who established the mysteries, being philosophers, buried their own doctrines in myths so that they would not be plain to all. Then, if some, having concealed human opinions, prevented the ignorant from reading them, was it not more fitting above all that the truly holy and blessed contemplation of what really is should be concealed? However, neither the things of the barbarian philosophy, nor the Pythagorean myths, nor those in Plato, of Er the Armenian in the Republic, of Aeacus and Rhadamanthus in the Gorgias, of Tartarus in the Phaedo, of Prometheus and Epimetheus in the Protagoras, and besides these of the war of the Atlanteans and the Athenians in the Atlanticus, are to be allegorized simply in every word, but only in what signifies the general meaning; and these we would find indicated through symbols under the veil of allegory.

Yes, and the school of Pythagoras too, with its twofold fellowship with its disciples, calling the many “hearers” and certain others “mathematicians,” those who genuinely laid hold of philosophy, hinted that one part was spoken openly and the other was hidden from the many. And perhaps that twofold kind of teaching of the Peripatetics as well, the one called in their discourses “probable” and the other “scientific,” is not far from distinguishing opinion, which rests on reputation, from truth. “Nor shall the flowers of glorious honor force you to take them up from mortals, on condition that you say more than is holy.” The Ionian Muses, at any rate, say expressly that the many, who think themselves wise, follow the singers of the peoples and use their customs, knowing that “many are bad, and few good,” while the best pursue glory. “For the best,” it says, “choose one thing in place of all, ever-flowing glory among mortals; but the many are glutted like cattle,” measuring happiness by the belly and the genitals and the most shameful things in us. And the great Parmenides of Elea introduces the teaching of two ways, writing something like this: “both the unshaken heart of persuasive Truth, and the opinions of mortals, in which there is no true trust.”

Fittingly, then, the inspired apostle says: “By revelation the mystery was made known to me, as I wrote before briefly, by which, when you read, you can perceive my understanding in the mystery of Christ, which in other generations was not made known to the sons of men as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets.” For there is also a learning of the perfect, about which he says, writing to the Colossians: “We do not cease praying for you and asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, to walk worthily of the Lord, pleasing him in all things, bearing fruit in every good work and growing in the knowledge of God, strengthened with all power according to the might of his glory.” And again he says: “According to the stewardship of God given to me for you, to fulfill the word of God, the mystery hidden from the ages and from the generations, which has now been made manifest to his saints, to whom God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles.”

So the mysteries hidden until the apostles and handed down by them as they received them from the Lord (hidden, that is, in the old covenant), which “have now been made manifest to the saints,” are one thing; and another is “the riches of the glory of the mystery among the Gentiles,” which is faith and hope in Christ, whom elsewhere he has called the “foundation.” And again, as if eager to display knowledge, he writes thus: “admonishing every person in all wisdom, that we may present every person perfect in Christ.” Not every person without qualification, since then no one would be an unbeliever; nor does he say that everyone who believes is perfect in Christ; but he says “every person” as if to say the whole person, purified, as it were, in body and soul. For he adds expressly, because knowledge does not belong to all: “knit together in love and into all the riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the knowledge of the mystery of God in Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” “Continue steadfastly in prayer, watching in it with thanksgiving.” And thanksgiving is made not only for the soul and spiritual goods, but also for the body and the goods of the body.

And he reveals still more clearly that knowledge does not belong to all, adding: “praying at the same time for us too, that God may open to us a door to speak the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am also in bonds, that I may make it manifest as I ought to speak.” For there were certain things handed down without writing. So, to the Hebrews he says: “For though by this time you ought to be teachers” (as having grown old in the old covenant), “you again have need that someone teach you what are the elements of the beginning of the oracles of God, and you have become such as need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is an infant,” having believed only the first lessons; “but solid food belongs to the perfect, who through practice have their senses trained to distinguish good and evil. Therefore, leaving the word of the beginning of Christ, let us press on to perfection.”

