Miscellanies

… so that you may read them at hand and be able to keep them. Should writings not be left behind at all, or should they be left to some? And if the former, what is the use of writing? If the latter, is it to the earnest or to those who are not? It would be absurd to disapprove of the writing of the earnest and approve of those who are not such when they compose. Are Theopompus and Timaeus, then, to compose myths and blasphemies, and Epicurus too, the leader of atheism, and further Hipponax and Archilochus, to be permitted to write so shamefully, while the one who proclaims the truth is to be prevented from leaving benefit to later generations? It is good, I think, to leave good children to those who come after. Children are the offspring of bodies, but words are the offspring of the soul. Thus we call those who instructed us fathers; and wisdom is sociable and loves humanity. At any rate Solomon says, “My son, if you receive the utterance of my commandment and hide it with you, your ear will listen to wisdom.” He shows that the word, when sown, is hidden as in earth in the soul of the learner; and this is a spiritual planting.

That is why he adds, “And you will apply your heart to understanding, and apply it for the admonition of your son.” For, I think, soul joined with soul and spirit with spirit in the sowing of the word makes what is sown grow and come alive; and everyone who is instructed is a son in obedience to the one who instructs. “My son,” he says, “do not forget my laws.” But if knowledge is not for all, writings are to the many, as those who quote the proverb say, “an ass with a lyre.” At any rate pigs delight in mud rather than in clean water. That is why, says the Lord, “I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see and hearing they do not hear, and they do not understand”; not as though the Lord caused their ignorance (for it is not lawful to think so), but as having exposed prophetically the ignorance that existed and indicated that they would not understand what was said.

Now the Savior himself appears abundantly, distributing his goods to the servants according to the capacity of the one who receives, which must be increased by exercise, and returning again to settle accounts with them. Then he welcomed those who had increased his money, those faithful in little, and, promising to set them over much, commanded them to enter into the joy of the Lord; but to the one who had hidden the money entrusted to him for lending and returned idle the very sum he had received, he said, “Wicked and slothful servant, you ought to have put my money with the bankers, and when I came I would have received my own.” On this account the useless servant will be cast into the outer darkness. “You, then, be strong,” Paul also says, “in the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and what you have heard from me through many witnesses, entrust these to faithful men, who will be able to teach others as well.” And again: “Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a workman who does not need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.”

If, then, both proclaim the word, the one by writing, the other by voice, how are both not to be welcomed, having made faith active through love? But God is not to blame for the fault of the one who did not choose the best. Thus it is the task of some to lend out the word, and of others to test it and either choose it or not; and the judgment is decided in them. But the knowledge of proclaiming is already in a way angelic, benefiting whichever way it works, by hand or by tongue; for “the one who sows to the Spirit will reap eternal life from the Spirit; and let us not grow weary in doing good.” At any rate, by divine providence it contributes the greatest things to the one who meets with it: the beginning of faith, eagerness for right living, the impulse toward truth, a searching movement, a trace of knowledge; in short, it gives the starting points of salvation. And those who have been genuinely nourished on the words of truth, receiving provisions for eternal life, are given wings for heaven. Most wonderfully, then, the apostle says, “In everything commending ourselves as ministers of God, as poor yet making many rich, as having nothing and yet possessing everything; our mouth is open to you.” “I charge you,” he says, writing to Timothy, “before God and Christ Jesus and the elect angels, that you keep these things without prejudging, doing nothing by partiality.”

Both of these, then, must test themselves: the one whether he is worthy to speak and to leave written records, the other whether he is fit to hear and to read. So too, when some have divided the Eucharist, as is the custom, they allow each one of the people himself to take his portion. For the best guide to exact choice and avoidance is conscience; and its firm foundation is a right life together with fitting instruction; and to follow others who have already been tested and have succeeded is best both for understanding the truth and for carrying out the commandments. So “whoever eats the bread and drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup.”

It would follow, then, for the one who has undertaken to benefit his neighbors to consider whether he has leapt into teaching rashly, out of rivalry with some; whether his sharing of the word is for glory; whether he reaps only this reward, the salvation of his hearers; and whether the one who speaks through written records has avoided speaking to please and the charge of taking bribes. “For we never came with words of flattery, as you know,” says the apostle, “nor with a pretext for greed, God is witness; nor seeking glory from men, either from you or from others, though we could have been a burden as apostles of Christ; but we were gentle among you, as a nurse cherishes her own children.” In the same way, those who partake of the divine words must be watched, whether they come to this out of curiosity, to inspect it like the buildings of cities, or whether they approach to receive worldly goods, having learned that those consecrated to Christ share their necessities. But let the hypocrites go; if anyone wishes not to seem righteous but to be so, it befits him to be conscious of the best in himself.

If, then, “the harvest is great but the workers are few,” we truly ought to pray that we may have an abundance of as many workers as possible. Farming is twofold: one kind unwritten, the other written. Whichever way the Lord's worker sows the noble wheat and grows and reaps the ears, he will appear a truly divine farmer. “Work,” says the Lord, “not for the food that perishes but for that which endures to eternal life.” And nourishment is received either through food or through words. And truly “blessed are the peacemakers,” who teach otherwise and bring over to peace, in word and in a life according to God, those who are here at war in life and error because of ignorance, and who feed those who hunger for righteousness by the distribution of bread. For there are souls too that have their own foods: some grow by knowledge and understanding, others feed on Greek philosophy, of which, as of nuts, not all is edible. “He who plants and he who waters,” being ministers of the one who gives growth, “are one” in their ministry; “and each will receive his own reward according to his own labor. For we are God's fellow workers; you are God's field, God's building,” according to the apostle.

So we must not allow the hearers to make their test by comparison, nor hand over the word for examination to those reared in the arts of every kind of speech and in the powers of inflated arguments, whose souls are already preoccupied and have not first been emptied. But when someone chooses from faith to be feasted, he is firm for the reception of the divine words, having faith as a reasonable judgment. And persuasion follows him abundantly from this. And this, then, was that prophetic saying: “If you do not believe, neither will you understand.” “So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all, and especially to those of the household of faith.” And let each of these, according to the blessed David, sing with thanksgiving: “You will sprinkle me with hyssop and I shall be clean; you will wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. You will make me hear joy and gladness; the bones that were humbled will rejoice. Turn your face from my sins and blot out my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and strengthen me with a guiding spirit.”

The one who speaks to those present tests them by time and judges by discernment, and distinguishes from the others the one able to hear, watching their words, manners, characters, life, movements, bearing, look, and voice: the crossroads, the rock, the trodden path, the fruitful land, the overgrown ground, the fertile, fair, and cultivated soil that can multiply the seed. But the one who speaks through written records consecrates himself to God, crying out in writing: not for gain, not for vainglory, not to be overcome by partiality, not to be enslaved by fear, not to be elated by pleasure, but only to enjoy the salvation of those who read, which he does not even share at present, but awaiting in hope the recompense that will surely be given by the one who has promised to pay the workers their wages according to their worth. But the one enrolled among men should not seek a return either. For has not the one who boasts of his good deed received his reward in good repute? And the one who does any of his duties for a reward, either as a doer of good eager to get it back or as an evildoer avoiding retribution, is he not held fast by worldly custom? One must imitate the Lord as far as possible. And this would be the one who serves the will of God, having received freely and giving freely, receiving as a worthy reward his way of life itself. “The hire of a harlot,” it says, “will not enter into the holy place.”

At any rate, it is forbidden to bring to the altar the price of a dog. But the one whose soul's eye has been dimmed toward its proper light by bad nourishment and teaching, let him go to the truth that shows in writing what is unwritten. “You who thirst, come to the water,” says Isaiah; and “Drink water from your own vessels,” Solomon advises. Indeed in the Laws, Plato, the philosopher from the Hebrews, commands farmers not to irrigate or take water from others unless they have first dug on their own land down to what is called the virgin earth and found the ground dry. For it is right to supply want, but it is not good to furnish idleness with provisions; as Pythagoras too said that it is reasonable to help load a burden, but not fitting to help take it off. And Scripture kindles the spark of the soul and directs its proper eye to contemplation, perhaps implanting something, like the farmer who grafts, but also stirring up what is already there. For “many among us,” according to the divine apostle, “are weak and sick, and a good number sleep. But if we judged ourselves, we would not be judged.”

This treatise is not a writing artfully composed for display; but my notes are stored up for old age, a remedy against forgetfulness, simply an image and outline of those vivid and living words that I was counted worthy to hear, and of blessed and truly remarkable men. Of these, one was in Greece, the Ionian; others in Magna Graecia (one of them was from Coele-Syria, the other from Egypt); others in the East, and of these one was from the land of the Assyrians, the other a Hebrew in Palestine by origin. When I met the last (he was first in power), having hunted him out hidden in Egypt, I found rest. He, the true Sicilian bee, gathering the flowers of the prophetic and apostolic meadow, produced in the souls of his hearers an undefiled treasure of knowledge. These men, preserving the true tradition of the blessed teaching directly from Peter and James, John and Paul, the holy apostles, son receiving it from father (but few are like their fathers), came by God's will even to us, to deposit those ancestral and apostolic seeds.

And I know well that they will rejoice; I do not mean pleased with this exposition, but only with its preservation in outline. For such a sketch is, I think, the work of a soul longing to keep the blessed tradition from escaping. “The father of a man who loves wisdom will be glad.” Wells, when drawn from, give clearer water, but those from which no one takes turn foul. Use keeps iron cleaner, but disuse breeds rust in it. In short, joint exercise produces a healthy condition in both spirits and bodies. “No one lights a lamp and puts it under the measure, but on the lampstand,” where it gives light to those counted worthy of the same feast. For what use is wisdom that does not make wise the one able to hear? And further, the Savior always saves and always works, as he sees the Father. The one who teaches learns more, and in speaking often listens together with those who hear him; for the teacher of both speaker and hearer is one, who is the fountain of both mind and word.

Hence the Lord did not forbid … to rest from good, but permitted sharing the divine mysteries and that holy light with those able to receive them. Thus he did not reveal to many what did not belong to many, but to few, to whom he knew it was fitting, those able to receive them and be molded by them. But the secret things, like God himself, are entrusted to speech, not to writing. And if someone says it is written, “There is nothing hidden that will not be revealed, nor covered that will not be uncovered,” let him hear from us too that by this saying he foretold that the hidden would be revealed to the one who hears in secret, and that what is covered, like the truth, would be shown to the one able to receive in a veiled way what is handed on; and what is hidden from the many will become plain to the few. For why do not all know the truth? And why was righteousness not loved, if righteousness belongs to all? But the mysteries are handed on mystically, so that they may be in the mouth of the speaker and of the one to whom he speaks, or rather not in the voice but in the understanding. “And God has given to the church some as apostles, some as prophets, some as evangelists, some as shepherds and teachers, for the equipping of the saints, for the work of ministry, for the building up of the body of Christ.”

