Miscellanies 7.14.84–7.15.92

Let these things, then, be said to the Greeks about the one who knows, in seed form and as briefly as possible. But it must be understood that if the believer does one or even two of these things rightly, he does not do so in all things together, nor with the highest understanding, as the one who knows does. And indeed, concerning what we may call the freedom from passion of the one who knows, by which the perfection of the believer, advancing through love, arrives “at the perfect man, at the measure of stature,” being made like God and having become truly “equal to the angels,” many other testimonies from Scripture come to mind that could be set out. But I think it better to put off such ambition because of the length of the discourse, leaving it to those who are willing to toil and to work out the doctrines by a selection of the Scriptures. One, however, I will mention very briefly, so as not to leave the topic without some mark. For the divine apostle says in the first letter to the Corinthians: “Does any of you, having a dispute with another, dare to go to law before the unjust and not before the saints? Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world?” and what follows. Since the passage is very long, we will use the apostle's apt expressions and, paraphrasing the saying very briefly and in summary, set out the sense of the apostle's words, in which he sketches the perfection of the one who knows. For he does not only set the one who knows on the ground of suffering wrong rather than doing wrong, but also teaches him to bear no grudge, not permitting him even to pray against the one who has wronged him; for he knows that the Lord plainly commanded us “to pray for enemies.” “To go to law before the unjust,” then, he says, means nothing else than that the one who has been wronged appears to wish to retaliate and to want to do wrong in turn, which is equally to do wrong himself. And to say that some wish “to go to law before the saints” indicates those who ask in prayer that their wrongdoers be repaid for their greed; the second are better than the first, but not yet free from passion, unless, having become completely free from grudges according to the Lord's teaching, they pray even for their enemies.

It is good, then, that they too should gain a right mind through the repentance that leads to faith. For even if the truth seems to have enemies in those who are jealous of it, it is not itself hostile to anyone. For “God makes his sun shine on the just and the unjust,” and he sent the Lord himself to the just and the unjust. And the one who strives to be made like God, through his great freedom from grudges “forgiving seventy times seven” (meaning, as it were, through the whole of life and the whole cycle of the world, which is signified by the numbering in sevens), is kind to everyone, even if someone wrongs the one who knows for the whole time he lives in the flesh. For he thinks it right for the good man not only to leave to others the judgment of those who have wronged him; he wants the righteous man even to ask those judges for the forgiveness of sins for those who have offended against him. And reasonably so, since those who try to do him wrong gain an advantage only over what is external and bodily, even if it goes as far as death, and none of this belongs to the one who knows. How could anyone judge the apostate angels, if he himself has become an apostate from the freedom from grudges that the gospel teaches? “Why do you not rather suffer wrong?” he says; “why do you not rather let yourselves be defrauded? But you do wrong,” clearly by praying against those who offend through ignorance, “and you defraud” those against whom you pray, as far as it depends on you, of God's love for humanity and his goodness. “And that brothers,” meaning not only those in the faith but also proselytes. For whether the one who is now hostile will later believe,

we do not yet know. From this it is clearly gathered that, even if not all are brothers, they must at least seem to us to be brothers; and indeed that all human beings, being the work of one God and clothed with one image upon one substance, even if some happen to be more muddied than others, only the one who understands recognizes; and he reveres the activity of created things, through which in turn he reveres the will of God. “Or do you not know that the unjust will not inherit the kingdom of God?” The one who retaliates, then, does wrong, whether in deed, or in word, or in the very thought of wishing it, which the gospel rules out after the tutelage of the law. “And such were some of you,” that is, such as those still are whom you yourselves do not forgive. “But you were washed,” not simply as the rest were, but with knowledge you washed away the passions of the soul, so as to become like, as far as possible, the goodness of God's providence, through patience and freedom from grudges, shining the kindness of your words and deeds “on the just and the unjust,” as the sun does. The one who knows will achieve this either by greatness of mind or by imitating what is better; and a third cause is “Forgive, and it will be forgiven you,” the commandment, as it were, compelling us to salvation through its surpassing goodness. “But you were sanctified”; for the one who has reached this state is holy, falling into none of the passions in any way,

but as one already without flesh and become holy above this earth. That is why he says, “You were justified in the name of the Lord”: you were made by him, so to speak, righteous as he is; and “by the Holy Spirit” you were blended with him as far as possible. For surely, “All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of anything,” he says, does not mean that one may do or think or speak anything contrary to the gospel? “Food is for the belly and the belly for food,” which “God will destroy,” that is, those who think and live as though they were born to eat, instead of eating in order to live, as a secondary thing, while devoting themselves first of all to knowledge. And does he not say that these are, as it were, the fleshy parts of the holy body? The church of the Lord is allegorically called a body, the spiritual and holy chorus; and of it, those who are called by the name only, but do not live according to reason, are the flesh. “But the body,” this spiritual body, that is, the holy church, must in no way whatever be joined “to fornication,” nor to apostasy from the gospel into the life of the gentiles.