But Barnabas too, who himself preached the word together with the apostle in the ministry to the Gentiles, says: “I write to you more simply, so that you may understand.” Then, going on, and now setting out more clearly a trace of the tradition of knowledge, he says: “What does the other prophet, Moses, say to them? ‘Behold, thus says the Lord God: Enter into the good land which the Lord God swore, the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and inherit it, a land flowing with milk and honey.’ What does knowledge say? Learn. Hope, it says, in Jesus, who is to be manifested to you in the flesh. For a human being is earth that suffers; for the forming of Adam came from the face of the earth. What then does it mean, ‘into the good land, a land flowing with milk and honey’? Blessed be our Lord, brothers, who has put in us wisdom and understanding of his secrets. For the prophet says: ‘Who will understand the parable of the Lord, except one who is wise and knowing and loves his Lord?’” For it belongs to few to grasp these things. For it was not out of jealousy, it says, that the Lord commanded in a certain gospel: “My mystery is for me and for the sons of my house,” making the election in safety and freedom from care, so that the election, receiving what belongs to those whom he chose, might be beyond envy. For the one who does not have knowledge of the good is evil, since one is good, the Father; and not to know the Father is death, as to know him is eternal life, by sharing in the power of the incorruptible. And not to be corrupted is to share in divinity, while departure from the knowledge of God brings corruption.

Again the prophet: “And I will give you treasures hidden, dark, unseen, that they may know that I am the Lord God.” David too sings things like these: “For behold, you have loved truth; the unclear and hidden things of your wisdom you have shown to me.” “For day to day pours forth speech” (what is written plainly), “and night to night proclaims knowledge” (what is hidden mystically), “and there are no words or speech whose voices are not heard” by God, who said: “Will anyone do something in secret, and I not see him?” For this reason discipleship, which has made manifest what was hidden, has been called illumination, since the Teacher alone has uncovered the lid of the ark; the opposite of what the poets say, that Zeus closed the jar of good things and opened that of evil ones. “I know that when I come to you,” says the apostle, “I shall come in the fullness of the blessing of Christ,” calling the spiritual gift and the tradition of knowledge, which he longs to impart to them when he is present with them (for these things could not be disclosed through a letter), “the fullness of Christ”: “according to the revelation of the mystery kept silent through eternal ages, but now made manifest through the prophetic Scriptures, according to the command of the eternal God, made known to all the nations for the obedience of faith,” that is, to those of the nations who believe that it is; but to a few of these it is shown also what the things in the mystery are.

Fittingly, then, Plato too, dealing with God in his Letters, says: “I must speak to you in riddles, so that, if the tablet should suffer anything in the folds of sea or land, the one who reads it may not understand.” For the God of the universe, who is above every word and every thought and every conception, could never be handed down in writing, being ineffable in his power. Plato himself has shown this very thing, saying: “Considering these things, then, take care that you never regret what has now been let out unworthily. The greatest safeguard is not to write but to learn by heart; for it is not possible, it is not possible, that what is written should not get out.” Akin to these things, the holy apostle Paul says, preserving the prophetic and truly ancient concealment from which the fine doctrines flowed to the Greeks: “But we speak wisdom among the perfect, yet not the wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age, who are being brought to nothing; but we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom.”

Then, going on, he teaches in this way the caution to be used in letting words out to the many: “And I, brothers, could not speak to you as to spiritual people, but as to people of flesh, as to infants in Christ. I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able; and even now you are not yet able; for you are still fleshly.” If, then, milk has been called by the apostle the food of infants, and solid food that of the perfect, milk will be understood as elementary instruction, the first food, as it were, of the soul, and solid food as the contemplation of the highest mysteries: these are the flesh and blood of the Word, that is, the apprehension of the divine power and essence. “Taste and see that the Lord is good,” it says; for in this way he imparts himself to those who partake of such food more spiritually, when indeed the soul now nourishes itself, according to the truth-loving Plato; for the eating and drinking of the divine Word is knowledge of the divine essence. That is why Plato also says in the second book of the Republic: “having sacrificed not a pig but some great and hard-to-obtain victim,” so one ought to inquire about God. And the apostle writes: “For Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed,” truly a victim hard to obtain, the Son of God consecrated for us.