The writing of these notes of mine, I know well, is weak compared with that grace-filled spirit which we were counted worthy to hear; but it would be an image recalling the archetype to one who has been struck by the thyrsus. “For speak to a wise man,” it says, “and he will become wiser”; and “to the one who has, more will be given.” It promises not to interpret the secret things adequately (far from it), but only to remind, whether when we forget or so that we may not forget. Many things, I know well, have slipped away from us through length of time, having fallen away unwritten. Hence, relieving the weakness of my memory, and providing myself with a systematic exposition of chief points as a saving reminder, I have necessarily used this sketch. There are some things we did not even remember (for great was the power of those blessed men); there are also things that, left unnoted over time, have now escaped; and others were being extinguished, withering in the mind itself, since such a ministry is not easy for those not approved. These I rekindle in my notes; some I deliberately pass over, choosing with understanding, afraid to write what I refrained even from saying, not out of grudging (for that is not lawful), but fearing for my readers, lest they stumble in another direction and we be found, as the proverb says, holding out a sword to a child. For it is impossible for what has been written not to get out, even if it remains unpublished by me. And being always rolled out, using only the one written voice, it answers nothing more than what is written to the one who questions it; for of necessity it needs a helper, either its author or someone else who has walked in the same track.

There are also things that my writing will hint at; with some it will linger, others it will only mention; it will try to speak while escaping notice, to reveal while concealing, and to show while keeping silent. It will set out the doctrines of the notable heresies and answer them with everything that must be prepared in advance for the knowledge that belongs to the highest contemplation, which will advance for us, according to the glorious and venerable rule of the tradition, as we proceed from the creation of the world. It will first set out what needs to be discussed beforehand of natural science and clear away first what stands in the way of the sequence, so as to have ears ready to receive the tradition of knowledge, the ground having first been cleared, as by a farmer, of thorns and every weed, for the planting of a vineyard. For there is a contest before the contest and mysteries before mysteries. Nor will our notes hesitate to make use of the finest parts of philosophy and of other preliminary education. For, according to the apostle, it is reasonable to become a Jew not only because of the Hebrews and those under the law, but also a Greek because of the Greeks, “that we may gain all.” And in the letter to the Colossians he writes, “admonishing every man and teaching in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ.”

The elegance of learning also suits, in another way, the sketch of the notes. Thus the abundance of liberal learning is like a sauce mixed with an athlete's food, an athlete not given to luxury, but taking a good appetite with ambition. At any rate, in singing we harmoniously relax the overstrained tone of solemnity. And as those who wish to address a people often do so through a herald, so that what is said may be better heard, so here too (for our word, spoken before the tradition itself, is to many) we must set out the familiar opinions and sayings that ring out to them on each point, by which the hearers will be more readily turned. And in short (for among many small pearls there is the one, and in a great catch of fish the beautiful fish), with time and labor the truth will shine out, if a good helper is at hand; for most benefits are supplied from God through human beings.

All of us who use our eyes see what falls before them, but different people for different purposes. Thus the cook and the shepherd do not view a sheep in the same way: the one inquires whether it is fat, the other watches it for good breeding. Let someone milk the sheep if he needs food, and shear its fleece if he needs covering. In this way let the fruit of Greek learning come forward for me. For I do not think anyone considers a writing so fortunate that no one will speak against it; but that one must be thought reasonable which no one will reasonably speak against. And so the action and choice to be approved is not the one without blame, but the one no one will reasonably blame. And if someone does not do a thing as his primary aim, it does not immediately follow that he does it under constraint; rather, he will act, managing something with divine wisdom and accommodating himself. For neither does the one who has virtue still need the road to virtue, nor does the healthy man need recovery. And as farmers first water the ground, so we too first water the earthy part of the Greeks with the drinkable water of their own writings, so that they may receive the spiritual seed that is sown and be able easily to nourish it.

The Stromata will contain the truth mixed with the doctrines of philosophy, or rather covered and hidden in them, as the edible part of the nut is in the shell; for it is fitting, I think, that the seeds of the truth be kept for the farmers of faith alone. I am not unaware of what is bandied about by some who are ignorantly timid, who say that we should occupy ourselves with what is most necessary and what holds the faith together, and pass over what is external and superfluous, which wears us out in vain and detains us with things that contribute nothing to the end. Others even think that philosophy entered life for evil, for the ruin of mankind, by some wicked inventor. But I will show throughout the Stromata that vice has an evil nature and could never become a farmer of anything good, hinting at the same time that philosophy too is in some way the work of divine providence.

About my notes, which at the necessary times include Greek opinion, I say this much to the fault-finders. First, even if philosophy were useless, if the demonstration of its uselessness is useful, it is useful. Next, one cannot even condemn the Greeks using bare statement about their doctrines, without entering into a detailed exposure of them to the point of understanding. For refutation with experience is very trustworthy, since knowledge of what is condemned is found to be the most perfect proof. Many things, even if they do not contribute to the end, adorn the craftsman. And besides, wide learning commends the one who sets out the chief doctrines, for the persuasion of his hearers, and, producing admiration in the catechumens, it also recommends the truth.

Such attraction is trustworthy, by which lovers of learning receive the truth veiled; so that they do not think philosophy ruins life as a maker of false things and base deeds, as some have slandered it, when it is a clear image of the truth, a divine gift given to the Greeks; and so that we are not drawn away from the faith, as though bewitched by some deceitful art, but, so to speak, using a wider circuit, may at the same time provide a certain joint exercise of faith that is demonstrative. Indeed, the connection of doctrines through comparison woos the truth, and knowledge follows from it; not that philosophy came in as the primary reason, but because of the fruit that comes from knowledge, as we receive firm persuasion of true apprehension through the understanding of what is hinted at. I say nothing of the fact that the Stromata, embodied in wide learning, wish artfully to hide the seeds of knowledge.

As, then, one passionate about hunting takes his quarry after seeking, searching, tracking, and running with hounds, so the truth appears sweet when it has been sought and procured with labor. Why, then, did it seem good to arrange the notes in this way? Because it is a great danger to divulge the truly secret word of the true philosophy to those who wish to contradict everything without restraint and unjustly, and who throw out all names and words in no orderly way, deceiving themselves and bewitching those who follow them. “For the Jews ask for signs,” as the apostle says, “and the Greeks seek wisdom.”

Great is the crowd of this kind. Some of them, enslaved to pleasures and wishing to disbelieve, laugh at the truth that is worthy of all reverence, treating the barbarian as a joke. Others, exalting themselves, strive to invent slanders against our words, producing contentious questions, hunters of trifling phrases, zealots for petty arts, wranglers and strap-twisters, as the famous Abderite says. For “twisting is the tongue of mortals,” he says, “and many are the words in it; wide is the range of words of every kind, this way and that”; and “whatever word you speak, such will you hear.” Elated, then, by this art, the wretched sophists, babbling with their own chicanery, laboring their whole life over the distinction of names and the composition and interweaving of words, appear more talkative than turtledoves; tickling and titillating, not manfully, in my opinion, the ears of those who long to be tickled; simply a river of words, but a drop of sense. Indeed, as with old shoes, all the rest of them is weak and falling apart, and only the tongue is left.

Very finely does Solon the Athenian inveigh against them and write: “For you look to the tongue and the words of a wily man; each one of you walks in the tracks of a fox, but in all of you together there is an empty mind.” This, I think, is what that saving word hints at: “The foxes have holes, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” For only on the believer, I think, who is completely distinguished from the others called beasts by Scripture, does the Head of all things rest: the kind and gentle Word, “who catches the wise in their craftiness.” “For the Lord alone knows the reasonings of the wise, that they are futile,” Scripture calling “wise” the sophists who are excessive about words and arts.

Hence the Greeks themselves have called those who busy themselves about anything both “wise” and, by a related name, “sophists.” At any rate Cratinus, in his Archilochuses, listing poets, said, “What a swarm of sophists you have stirred up!” And Iophon too, just like the comic poet, in The Flute-Singing Satyrs says of rhapsodes and some others, “For a crowd of many sophists has come in, all equipped.” About these and those like them, who have practiced empty words, divine Scripture says very finely, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the understanding of the prudent I will set aside.”

Homer calls even a carpenter wise, and of Margites, if the poem is really his, he writes something like this: “The gods made him neither a digger nor a plowman, nor wise in anything else; he failed in every art.” And Hesiod, having said that Linus the lyre-player was “skilled in every kind of wisdom,” does not hesitate to call a sailor wise, writing, “not at all wise in seamanship.” And Daniel the prophet says, “The mystery that the king asks, it is not in the power of the wise, the magi, the enchanters, the Gazarenes to declare to the king; but there is a God in heaven who reveals.” And indeed he calls the Babylonians “wise.” That Scripture calls every worldly science or art by the common name “wisdom” (and there are many devised by combination through human reasoning), and that artistic and wise invention comes from God, will be clear if we set out this passage: “And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ‘See, I have called Bezalel the son of Uri, son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, and I have filled him with the divine spirit of wisdom and understanding and knowledge in every work, to devise and to direct the building, to work gold and silver and bronze, blue, purple, and scarlet, and stonework and carpentry in wood, to work in all kinds of works.’”

Then he adds a general statement: “And to everyone understanding in heart I have given understanding,” that is, to the one able to receive it through labor and exercise. And again it is written expressly in the name of the Lord: “And you, speak to all who are wise in mind, whom I have filled with the spirit of perception.” Those wise in mind have some proper natural quality, and, when they have made themselves fit, they receive from the supreme wisdom a twofold spirit of perception. For those who pursue the mechanical arts enjoy a surplus in the senses: the one commonly called a musician in hearing, the modeler in touch, the singer in voice, the perfumer in smell, the engraver of images on seals in sight. And those occupied with education are supplied with a shared perception, by which the poets grasp meters, the sophists style, the dialecticians syllogisms, and the philosophers their own kind of contemplation. For perception is inventive and creative, persuasively urging one to apply oneself; and exercise toward knowledge increases the application.

Fittingly, then, the apostle has called the wisdom of God “manifold,” showing its power for our benefit “in many parts and in many ways”: through art, through knowledge, through faith, through prophecy. For “all wisdom is from the Lord and is with him forever,” as the Wisdom of Jesus says. “For if you call for prudence and perception with a loud voice, and seek it like treasures of silver and eagerly track it out, you will understand godliness and find divine perception.” The prophet said this by contrast with the perception that comes by philosophy, which he teaches us to search out magnanimously and magnificently for advancement toward godliness. He set against it, then, the perception that is in godliness, hinting at knowledge, and saying this: “For God gives wisdom from his own mouth, perception together with prudence, and stores up help for the righteous.” For to those justified by philosophy, help is stored up, the perception that leads to godliness.