For the one who lives like a gentile in the church, whether in deed, or in word, or in thought itself, commits fornication against the church and against “his own body.” The one who in this way “joins himself to the harlot,” by acting contrary to the covenant, becomes another body, not holy, “one flesh” with a gentile life and another hope; “but he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit,” a “spiritual body,” a different kind of union. Such a one is wholly a son, a holy human being, free from passion, knowing, perfect, formed by the Lord's teaching, so that in deed and word and in spirit itself, close to the Lord, he may receive the dwelling due to one who has thus become fully a man. The example is enough for those who have ears. For one must not put the mystery on public display, but only indicate enough of it to remind those who have partaken of knowledge; they will also understand how the Lord's words were meant: “Be perfect as your Father,” perfectly forgiving sins, bearing no grudges, and living in the settled state of freedom from passion. For as we speak of a perfect physician and a perfect philosopher, so, I think, of a perfect one who knows; but none of these, great as it is, is taken as likeness to God. For we do not say, as the Stoics do, most impiously, that the virtue of a human being and of God is the same. Are we not, then, to become perfect as the Father wills? For it is impossible and inconceivable for anyone to become perfect as God is; but the Father wills that we, living in obedience to the gospel, become blamelessly perfect. If, then, since the saying is spoken elliptically, we supply what is lacking to complete the passage, leaving those able to understand to take up what has been left out, we will both know God's will and live, piously and nobly at once, in a manner worthy of the commandment.

Since it follows next to make a defense against the charges brought against us by Greeks and Jews, and since in some of the difficulties the heresies concerning the true teaching also join in with those already mentioned, it would be well first to clear away what stands in the way, and then, ready for the solutions of the difficulties, to go on to the next Miscellany. First, then, they bring this very point against us, saying that one ought not to believe because of the disagreement among the heresies; for with whom does the truth lie, when different people teach different doctrines? To them we say that among you Jews too, and among the most esteemed of the Greek philosophers, very many sects have arisen; and surely you do not say that one should hesitate to practice philosophy or to live as a Jew because of the disagreement of your sects with one another. Next, that heresies would be sown among the truth, like “the weeds” among the wheat, was said prophetically by the Lord, and what was foretold could not fail to happen; and the reason for this is that fault-finding follows everything that is good.

Shall we, then, if someone breaks agreements and goes back on the commitment he made to us, abstain from the truth ourselves because of the one who has been false to his commitment? Rather, as the good man must not lie or annul any of his promises, even if others break agreements, so it befits us in no way to transgress the church's rule; above all, we keep the confession about the most important matters, while they transgress it. One must believe, then, those who hold firmly to the truth. And, making broader use of this defense, one may say to them that physicians too, though they hold opposite opinions according to their own schools, heal equally well in practice. Does anyone, then, who is sick in body and needs treatment refuse a physician because of the schools in medicine? Neither, then, would anyone sick in soul and full of idols ever make the sects a pretext against becoming healthy and turning to God. Indeed, “it is because of those who are approved,” it says, “that there are heresies.” By “approved” he means either those who are coming to faith, approaching the Lord's teaching with more discernment, like approved money-changers who distinguish the Lord's genuine coin from the counterfeit, or those who have already been approved in the faith itself, both in life and in knowledge.

For this very reason, then, we need more care and forethought in examining how exactly one must live and what true piety is. For it is clear that, because the truth is difficult and hard to attain, inquiries have arisen; and from these come the self-loving and vainglorious heresies of those who have not truly learned or received the truth, but have taken up a conceit of knowledge. With greater care, then, we must search out the real truth, which alone is concerned with the God who truly is. And sweet discovery and remembrance follow toil. We must, then, strip for the labor of discovery because of the heresies, not give it up altogether. For when fruit is set before us, some real and ripe, and some made of wax to look as much like it as possible, we must not refuse both because they look alike, but distinguish the true from the apparent by comprehending contemplation and the most authoritative reasoning. And as, when there is one royal road and many others, some leading to a cliff, others to a rushing river or a sea that is deep close to shore, no one would hesitate to travel because the roads differ, but would take the safe, royal highway, so, when different people say different things about the truth, one must not give it up, but hunt more carefully for the most exact knowledge of it. For weeds grow up along with the vegetables in a garden; do farmers, then, give up tending their gardens? Having, then, many resources from nature for examining what is said, we ought to discover the consistency of the truth. That is why we are rightly condemned if we do not assent to what we ought to obey, and do not distinguish what is contradictory, unfitting, contrary to nature, and false from what is true, consistent, fitting, and according to nature; these resources must be used for full knowledge of the truth that truly is.

This excuse, then, is vain for the Greeks; for those who wish will be able to find the truth, while for those who put forward irrational excuses the judgment leaves no defense. Do they deny, or do they grant, that there is such a thing as demonstration? I think all would grant it, except those who abolish the senses. And if there is demonstration, one must come down to the inquiries and learn by demonstration from the Scriptures themselves how the heresies went astray, and how in the truth alone and in the ancient church are found both the most exact knowledge and the truly best school. Of those who turn aside from the truth, some try to deceive only themselves, and others their neighbors too. The first, who are called wise in their own conceit, thinking they have found the truth though they have no true demonstration, deceive themselves in thinking they have come to rest; and there is no small number of these, who turn away from inquiry because of the refutations and flee from teaching because of the condemnation. The others, who deceive those who come to them, are utterly unscrupulous; though aware that they know nothing, they nevertheless darken the truth with plausible arguments. But the nature of plausible arguments is one thing, I think, and that of true ones another. And we know that the heresies must be so named in contrast to the truth; from it the sophists have torn away certain things to the ruin of human beings, and have buried them in human arts they have invented, and they boast of presiding over a school rather than a church.