Before the Lord's coming, then, philosophy was necessary to the Greeks for righteousness; and now it becomes useful for godliness, being a kind of preliminary training for those who reap faith through demonstration. For “your foot will not stumble,” it says, if you refer good things to providence, whether they are Greek or ours. For God is the cause of all good things, but of some primarily, like the old and the new covenant, and of others consequentially, like philosophy. And perhaps it was given primarily to the Greeks at that time, before the Lord called the Greeks too; for it too was a schoolmaster to bring the Greek mind to Christ, as the law was for the Hebrews. Philosophy, then, is a preparation, paving the way for the one who is being perfected by Christ. Thus Solomon says, “Fortify wisdom, and it will exalt you; and it will shield you with a crown of delight”; since you too, having fortified it with a wall through philosophy and right expenditure, may keep it unassailable by the sophists.

There is, then, one way of truth, but streams flow into it, as into an ever-flowing river, from different places. So it is said inspiredly: “Hear, my son, and receive my words, that you may have many ways of life. For I teach you the ways of wisdom, that the fountains may not fail you,” the fountains that gush from the same earth. He did not enumerate many saving ways of one righteous man only, but adds many other ways of many righteous, indicating something like this: “But the ways of the righteous shine like light.” And the commandments and the preliminary trainings would be ways and starting points of life. “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often I wished to gather your children as a hen her chicks.” Jerusalem is interpreted “vision of peace.” He shows prophetically, then, that those who have peacefully contemplated have been trained in many ways for their calling. What then? He wished, but was not able. How often, or where? Twice: through the prophets and through his coming. The words “how often” show that wisdom is manifold; and in each way, of quality and of quantity, it surely saves some, both in time and in eternity, since “the Spirit of the Lord has filled the world.” And if someone forcibly says that “Do not give heed to a worthless woman, for honey drips from the lips of a harlot” means Greek education, let him listen to what follows: “who for a time smooths your throat,” it says; but philosophy does not flatter. Whom, then, does he hint at as the one who has played the harlot? He adds expressly: “For the feet of folly lead those who use her down with death to Hades, and her tracks are not firmly set.” “So keep your way far from foolish pleasure; do not stand at the doors of her house, lest you give your life to others.” And he adds the witness: “Then you will repent in old age, when the flesh of your body is worn out.” For this is the end of foolish pleasure. So much for this. But when he says, “Do not be much with a strange woman,” he advises us to use worldly education, but not to linger and remain in it; for the things given at the proper times to each generation for its benefit are a preliminary training for the Lord's word. For already some, lured by the charms of the maidservants, have neglected their mistress, philosophy, and have grown old, some in music, others in geometry, others in grammar, and most in rhetoric.

But as the encyclical studies contribute to philosophy, their mistress, so philosophy itself works together for the acquisition of wisdom. For philosophy is the pursuit of wisdom, and wisdom is the knowledge of things divine and human and their causes. Wisdom, then, is mistress of philosophy, as philosophy is of preliminary education. For if philosophy promises control of the tongue, the belly, and what is below the belly, and is to be chosen for its own sake, it will appear more venerable and more sovereign if it is pursued for the honor and knowledge of God. Scripture will provide testimony to what has been said in these words: Sarah was long barren, the wife of Abraham. Sarah, not bearing, allows her own maidservant, named Hagar the Egyptian, to Abraham for the begetting of children. Wisdom, then, the companion of the faithful man (and Abraham was reckoned faithful and righteous), was still barren and childless in that generation, having not yet borne anything virtuous to Abraham; and she fittingly thought it right that he, being already at the time for advancement, should first lie with worldly education (Egypt is allegorized as the world), and afterward, coming to her too, according to divine providence, beget Isaac.

Philo interprets Hagar as “sojourning” (for here it is said, “Do not be much with a strange woman”), and Sarah as “my rule.” So it is possible, after preliminary training, to come to the most sovereign wisdom, from which the race of Israel grows. From this it is shown that the wisdom Abraham pursued is teachable, as he passed from contemplating the heavens to faith and righteousness according to God. Isaac shows what is self-taught; that is why he is found to be a type of Christ. He is the husband of one wife, Rebekah, whose name they translate “patience.” Jacob is said to have been with several, since he is interpreted “the one who exercises” (and exercises are through many and different doctrines); hence he is renamed Israel, the truly clear-sighted one, as experienced and practiced. There might be something else shown through the three forefathers: that the seal of knowledge is sovereign, composed of nature, learning, and exercise. You might also have another image of what has been said in Tamar, who sat at the crossroads and gave the appearance of a harlot; whom Judah, a lover of learning (the name is interpreted “powerful”), who left nothing unexamined and uninvestigated, looked upon and turned aside to her, keeping his confession to God.

That is why Abraham too, when Sarah was jealous because Hagar was preferred to her, as one who chose only what is useful in worldly philosophy, said, “Behold, the maidservant is in your hands; use her as is pleasing to you,” showing: I welcome worldly education as younger and as your handmaid, but your knowledge I honor and revere as the perfect mistress. “And Sarah afflicted her,” which is equivalent to “chastened and admonished her.” It is well said, then: “My son, do not despise the instruction of God, nor faint when you are reproved by him; for whom the Lord loves he disciplines, and he scourges every son whom he receives.” In other places, however, the passages of Scripture just quoted, when examined, appear to show other mysteries. We say, then, from this plainly, that philosophy is an inquiry into truth and the nature of things (and this is the truth of which the Lord himself said, “I am the truth”); and that the preliminary training for the rest in Christ exercises the mind and rouses the understanding, producing an inquiring sharpness through true philosophy. Having found it, or rather having received it from the Truth itself, the initiated possess it.

Readiness for seeing what is needed contributes much through preliminary exercise. The intelligible things would be exercise for the mind; and their nature is threefold, contemplated in quantities, magnitudes, and propositions. For reasoning from demonstrations implants exact conviction in the soul of the one who follows it, so that he cannot think that what has been demonstrated is otherwise, and it does not let us fall to those who creep in by deceit. In these studies, then, the soul is purified from sensible things and rekindled, so that at some time it may be able to see through to the truth. For nourishment and good education, when preserved, make good natures; and good natures, receiving such education, grow better than those before, both in other respects and in begetting, as among other living creatures too. That is why it says, “Go to the ant, you sluggard, and become wiser than it,” which at harvest lays up much food of every kind against the threat of winter; “or go to the bee and learn how industrious it is”; for it too, feeding on the whole meadow, produces one honeycomb.

If you pray in your inner room, as the Lord taught, worshiping in spirit, your management would no longer be of the house only, but also of the soul: what must be given it, and how and how much; what must be laid up and stored in it; and when these must be brought out, and to whom. For people become noble and good not by nature but by learning, like physicians and pilots. We all see the vine and the horse alike, but the farmer will know whether the vine is good or bad for bearing fruit, and the horseman will easily distinguish the spiritless horse from the swift. That some are better suited by nature to virtue than others shows that those so gifted have certain aptitudes compared with others, but it does not prove perfection in virtue in any of those better endowed, since those badly suited to virtue, when they receive the fitting education, have generally attained excellence, and on the other hand those naturally fit have become bad through neglect. But by nature God created us sociable and just.

Hence we must not say that justice appears from the mere enactment of law, but must understand that the good of creation is rekindled by the commandment, the soul being trained by learning to choose willingly what is best. But as we say it is possible to be a believer even without letters, so we acknowledge that it is not possible to understand what is said in the faith without having learned. For to accept what is well said and not accept what is alien is produced not simply by faith, but by faith joined with learning. If ignorance is lack of education and learning, teaching implants the knowledge of things divine and human. But as it is possible to live rightly in poverty, so also in abundance; and we acknowledge that one may hunt virtue more easily and quickly with preliminary training, though it can be caught without it too, but even then by those who have learned and whose senses have been exercised. “For hatred,” says Solomon, “stirs up strife, but instruction guards the ways of life,” so that we may not be deceived or robbed by those who have practiced evil arts to harm their hearers. “Instruction without reproof goes astray,” it says; and the element of refutation must be present in order to repel the deceitful opinions of the sophists.

Well, then, does Anaxarchus the Eudaemonist write in his work On Kingship: “Much learning greatly benefits and greatly harms its possessor: it benefits the one who is clever, but harms the one who readily utters every word before every crowd. One must know the measures of the right moment; for this is the definition of wisdom. But those who sing at doors, even if they sing something sensible, are not counted among the wise, but have the reputation of folly.” And Hesiod: “of the Muses, who make a man of many words, inspired, eloquent”; for by “of many words” he means one fluent in speech, by “eloquent” one who is skilled, and by “inspired” one who is experienced, a lover of wisdom, and knowledgeable of the truth.

It appears, then, that Greek preliminary education, together with philosophy itself, came to human beings from God, not primarily, but in the way that showers burst upon the good land, on the dunghill, and on the housetops. Grass and wheat spring up alike; the fig tree grows even on tombs, and any of the more shameless trees, and what grows puts forth a likeness of the true, because it enjoyed the same power of the rain; but it did not have the same grace as what grew in rich soil, being either withered or plucked up. Here too the parable of the sowing, which the Lord interpreted, is useful. For there is one farmer of the soil that is in human beings, who from the foundation of the world sows the nourishing seeds from above, who has rained down the Lord, the Word, at each season; but the times and the receiving places produced the differences. Besides, the farmer does not sow wheat alone (though there are many varieties of it too), but also other seeds: barley, beans, peas, vetch, garden vegetables, and flower seeds. And planting belongs to the same husbandry: working what goes into nurseries, gardens, and orchards, and in general the growing and tending of trees of every kind. Likewise not only shepherding, but also cattle-herding, horse-breeding, dog-breeding, and beekeeping, all the arts, in short herding and animal husbandry, differ from one another in more and less, but all are useful for life. And by philosophy I do not mean the Stoic, or the Platonic, or the Epicurean and Aristotelian, but whatever has been well said by each of these schools, teaching righteousness with pious knowledge: this whole selection I call philosophy. But whatever they have cut off from human reasonings and falsified, I would never call divine.

Let us also consider this: if ever those who do not know live well … to do good (for they have happened upon good deeds, and some even aim well, through understanding, at the account of truth), yet “Abraham was justified not by works but by faith.” So there is no benefit to them after the end of life, even if they do good now, unless they have faith. That is why the Scriptures were translated into the language of the Greeks, so that they might never be able to put forward the excuse of ignorance, being able to hear also what we have, if only they are willing. One speaks about the truth in one way, and the truth interprets itself in another. A guess at the truth is one thing, the truth another; likeness is one thing, the being itself another; the one is attained by learning and exercise, the other by power and faith. For the teaching of godliness is a gift, and faith is grace. “For by doing the will of God we know the will.” “Open, then,” says Scripture, “the gates of righteousness, that entering them I may give thanks to the Lord.” But the ways to righteousness, since God saves in many ways (for he is good), are many and varied, and lead to the Lord's way and gate. If you seek the royal and authoritative entrance, you will hear: “This is the gate of the Lord; the righteous will enter by it.” Of the many gates that are open, then, the one in righteousness is the one in Christ, in which blessed are all who enter and direct their course in the holiness of knowledge. Thus Clement, in his letter to the Corinthians, setting out the differences among those approved in the church, says word for word: “Let one be faithful, let one be able to utter knowledge, let one be wise in the discernment of words, let one be energetic in deeds.”

The sophistic art, which the Greeks have zealously pursued, is a power of appearances, producing through words false opinions as though true. For it provides rhetoric for persuasion and eristic for contention; and so these arts, unless joined with philosophy, would be harmful to everyone. At any rate Plato plainly called sophistry an evil art, and Aristotle, following him, declares it a kind of thievery, since it plausibly steals the whole work of wisdom and professes a wisdom it has not practiced. In short, as the beginning of rhetoric is the plausible, its work the argument, and its end persuasion, so the beginning of eristic is opinion, its work the contest, and its end victory. In the same way the beginning of sophistry is the apparent; its work is twofold, the continuous discourse that comes from rhetoric and the questioning that comes from dialectic; and its end is astonishment. And the dialectic so talked of in the schools is shown to be the exercise of a philosopher about what is probable, for the sake of skill in contradiction; but nowhere in these is the truth.

Fittingly, then, the noble apostle, disparaging these superfluous verbal arts, says: “If anyone does not come to sound words, but is puffed up with some teaching, knowing nothing, but sick about questions and disputes about words, from which come strife, envy, slander, evil suspicions, constant friction among people corrupted in mind and deprived of the truth.” You see how he is moved against them, calling their logical art, on which they pride themselves, a sickness; they who love this babbling evil art, whether they are Greek or barbarian sophists. Very finely, then, does the tragic poet Euripides say in the Phoenician Women: “The unjust word, being sick in itself, needs wise remedies.” For the saving word is called “sound,” being itself truth. And what is sound remains always immortal; but separation from what is healthy and divine is godlessness and a deadly disease. These are ravening wolves hidden in sheepskins, slave-dealers and smooth-tongued seducers of souls, stealing secretly but, when exposed, robbers, striving to catch by deceit and force us who are simple, so to speak, and less capable.

“Often a man caught by lack of eloquence, though he says what is just, fares worse than the eloquent. But now with flowing mouths they steal the truest things, so that what ought to seem right does not seem so,” says the tragedy. Such are these contentious people, whether they pursue heresies or practice dialectical tricks: those who pull down the finished work and weave nothing, says Scripture, zealous for futile labor, which the apostle called “the dice-playing of men” and “craftiness,” suited “to the scheming of error.” “For there are,” he says, “many insubordinate, empty talkers and deceivers.” So it was not said to all, “You are the salt of the earth.” For there are some even among those who have heard the word who are like sea fish, which, though reared from birth in brine, still need salt for cooking. I, at any rate, fully accept the tragedy that says: “My child, false words may be well spoken, and by the beauties of verse may conquer the truth; but this is not the most exact thing, but nature and what is right; he who conquers by eloquence is clever, but I always consider deeds better than words.” So we must never aim to please the many. For what pleases them we do not practice, and what we know is far from their disposition. “Let us not become vainglorious,” says the apostle, “provoking one another, envying one another.”

In this way the truth-loving Plato, as if inspired, says: “I am such as to obey nothing else but the reason that seems best to me when I consider.” At any rate he blames those who trust opinions without mind and knowledge, as though they wrongly abandoned right and sound reason to trust what shares in falsehood. For to be deceived about the truth is evil, but to speak truth and to hold opinions about what is, is good. People are deprived of good things unwillingly, but they are deprived nonetheless, either robbed, or bewitched, or forced, and … not believing. The one who has … believed willingly is now consumed …; the one who is persuaded to change his mind and the one who forgets are robbed, because time takes away from the one and argument from the other without their noticing; and pain and suffering, contentiousness and anger often force a change of opinion; and above all those are bewitched who are charmed by pleasure or terrified by fear. All these changes are involuntary, and none of them could ever drive out knowledge.

Some, thinking themselves naturally gifted, think they should touch neither philosophy nor dialectic, nor even learn the study of nature, but demand faith alone and bare, as if they expected to gather grapes right from the start without taking any care of the vine. The Lord is allegorized as the vine, from whom the fruit is to be gathered with care and the art of husbandry according to reason. One must prune, dig, tie up, and do the rest; there is need, I think, of the pruning hook and the mattock and the other tools of husbandry for the care of the vine, so that it may show us its edible fruit. And as in farming, so in medicine, the one who has acquired a variety of studies is well educated, so as to be better able to farm and to heal; so here too I call the well-educated person the one who refers everything to the truth, so as to gather what is useful from geometry, music, grammar, and philosophy itself, and to guard the faith against attack. The athlete too is looked down on, as has been said, though he contributes to the arrangement.

Thus we praise the much-experienced pilot, who “saw the cities of many men,” and the physician who has had experience of many cases; hence some even invent the empiric. The one who refers each thing to right living, bringing examples from Greek and barbarian sources, is a much-experienced tracker of the truth and truly “of many counsels”; like the touchstone (the Lydian stone, trusted to distinguish counterfeit from genuine gold), our man of wide learning and knowledge is able to separate sophistry from philosophy, cosmetics from gymnastics, cookery from medicine, rhetoric from dialectic, and magic and other heresies from the truth itself according to the barbarian philosophy. How is it not necessary for one who longs to attain the power of God to discuss intelligible things philosophically? How is it not useful to distinguish the ambiguous words and those used with the same name in the Testaments? For by an ambiguity the Lord outwitted the devil at the time of the temptation; and I no longer see here how the inventor of philosophy and dialectic, as some suppose, is led astray, deceived by the way of ambiguity.

If the prophets and apostles did not know the arts by which the exercises of philosophy are displayed, yet the meaning of the prophetic and teaching Spirit, spoken in a hidden way because the understanding ear is not for all, requires skilled teaching for clarity. For the prophets and the disciples of the Spirit knew that meaning surely; for they knew it by faith, in a way not easy for others, as the Spirit spoke. But those who have not learned cannot receive it in that way. “Write the commandments,” it says, “in a twofold way, with will and knowledge, to answer words of truth to those who put questions to you.” What, then, is the knowledge of answering? That which is also of asking; and this would be dialectic. What then? Is not speaking also a work? Doing comes from reason; for if we did not act by reason, we would act irrationally. And the rational work is carried out according to God: “and nothing came into being without him,” it says, the Word of God. Or did not the Lord too do everything by the Word? Cattle also work, driven by compelling fear. And do not those called “right believers” apply themselves to good works, not knowing what they do?

That is why the Savior, taking bread, first spoke and gave thanks; then, breaking the bread, he set it before them, so that we might eat rationally and, recognizing the Scriptures, live in obedience. And as those who use evil speech are no different from those who do evil deeds (for slander is the servant of the sword, and blasphemy causes grief, from which come the overturnings of life; these would be the works of evil speech), so those who use good speech draw near to those who accomplish good deeds. At any rate, speech restores the soul and urges it to goodness; and blessed is the one who is skillful with both hands. So neither should the doer of good be reviled by the one able to speak well, nor should the one able to speak well be disparaged by the one fitted to do good; let each act according to his nature. What the one shows by deed, the other speaks, as it were preparing the way for good deeds and leading the hearers to beneficence. For there is saving speech as there is a saving deed. Righteousness, at any rate, is not constituted without the word.

As receiving benefit is removed if we take away doing good, so obedience and faith are destroyed if neither the commandment nor the one who explains the commandment is received. As it is, we are well supplied with words and deeds for the sake of one another. But the eristic and sophistic art must be rejected completely, since the very words of the sophists not only bewitch and rob the many, but, using force, sometimes win a Cadmean victory. For that psalm is truer than anything: “The righteous will live to the end, for he will not see corruption, when he sees the wise dying.” Which wise does he mean? Hear from the Wisdom of Jesus: “The knowledge of wickedness is not wisdom.” He means the wisdom that the arts of speech and dialectic invented. “You will seek wisdom among the wicked and will not find it.” And if you ask again, “What kind is this?” “The mouth of the righteous,” it will tell you, “will drip wisdom.” The sophistic art is called wisdom only by sharing the name with the truth.

For me, I think, it is fitting to live according to reason and to understand what is meant, never striving for eloquence but content only to hint at what is understood. By what word what I wish to present is shown matters nothing to me. For I know well that to be saved and to help those eager to be saved is best, not to compose little phrases like ornaments. “And if you guard against being serious about names,” says the Pythagorean in Plato's Statesman, “you will appear richer in wisdom in old age.” And in the Theaetetus you might find again: “Ease with names and words and not examining them with exactness is mostly not ignoble; rather the opposite is unworthy of a free man, though sometimes it is necessary.” Scripture expressed this as briefly as possible, saying, “Do not be abundant in words.” For style is like clothing on the body, while the substance is flesh and sinews. One must not, then, care for the clothing before the health of the body. For the one who has undertaken the true life must practice not only a frugal diet but also a speech that is unadorned and not elaborate, if indeed we reject luxury as treacherous and prodigal, as the ancient Spartans rejected perfume and purple, rightly considering and calling the garments treacherous and the ointments treacherous; since neither is that preparation of food good which has more seasonings than nourishment, nor is that use of speech elegant which can delight the hearers more than benefit them. Pythagoras advises us to consider the Muses sweeter than the Sirens, teaching us to practice wisdom not with pleasure, and exposing the other kind of attraction as deceitful. One man is enough who sailed past the Sirens, and another one who answered the Sphinx; and, if you like, not even one.

So we must never broaden our phylacteries out of zeal for vainglory; for the one who knows, it is enough if even a single hearer is found. We can hear Pindar the Boeotian too, writing: “Do not blurt out the ancient word before all; sometimes the paths of silence are most trustworthy, and the word that prevails is a goad to battle.” So the blessed apostle insists very strongly, exhorting us not to fight about words, to no profit, to the ruin of the hearers, and to avoid profane empty chatter. “For they will advance further in ungodliness, and their word will spread like gangrene.”

This “wisdom of the world,” then, “is foolishness with God,” and of these wise “the Lord knows the reasonings, that they are futile.” So let no one boast, priding himself on human thought. For it is well written in Jeremiah: “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, and let not the strong man boast in his strength, and let not the rich man boast in his riches; but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows that I am the Lord who does mercy and judgment and righteousness on the earth; for in these is my will, says the Lord.” “So that we may not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead,” says the apostle, “who delivered us from so great a death, so that our faith may not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.” “For the spiritual man judges all things, but he himself is judged by no one.” I also hear those words of his: “I say this so that no one may deceive you with persuasive speech,” nor may the one who carries off as spoil creep in. And again: “See that there be no one who carries you off as spoil through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the elements of the world, and not according to Christ.” He does not mean all philosophy, but the Epicurean, which Paul also mentions in the Acts of the Apostles, disparaging it, since it abolishes providence and deifies pleasure; and any other that has honored the elements without setting the efficient cause over them and has not even imagined the Creator.

But the Stoics too, whom he also mentions, say, not rightly, that God, being body, pervades the most dishonorable matter. And by “human tradition” he means logical hair-splitting. That is why he also writes: “Flee youthful questions”; for such contentions are childish. “And virtue is not a lover of boys,” says the philosopher Plato; and our contest, according to Gorgias of Leontini, “needs two virtues, daring and wisdom: daring to endure the danger, wisdom to know the riddle.” For the word, like the proclamation at Olympia, calls whoever wishes, but crowns whoever is able. The Word does not wish the believer to be unmoved toward truth and truly idle; for it says, “Seek and you will find”; but it brings seeking to the goal of finding, driving out empty babble and approving the contemplation that fortifies our faith. “This I say, so that no one may deceive you with persuasive speech,” says the apostle, meaning for those who have learned to distinguish what these people say and have been taught to meet what they put forward.

“As, then, you received Christ Jesus the Lord, walk in him, rooted and built up in him and confirmed in the faith”; and persuasion is the confirmation of faith. “See that there be no one who carries you off as spoil” from faith in Christ “through philosophy and empty deceit,” which abolishes providence, “according to the tradition of men.” For the philosophy that follows the divine tradition establishes and confirms providence; if providence is abolished, the plan of salvation concerning the Savior appears a myth, as we are carried along “according to the elements of the world and not according to Christ.” For the teaching that follows Christ both honors the Creator as divine and carries providence down to particulars, knows that the nature of the elements is changeable and created, teaches us to live so as to be made like God as far as possible, and to accept the plan of salvation as the governing principle of all education. The elements are worshiped: air by Diogenes, water by Thales, fire by Hippasus, and by those who propose atoms as first principles, who put on the name of philosophy, some godless and pleasure-loving little men.

“That is why I pray,” he says, “that your love may abound still more and more in knowledge and all perception, so that you may approve what is excellent”; since “when we were infants,” says the same apostle, “we were enslaved under the elements of the world.” “And the infant, though he is heir, differs in nothing from a slave until the time appointed by the father.” The philosophers too, then, are infants, unless they are made men by Christ. For if “the son of the slave woman will not inherit with the son of the free woman,” yet he is at any rate the seed of Abraham, having received his own gift not by promise. “But solid food is for the perfect, who through practice have their senses exercised to distinguish good and evil. For everyone who partakes of milk is inexperienced in the word of righteousness,” being an infant and not yet knowing the word by which he has believed and acts, nor able to give the reason in himself. “But test all things,” says the apostle, “and hold fast what is good,” speaking to the spiritual, who judge everything said according to truth, whether it merely seems or truly holds to the truth.

“Instruction without reproof goes astray,” and “stripes and reproofs give the instruction of wisdom,” reproofs, clearly, given with love. For “an upright heart seeks knowledge,” since “the one who seeks God will find knowledge with righteousness,” and “those who have sought him rightly have found peace.” “And I will know,” he says, “not the word of those who are puffed up, but their power,” writing to rebuke those who think themselves wise and suppose they are, but are not. “For the kingdom of God is not in word,” not the true word, but the one plausible according to opinion, “but in power,” he said; for only the truth is powerful. And again: “If anyone thinks he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know.” For truth is never conceit; but the supposition of knowledge puffs up and fills with pride, while love builds up, being occupied not with conceit but with truth. Hence he says, “If anyone loves, he is known.”

Since the tradition is not common and public, at least for one who perceives the majesty of the Word, the wisdom spoken in a mystery, which the Son of God taught, must be hidden. Already the prophet Isaiah has his tongue cleansed with fire, so as to be able to tell the vision; and not only the tongue, but the ears too must be purified by us, if we try to be partakers of the truth. These things hindered me from writing, and even now I am cautious, as it says, of casting the pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet and turn and tear you. For it is difficult to show words that are truly pure and transparent about the true light to hearers who are swinish and uneducated; for there are hardly any teachings more ridiculous to the many than these, nor, on the other hand, more wonderful and inspiring to the gifted.

“But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness to him.” The wise do not utter with their mouth what they reason out in council. “But what you hear in the ear,” says the Lord, “proclaim on the housetops,” commanding us to receive the secret traditions of true knowledge, interpreted loftily and excellently, and, as we heard them in the ear, so to hand them on to whom it is right, not to give out freely to all what was said to them in parables. But the sketch of these notes is truly … having the truth sown scattered and dispersed, so that it may escape those who, like jackdaws, pick up seeds; but when it meets with a good farmer, each of them will sprout and show forth the wheat.

Since, then, truth is one (for falsehood has countless byways), just as the Bacchants tore apart the limbs of Pentheus, so the schools of philosophy, both barbarian and Greek, each boasts that the part it obtained is the whole truth; but at the rising of the light, I think, all things are illuminated. All, then, Greeks and barbarians, who have reached out for the truth, would be shown to have, some not a little, others some part, if indeed any, of the word of truth. Eternity, at any rate, instantly unites in itself the future and the present, and indeed the past; but much more powerful than eternity is truth to gather its own seeds, even if they have fallen in a foreign land. For we would find very many of the opinions held by the schools (those which have not become completely deaf, nor cut off the natural sequence, as the women cut off the man, cutting off reason), even if they seem unlike one another, agreeing in kind and with the whole truth; for they are joined into one either as limb, or part, or species, or genus. Thus the highest string is opposite to the lowest, yet both make one harmony; and in numbers the even differs from the odd, yet both agree in arithmetic, as in shape do the circle, the triangle, the square, and all the shapes that differ from one another. And in the whole universe all the parts, even if they differ from one another, preserve their kinship with the whole. So, then, barbarian and Greek philosophy has torn off a fragment of the eternal truth, not from the mythology of Dionysus, but from the theology of the ever-existing Word. And the one who puts together again what has been divided and makes the Word one and complete, be sure, will behold the truth without danger.

At any rate it is written in Ecclesiastes: “And I added wisdom beyond all who were before me in Jerusalem; and my heart saw many things, wisdom and knowledge; I knew parables and understanding. And this too is a choice of the spirit, that in abundance of wisdom is abundance of knowledge.” The one experienced in wisdom of every kind would properly be the one who knows. Thus it is written: “The abundance of the knowledge of wisdom will give life to the one who has it.” And again this saying confirms more clearly what has been said: “All things are plain to those who understand” (and all things are Greek and barbarian; the one without the other is no longer all), “and right to those who wish to receive perception. Choose instruction and not silver, and knowledge above tested gold; choose also perception rather than pure gold; for wisdom is better than precious stones, and nothing of value is worthy of it.”

The Greeks say that after Orpheus and Linus and their most ancient poets, the first to be admired for wisdom were the seven called the Wise Men. Of these four were from Asia: Thales of Miletus, Bias of Priene, Pittacus of Mitylene, and Cleobulus of Lindus; two from Europe: Solon of Athens and Chilon of Sparta. The seventh some say was Periander of Corinth, others Anacharsis the Scythian, others Epimenides the Cretan (whom he knows as a Greek prophet, and whom the apostle Paul mentions in the letter to Titus, speaking thus: “One of them, a prophet of their own, said: Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy bellies; and this testimony is true.” You see how he gives some truth even to the prophets of the Greeks, and is not ashamed, in speaking for the edification and shaming of some, to use Greek poems. At any rate, to the Corinthians too (not only here), discussing the resurrection of the dead, he uses a tragic iambic line, saying: “What is the benefit to me? If the dead are not raised, let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die. Do not be deceived: bad company corrupts good morals”). Others have listed Acusilaus of Argos among the Seven Wise Men, and others Pherecydes of Syros. Plato, instead of Periander, whom he considered unworthy of wisdom because he had been a tyrant, puts in Myson of Chen.

That the wise men of the Greeks lived somewhat later than the age of Moses will be shown a little later. But the manner of their philosophy, as Hebrew and enigmatic, must be examined now. They welcomed a brevity of exhortation, the most useful. Thus Plato says that this manner was pursued of old, by all Greeks in common, but especially by the Spartans and Cretans, the best governed. “Know yourself” some have supposed to be Chilon's, Chamaeleon in his work On the Gods attributes it to Thales, and Aristotle to the Pythia. It can exhort us to pursue knowledge. For it is not possible to know the parts without the substance of the whole; one must investigate the origin of the world, through which one can also learn the nature of man.

Again, they attribute “Nothing in excess” to Chilon of Sparta; Strato in his work On Inventions attaches the saying to Sodamus of Tegea, and Didymus assigns it to Solon, as indeed “Measure is best” to Cleobulus. “Give surety, and ruin is near” Cleomenes in his work on Hesiod says was said earlier by Homer in these words: “Poor are the sureties even for the poor to be given.” Aristotle's followers think it Chilon's, and Didymus says the advice is Thales'. Next, “All men are bad” or “Most men are bad” (for the same saying is given in two ways), the followers of Sotades of Byzantium say is Bias's; and “Practice masters everything” they wish to be Periander's; likewise the advice “Know the right moment” to be Pittacus's. Solon gave laws to the Athenians, Pittacus to the Mitylenaeans. Later Pythagoras, the pupil of Pherecydes, was the first to call himself a philosopher.

After the men already named, there have been three successions of philosophy, named after the places where they spent their time: the Italian, from Pythagoras; the Ionian, from Thales; and the Eleatic, from Xenophanes. Pythagoras, son of Mnesarchus, was a Samian, as Hippobotus says; but according to Aristoxenus in his Life of Pythagoras, and … Aristarchus and Theopompus, he was a Tyrrhenian; according to Neanthes, a Syrian or Tyrian; so that according to most, Pythagoras was a barbarian by race. And Thales too, as Leander and Herodotus relate, was a Phoenician, or, as some have supposed, a Milesian. He alone seems to have met with the prophets of the Egyptians; no teacher of his is recorded, as none is for Pherecydes of Syros, whose pupil Pythagoras was.

The Italian philosophy of Pythagoras grew old at Metapontum in Italy. Anaximander of Miletus, son of Praxiades, succeeded Thales; Anaximenes of Miletus, son of Eurystratus, succeeded him; and after him Anaxagoras of Clazomenae, son of Hegesibulus. He moved the school from Ionia to Athens. Archelaus succeeded him, whom Socrates heard. “From these turned aside the stone-cutter, the prater about laws, the enchanter of the Greeks,” says Timon in his Silloi, because he turned aside from natural philosophy to ethics. Of those who heard Socrates, Antisthenes became a Cynic, and Plato withdrew to the Academy. Aristotle, having studied philosophy with Plato, moved to the Lyceum and founded the Peripatetic school. Theophrastus succeeded him, then Strato, then Lycon, then Critolaus, then Diodorus. Speusippus succeeded Plato; Xenocrates him, and Polemo him. The hearers of Polemo were Crates and Crantor, in whom the Old Academy of Plato ended. Arcesilaus studied with Crantor, and from him until Hegesinus the Middle Academy flourished.

Then Carneades succeeded Hegesinus, and those after him. Zeno of Citium, the founder of the Stoic school, became a pupil of Crates. Cleanthes succeeded him, then Chrysippus and those after him. Xenophanes of Colophon founded the Eleatic school; Timaeus says he lived in the time of Hiero, the ruler of Sicily, and of Epicharmus the poet, while Apollodorus says that, born about the … fortieth Olympiad, he lived on to the times of Darius and Cyrus. Parmenides was a hearer of Xenophanes, Zeno of him, then Leucippus, then Democritus. The hearers of Democritus were Protagoras of Abdera and Metrodorus of Chios, whose pupil was Diogenes of Smyrna; his was Anaxarchus, and his Pyrrho, and his Nausiphanes. Some say that Epicurus was his pupil. This, then, is the succession of the philosophers among the Greeks in summary; the dates of the founders of their philosophy must be given next, so that we may show by comparison that the philosophy of the Hebrews is many generations older.

Xenophanes, who began the Eleatic philosophy, has been discussed. Eudemus in his Astronomical Histories says that Thales foretold the eclipse of the sun that occurred at the time when the Medes and Lydians joined battle with each other, when Cyaxares, father of Astyages, ruled the Medes and Alyattes, father of Croesus, the Lydians. Herodotus too agrees with him in his first book. These times are about the fiftieth Olympiad. Pythagoras is found to be in the time of Polycrates the tyrant, about the sixty-second Olympiad. Mnesiphilus is recorded as a follower of Solon, and Themistocles spent time with him; Solon therefore flourished about the forty-sixth Olympiad. Heraclitus, son of Bloson, persuaded Melancomas the tyrant to lay down his rule. He disdained King Darius when he invited him to come to Persia.

These are the dates of the most ancient sages and philosophers among the Greeks. That most of them were barbarians by race and educated among barbarians, what need is there to say, if Pythagoras was shown to be a Tyrrhenian or Tyrian, Antisthenes was a Phrygian, and Orpheus an Odrysian or Thracian? Most show that Homer was an Egyptian. Thales, a Phoenician by race, is said to have met the prophets of the Egyptians, as did Pythagoras with these same men, for whose sake he was even circumcised, so that he might go down into the inner sanctuaries and learn the mystic philosophy from the Egyptians; he associated with the best of the Chaldeans and Magi; and his common auditory hints at what is now called the church. Plato does not deny that he imported the finest things into philosophy from the barbarians, and admits that he went to Egypt. At any rate in the Phaedo he says that the philosopher can be benefited from every quarter, writing: “Greece is large, Cebes,” he said, “in which there are very good men, and many are the races of the barbarians.”

So Plato thinks that there are philosophers among the barbarians too, while Epicurus, on the contrary, supposes that only Greeks can philosophize. And in the Symposium, praising the barbarians as having practiced it outstandingly, Plato says … “and others elsewhere in many places, among Greeks and among barbarians, for whom many temples have already arisen on account of such children.” The barbarians have clearly especially honored their lawgivers and teachers, calling them gods. For they suppose, according to Plato, that good souls, leaving the region above the heavens, endured to come into this Tartarus, and, taking a body, shared in all the evils of generation, caring for the human race; and they laid down laws and proclaimed philosophy, “than which no greater good ever came or will come to the human race from the gods.”

And it seems to me that, perceiving the great benefit that comes through the wise, they both revered these men and philosophized publicly. All the Brahmins, the Odrysians, the Getae, and the race of the Egyptians theologized exactly about their teachings, as did the Chaldeans and the Arabians called Happy, and those who lived in Palestine, and not the least part of the Persian race, and countless other races besides. Plato is clearly found always honoring the barbarians, remembering that both he and Pythagoras learned most and the noblest of their doctrines among barbarians. That is why he spoke of “races of barbarians,” knowing of races of barbarian philosophers; and in the Phaedrus he shows the Egyptian king wiser even than Thoth, whom he knows to be Hermes. And in the Charmides he shows that he knows certain Thracians who are said to make the soul immortal.

It is recorded that Pythagoras was a pupil of Sonchis, the Egyptian chief prophet; Plato of Sechnuphis of Heliopolis; and Eudoxus of Cnidus of Conuphis, also an Egyptian. And in his work on the soul, Plato again appears to know of prophecy, introducing a prophet who announces the word of Lachesis to the souls drawing their lots and foretells. And in the Timaeus he introduces the most wise Solon learning from the barbarian. The words run thus: “O Solon, Solon, you Greeks are always children, and there is no old Greek; for you have no learning gray with time.” Democritus made the Babylonian … ethical teachings his own; for he is said to have added to his own writings a translation of the stele of Acicarus, and one can note it by his writing “Thus says Democritus.” Indeed, somewhere, priding himself on his wide learning, he says of himself: “I have wandered over more of the earth than any man of my time, investigating the most distant things; I have seen the most climates and lands, and heard the most learned men; and in the composition of lines with demonstration no one ever surpassed me, not even the Egyptians called rope-stretchers; with all these I spent eighty years abroad.” For he went to Babylon, Persia, and Egypt, studying with the Magi and the priests. Pythagoras emulated Zoroaster the Persian Magus; and the followers of the heresy of Prodicus boast that they possess secret books of this man.

Alexander, in his work on the Pythagorean symbols, records that Pythagoras was a pupil of Zaratus the Assyrian (some think this is Ezekiel, but it is not, as will be shown later), and holds that Pythagoras also heard the Galatians and the Brahmins. Clearchus the Peripatetic says he knew a Jew who associated with Aristotle. And Heraclitus says that it was not by human means but with God that the future was revealed to the Sibyl. At any rate they say that at Delphi, beside the council house, a rock is shown on which the first Sibyl is said to have sat, having come from Helicon, reared by the Muses. Some say she came from the Malians, being the daughter of Lamia, daughter of Poseidon. Serapion in his verses says that the Sibyl did not cease prophesying even when she died, and that what went into the air from her after death is what prophesies in rumors and omens; and from her body, changed into earth, grass naturally sprang up, and whatever animals fed on it, born in that very place, give men an exact indication of the future through their entrails; and he thinks that her soul is the face that appears in the moon.

So much about the Sibyl. Numa, the king of the Romans, was a Pythagorean, and, benefiting from the writings of Moses, prevented the Romans from making an image of God in human or animal form. At any rate, in the first hundred and seventy years, though they built temples, they made no statue, either sculpted or painted. For Numa showed them in a hidden way that it is not possible to lay hold of the best except by the mind alone. Philosophy, then, a thing of great benefit, flourished long ago among the barbarians, shining through the nations, and later came down to the Greeks as well. Its leaders were the prophets of the Egyptians, the Chaldeans of the Assyrians, the Druids of the Galatians, the Samanaeans of the Bactrians, the philosophers of the Celts, the Magi of the Persians (who by their magic foretold the birth of the Savior, coming to the land of Judea led by a star), the gymnosophists of the Indians, and other barbarian philosophers. Of these there are two kinds, some called Sarmanae and others Brahmins. Of the Sarmanae, those called forest-dwellers neither live in cities nor have roofs, but clothe themselves in the bark of trees, eat fruits, and drink water with their hands; they know neither marriage nor begetting of children, like those now called Encratites. There are also among the Indians those who obey the precepts of Boutta, whom they have honored as a god because of his extraordinary holiness.

Anacharsis too was a Scythian, and he is recorded as surpassing many philosophers among the Greeks. Hellanicus relates that the Hyperboreans live beyond the Rhipaean mountains and are taught righteousness, not eating meat but using fruits. They lead those who are sixty years old outside the gates and put them away. Among the Germans too there are the so-called holy women, who, looking at the eddies of rivers and judging by the windings and sounds of the streams, foretell the future. These at any rate did not let them join battle with Caesar before the new moon had shone. Far the oldest of all these is the race of the Jews, and Philo the Pythagorean shows at length that their philosophy, written down, preceded the philosophy of the Greeks; so does Aristobulus the Peripatetic, and many others, so that I need not go through them by name. Most clearly, Megasthenes the historian, who lived with Seleucus Nicator, writes thus in the third book of his Indica: “All that was said about nature by the ancients is said also by those who philosophize outside Greece, some among the Indians by the Brahmins, others in Syria by those called Jews.”

Some say, more mythically, that certain wise men of the so-called Idaean Dactyls were the first, to whom the invention of the so-called Ephesian letters and of musical rhythms is referred; for which reason dactyls among musicians have received their name. And the Idaean Dactyls were Phrygians and barbarians. Herodorus relates that Heracles, having become a seer and a natural philosopher, received the pillars of the world from Atlas the barbarian, the Phrygian, the myth hinting that he received the knowledge of heavenly things by learning. Hermippus of Berytus calls Chiron the Centaur wise; of him the author of the Titanomachy too says that he first “led the race of mortals to righteousness, showing oaths and cheerful sacrifices and the figures of Olympus.” Achilles, who fought against Ilium, was educated by him; and Hippo, the Centaur's daughter, who lived with Aeolus, taught him natural philosophy, her ancestral knowledge. Euripides too testifies about Hippo in some such way: “She first foretold divine things with clear oracles at the risings of the stars.” With this Aeolus Odysseus was entertained after the capture of Ilium. Note the dates for me, for comparison with the age of Moses and the most ancient philosophy of his time.

The barbarians were inventors not only of philosophy but of almost every art. The Egyptians, at any rate, were the first to introduce astronomy to mankind, and likewise the Chaldeans. The Egyptians first showed how to burn lamps, divided the year into twelve months, forbade intercourse with women in temples, and legislated that no one should enter temples from a woman unwashed; the same were inventors of geometry. Some say the Carians devised prediction by the stars. The Phrygians first observed the flights of birds, and the Tuscans, neighbors of Italy, perfected the inspection of sacrifices. The Isaurians and Arabians worked out augury, as indeed the Telmessians did divination by dreams. The Tyrrhenians invented the trumpet and the Phrygians the flute; for Olympus and Marsyas were Phrygians.

Cadmus, the inventor of letters for the Greeks, was a Phoenician, as Ephorus says; hence Herodotus writes that the letters were called Phoenician; others say that the Phoenicians and Syrians first devised letters. They say that Apis, a native Egyptian, invented medicine before Io came to Egypt, and that afterward Asclepius advanced the art. Atlas the Libyan first built a ship and sailed the sea. Celmis and Damnameneus, the Idaean Dactyls, first found iron in Cyprus; Delas, another Idaean, found the alloy of bronze, or, as Hesiod says, a Scythian. The Thracians first invented the so-called harpe (a curved sword), and were the first to use light shields on horseback. Likewise the Illyrians invented the so-called parma. They say too that the Tuscans devised sculpture, and that Itanus (he was a Samnite) first made the oblong shield. Cadmus the Phoenician discovered stone-cutting and devised the gold mines around Mount Pangaeus. And another nation, the Cappadocians, first invented the instrument called the nabla, as the Assyrians did the two-stringed lyre. The Carthaginians first built the quadrireme, and Bosporus built it on the spot.

Medea, daughter of Aeetes, the Colchian, first devised the dyeing of hair. And the Noropes (a Paeonian people, now called Norici) worked bronze and first refined iron. Amycus, king of the Bebryces, first invented boxing thongs. In music, Olympus the Mysian cultivated the Lydian mode; and the so-called Troglodytes invented the sambuca, a musical instrument. They say that Satyrus the Phrygian invented the transverse pipe; likewise Agnis, also a Phrygian, the three-stringed lyre and the diatonic mode; Olympus, likewise a Phrygian, instrumental notes; Marsyas, of the same country as those just named, the Phrygian, Mixophrygian, and Mixolydian modes; and Thamyris the Thracian devised the Dorian. We have heard that the Persians first made the carriage, the couch, and the footstool, and that the Sidonians built the trireme. The Sicilians near Italy first invented the phorminx, not much inferior to the cithara, and devised castanets. They record that linen garments were invented in the time of … Semiramis, queen of the Egyptians; and Hellanicus says that Atossa, who reigned over the Persians, first composed letters.

Scamon of Mitylene, Theophrastus of Eresus, Cydippus of Mantinea, and further Antiphanes, Aristodemus, and Aristotle, and besides these Philostephanus, and also Strato the Peripatetic, recorded these things in their works On Inventions. I have set out a few of them to establish the inventive and life-benefiting nature of the barbarians, from whom the Greeks have benefited in their pursuits. And if anyone disparages the barbarian tongue, “For me,” says Anacharsis, “all the Greeks speak Scythian.” He was the one admired among the Greeks who said, “My covering is a cloak, my supper milk and cheese.” You see barbarian philosophy professing deeds, not words.

And the apostle says thus: “So you too, unless you give an intelligible word by the tongue, how will what is spoken be known? For you will be speaking into the air. There are, it may be, so many kinds of languages in the world, and none is without meaning. If, then, I do not know the meaning of the language, I shall be a barbarian to the speaker, and the speaker a barbarian to me.” And “let the one who speaks in a tongue pray that he may interpret.” Indeed, the teaching and writing of prose came late to the Greeks. Alcmaeon of Croton, son of Perithus, first composed a treatise on nature; others record that Anaxagoras of Clazomenae, son of Hegesibulus, first published a book in writing. Terpander of Antissa first set poems to music and put the laws of the Spartans into song; Lasus of Hermione devised the dithyramb, Stesichorus of Himera the hymn, Alcman of Sparta the choral dance, Anacreon of Teos love songs; Pindar of Thebes the dance song; and Timotheus of Miletus first sang nomes with chorus and cithara.

Archilochus of Paros devised the iambic, Hipponax of Ephesus the limping iambic, Thespis of Athens tragedy, and Susarion of Icaria comedy. The sons of the grammarians hand down their dates; it would be long to set them out exactly, since Dionysus himself, from whom the Dionysiac spectacles come, is shown to be much later than Moses. They say that Antiphon of Rhamnus, son of Sophilus, first invented school discourses and rhetorical figures, and was the first to plead for a fee and to write a forensic speech for publication, as Diodorus says. Apollodorus of Cumae first introduced the name “grammarian” instead of “critic” and was called a grammarian; some say Eratosthenes of Cyrene, since he published two books entitled Grammatica. But the first to be called a grammarian as we now use the word was Praxiphanes of Mitylene, son of Dionysophanes. Zaleucus the Locrian is recorded as the first to make laws; others say Minos, son of Zeus, in the time of Lynceus. He lived after Danaus, in the eleventh generation from Inachus and Moses, as we shall show a little further on. Lycurgus, living many years after the capture of Ilium, gave laws to the Spartans a hundred and fifty years before the Olympiads; the dates of Solon we have given already.

Draco too, also a lawgiver, is found to have lived about the thirty-ninth Olympiad. Antilochus, who wrote about the sages, reckons from the age of Pythagoras to the death of Epicurus, which occurred on the tenth of Gamelion, three hundred and twelve years in all. They also say that Phanothea, the wife of Icarius, invented the heroic hexameter; others, Themis, one of the Titanesses. Didymus, in his work on Pythagorean philosophy, relates that Theano of Croton was the first woman to philosophize and write poems. Greek philosophy, then, as some say, lays hold of the truth by chance in some way, dimly and not of the whole; as others would have it, it gets its impulse from the devil. Some have supposed that certain inferior powers inspired all philosophy. But even if Greek philosophy does not comprehend the greatness of the truth, and further is too weak to carry out the Lord's commandments, yet it prepares the way for the most royal teaching, in some way making one self-controlled, molding the character beforehand, and preparing the one who believes in providence to receive the truth.

Yes, they say it is written, “All who came before the Lord's coming are thieves and robbers.” All, then, who came before the incarnation of the Word are to be understood more generally. But the prophets, since they were sent and inspired by the Lord, are not thieves but servants. At any rate Scripture says, “Wisdom sent her servants, calling with a lofty proclamation to the bowl of wine.” But philosophy, they say, was not sent by the Lord, but came stolen or given by a thief; whether, then, some power or angel, having learned something of the truth and not remaining in it, inspired these things and, having stolen them, taught them. Not that the Lord did not know, who knew the ends of what would be before the foundation of the world and each thing's being; but he did not prevent it. For the theft that came to human beings then had some benefit, not because the one who stole looked to what was profitable, but because providence directed the outcome of the daring deed to what was profitable.

I know that many continually attack us, saying that what does not prevent is a cause. For they say that the one who did not guard or did not prevent is the cause of the theft, as the one who did not put out the fire at its beginning is the cause of the burning, and the pilot who did not shorten sail is the cause of the shipwreck. Thus the causes of these are punished by the law; for to the one who had the power to prevent, the blame for what happens is attached. We say to them that the cause is understood in making, acting, and doing, but that what does not prevent is in this respect inactive. Further, the cause is concerned with the activity, as the shipbuilder with the ship coming to be and the builder with the house being built; but what does not prevent is separate from what happens. It is accomplished for this reason, that what could prevent does not act or prevent. For what does the one who does not prevent do? And their argument even leads to absurdity, if they will blame for the wound not the arrow but the shield that did not prevent the arrow from passing through; for they will blame not the thief but the one who did not prevent the theft.

And let them say, then, that not Hector burned the ships of the Greeks, but Achilles, because, being able to prevent Hector, he did not prevent him. But he, out of wrath (and it was in his power to be wrathful or not), did not keep off the fire, and is perhaps a joint cause; whereas the devil, having free will, was able both to repent and to steal, and he himself is the cause of the theft, not the Lord who did not prevent it. Nor was the gift harmful, so that prevention was needed. If we must be exact with them, let them know that what does not prevent, which we say happened in the case of the theft, is no cause at all; but what prevents is liable to the charge of being a cause. For the one who holds a shield before another is the cause of his not being wounded, preventing him from being wounded; and Socrates' divine sign was a cause, not by not preventing, but by turning him away, even if it did not urge him on. Neither praises nor blames, neither honors nor punishments would be just if the soul did not have the power of impulse and aversion.

nor if vice were involuntary. Hence the one who prevents is a cause, but the one who does not prevent justly judges the choice of the soul, so that God may remain as far as possible without responsibility for vice for us. And since choice and impulse begin sins, and sometimes a mistaken supposition prevails, from which, since it is ignorance and lack of learning, we neglect to withdraw, he would fittingly punish (for having a fever is involuntary too; but when someone has a fever through his own fault and intemperance, we blame him), so too, though vice is involuntary. For no one chooses evil as evil, but, carried away by the pleasure connected with it, supposing it good, he considers it worth taking. This being so, it rests with us to be freed from ignorance and from the base and pleasurable choice, and, before these, not to assent to those deceitful impressions. The devil is called a robber and a thief because he mixed false prophets in among the prophets, like tares among the wheat. “All, then, who came before the Lord are thieves and robbers”: not simply all human beings, but all the false prophets and all who were not properly sent by him.

The false prophets too had what was stolen, the prophetic name, being prophets, but of the liar. For the Lord says: “You are of your father the devil, and you wish to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks falsehood, he speaks from his own, for he is a liar and the father of it.” And among their lies the false prophets spoke some truths too, and indeed they prophesied in ecstasy, as servants of the apostate. The Shepherd, the angel of repentance, also says to Hermas about the false prophet: “For he speaks some true words; for the devil fills him with his own spirit, to see if he can break any of the righteous.” All things, then, are ordered from above for good, “that the manifold wisdom of God might be made known through the church, according to the foreknowledge of the ages, which he made in Christ.” And nothing opposes God or is contrary to him, since he is Lord and Almighty.

But the counsels and activities of the apostates too, being partial, arise from a bad disposition, like bodily diseases; but they are steered by universal providence to a healthy end, even if the cause produces disease. At any rate, the greatest thing of divine providence is not to allow the vice that sprang from a voluntary apostasy to remain useless and unprofitable, nor to become harmful in every respect. For it is the work of divine wisdom, virtue, and power not only to do good (for this, so to speak, is God's nature, as it is fire's to warm and light's to give light), but especially this: to bring about some good and useful end through the evils devised by some, and to use profitably what seems bad, as in the case of the martyrdom that comes from temptation.

There is, then, in philosophy too, stolen as if by Prometheus, a little fire usefully kindled into light, a trace of wisdom and a movement toward God. In this way the philosophers among the Greeks would be thieves and robbers, since, before the Lord's coming, they took portions of the truth from the Hebrew prophets, not with full knowledge, but appropriating them as their own doctrines; some they falsified, some they cleverly elaborated out of curiosity but without understanding, and some they discovered; for perhaps they too had “the spirit of perception.” Aristotle too agreed with Scripture, calling sophistry a thievery of wisdom, as we showed before. And the apostle says, “which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit.” For of the prophets he says, “We have all received from his fullness,” that is, from Christ's. So the prophets are not thieves. “And my teaching is not mine,” says the Lord, “but the Father's who sent me.” But of those who steal he says, “He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory.” Such are the Greeks, self-loving and boastful. And Scripture, calling them “wise,” does not disparage the truly wise, but those who think themselves wise.

And of these, it says, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the understanding of the prudent I will set aside.” At any rate the apostle adds: “Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age?” by contrast with the scribes placing the inquirers of this age, the philosophers from the Gentiles. “Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?” Equivalent to: he showed it to be foolish and not true, as they thought. And if you ask the cause of their pretended wisdom, he will say, “because of the hardness of their heart.” “Since in the wisdom of God,” that is, proclaimed through the prophets, “the world did not know through wisdom,” the wisdom that spoke through the prophets, “him,” that is, God, “God was pleased through the foolishness of preaching,” which seemed foolishness to the Greeks, “to save those who believe. For the Jews,” he says, “ask for signs” for belief, “and the Greeks seek wisdom,” that is, the so-called compelling arguments and other syllogisms, “but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the Jews,” because, though they knew the prophecy, they did not believe its fulfillment, “and foolishness to the Greeks”; for those who think themselves wise consider it a myth that the Son of God speaks through a man, and that God has a Son, and further that he suffered. Hence the prejudice of their conceit persuades them to disbelieve. For the Savior's coming did not make people foolish, hard-hearted, and unbelieving, but understanding, obedient, and moreover faithful; but those who were unwilling to obey, separated from those who obeyed by voluntary choice, were shown to be without understanding, unbelieving, and foolish. “But to those who are called, Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God.”

Or should “Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?” rather (which is better) be taken as a denial, equivalent to “He did not make it foolish,” so that the cause of their hardness of heart may not appear to come from God, who would have made the wisdom foolish? On the contrary, though they were wise, they have come under greater blame by not believing the preaching; for both the choice and the turning away from the truth are voluntary. And by “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise” he means that it will be outshone by comparison with the despised and disdained barbarian philosophy, as a lamp outshone by the sun is said to be destroyed because it does not perform the same function. All human beings, then, having been called, those who were willing to obey were named “called.” “For there is no injustice with God.” Thus those from each race who believed are “a people for his own possession.” And in the Acts of the Apostles you might find word for word: “Those, then, who received his word were baptized”; but those unwilling to obey clearly withdrew themselves.

To these the prophecy says, “If you are willing and listen to me, you will eat the good things of the land,” showing that both choice and turning away rest with us. And the apostle called the teaching according to the Lord “the wisdom of God,” to show that the true philosophy is handed down through the Son. But the one who thinks himself wise has certain exhortations from the apostle too, which command him “to put on the new man, created according to God in righteousness and holiness of truth. Therefore, putting away falsehood, speak truth; do not give place to the devil. Let the thief steal no longer, but rather let him labor, working what is good,” and to work is to labor further in seeking the truth, together with rational beneficence, “so that you may have something to share with the one in need,” both of worldly abundance and of divine wisdom. For he wishes the word to be taught, and the money, carefully tested, to be put with the bankers for lending. Hence he adds: “Let no rotten word come out of your mouth”; the rotten word is the one from conceit; “but whatever is good for building up as the need may be, that it may give grace to those who hear.” And the word of the good God must necessarily be good. How is the one who saves not good?

That the Greeks too are attested to teach some truths can be seen from this as well. Paul, in the Acts of the Apostles, is recorded as saying to the Areopagites: “I see that you are very religious. For as I passed through and looked at the objects of your worship, I found an altar on which was inscribed: To an unknown god. What you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and all things in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all life and breath and all things. And he made from one every race of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, having determined appointed seasons and the boundaries of their habitation, to seek the divine, if perhaps they might feel after it or find it, though it is not far from each one of us; for in him we live and move and have our being, as some of your own poets have said: For we are also his offspring.” From this it is clear that, using poetic examples from the Phaenomena of Aratus, he approves what was well said among the Greeks, and hinted that through the unknown god the Greeks honored, by a roundabout way, God the Creator, but that one must receive and learn him with full knowledge through the Son.

“For this reason, then, I have sent you to the Gentiles,” it says, “to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a share among those sanctified by faith in me.” These opened eyes of the blind, then, are the knowledge of the Father through the Son, the grasp of what the Greeks expressed in a roundabout way; and to turn from the power of Satan is to change from sin, through which slavery had come about. We do not, however, simply accept all philosophy, but that of which Socrates too speaks in Plato: “For there are, as those concerned with the initiations say, many thyrsus-bearers, but few Bacchants,” hinting at many called and few chosen. At any rate he adds clearly: “And these, in my opinion, are none other than those who have philosophized rightly. Of whom I too, as far as possible, left nothing undone in my life, but in every way was eager to become one. Whether I was rightly eager and accomplished anything, we shall know clearly when we come there, if God wills, a little later.”

Does he not seem to you, from the Hebrew Scriptures, to make clear the hope of the righteous after death, which belongs to faith? And in the Demodocus, if the work is really Plato's, he says that to philosophize is not this, to live bent over the arts or learning many things, but something else, since I at least thought that a reproach. For he knew, I think, that “much learning does not teach one to have sense,” according to Heraclitus. And in the fifth book of the Republic he says: “Shall we call all these, then, and others learned in such things, and those of the petty arts, philosophers? Not at all, I said, but like philosophers. And whom do you call the true ones? he said. Those, I said, who love to behold the truth.” For philosophy is not in geometry, which has postulates and hypotheses, nor in music, which is a matter of guesswork, nor in astronomy, stuffed with physical, fluctuating, and probable arguments, but it is knowledge of the good itself and of the truth, those other things being different from the good, but like roads toward the good. So he himself does not grant that encyclical education contributes to the good itself, but that it works together to rouse the soul and to exercise it together toward intelligible things.

Whether, then, they say that the Greeks uttered some things of the true philosophy by chance, the chance is of the divine plan (for no one, out of rivalry with us, will deify accident); or by coincidence, the coincidence is not without providence; or if someone should say that the Greeks had a natural conception, we know that the Creator of nature is one, just as we have called righteousness natural; or if they had a common mind, let us consider who is its father and the father of the righteousness that corresponds to the distribution of mind. For if someone speaks of foretelling and attributes it to joint utterance, he is speaking of forms of prophecy. Others would have it that some things were said by the philosophers by a reflection of the truth. The divine apostle writes of us: “For now we see as through a mirror,” knowing ourselves by reflection in him and contemplating, as far as possible, the efficient cause from the divine in us. “For you have seen your brother,” it says, “you have seen your God.” I think the Savior is here called God for us; but after putting off the flesh, “face to face,” then definitely and comprehensively, when the heart has become pure. And by reflection and transparency those who philosophized accurately among the Greeks see God; for such are the true impressions because of our weakness, as an image is seen in water and we see things through transparent and clear bodies.

Well, then, does Solomon say, “He who sows righteousness works faith.” “And there are those who sow their own and make more.” And again: “Take care of the green things in the field, and you will shear the grass, and gather ripe hay, that you may have sheep for clothing.” You see how care must be taken also for outward covering and protection. “And you will know the souls of your flock well.” “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,” the uncircumcision keeping the ordinances of the law, according to the apostle, both before the law and before the coming. As if comparing those from philosophy with the so-called heretics, the Word says very plainly, “Better is a friend near than a brother living far off. But the one who leans on falsehoods feeds the winds and chases winged birds.” I do not think the Word here means philosophy, though in many things philosophy argues and persuades what is probable; rather he rebukes the heresies. At any rate he adds: “For he has left the ways of his own vineyard and has wandered from the tracks of his own field.” These are the heresies that leave the church that existed from the beginning. Thus the one who has fallen into heresy “passes through a waterless desert,” abandoning the God who truly is, deserted by God, seeking waterless water, coming to the uninhabited and thirsty land, “gathering fruitlessness with his hands.”

“And I exhort those who lack sense,” says Wisdom, meaning those involved in the heresies, “Touch hidden bread with pleasure, and sweet stolen water,” Scripture plainly applying bread and water to none other than the heresies that use bread and water in the offering not according to the rule of the church. For there are those who even celebrate the Eucharist with plain water. “But leap away, do not linger in her place”; “place” means the synagogue, not calling it “church” by the same name. Then it adds: “For so you will pass through strange water,” reckoning heretical baptism not proper and genuine water, “and you will cross a strange river,” which carries one along and sweeps one down into the sea, into which the one who has turned aside from the firm foundation of truth is poured out, flowing back again into the heathen and disorderly waves of life.

As the many men who drag a ship down to the sea would not be called many causes, but one cause from many (for each is not the cause of the ship being dragged, but with the others), so philosophy too, being an inquiry into truth, helps toward the apprehension of truth, not being the cause of apprehension, but a cause together with the others and a fellow worker. Perhaps a joint cause is also a cause. And as, happiness being one, the virtues that are many are its causes; and as the sun, fire, the bath, and clothing are causes of being warmed; so, truth being one, many things help toward seeking it, but the finding is through the Son. At any rate, if we consider, virtue is one in power; but it happens that, arising in these matters, it is called prudence, in these self-control, in these courage or justice. By the same reasoning, since truth is one, in geometry there is the truth of geometry, in music that of music, and in right philosophy there would be Greek truth. But the sovereign truth alone is unassailable, which we learn from the Son of God.

In the same way we say that one and the same drachma, given to the shipmaster, is called fare; to the tax collector, tax; to the landlord, rent; to the teacher, fee; and to the seller, deposit. And each virtue, or truth, called by the same name, is the cause only of its own result; and from their joint use comes living happily (for we are not made happy by names), when we call the right life happiness and the one whose soul is adorned with virtue happy. And if philosophy helps from afar toward the finding of truth, reaching by various approaches toward our knowledge, which touches the truth directly, yet it does help the one who is eager to lay hold of knowledge rationally. But Greek truth is distinct from ours, even if it has received the same name, both by the greatness of knowledge, by more authoritative demonstration, by divine power, and the like; for we are taught by God, learning truly sacred letters from the Son of God. Hence they do not move souls in the same way, but by different teaching.

If we must also make distinctions because of the fault-finders, calling philosophy a joint cause and fellow worker in the true apprehension, being an inquiry into truth, we will acknowledge it as a preliminary training of the one who knows, not making the joint cause a cause, nor the fellow worker a sustaining cause, nor philosophy that without which it cannot be; since almost all of us, without the encyclical education and Greek philosophy, and some even without letters, moved by the divine and barbarian philosophy, have received in power the word about God through faith, taught by a wisdom that works by itself. What acts together with another, being incomplete to act by itself, we call a fellow worker and joint cause, named from being a cause with a cause, or from becoming a cause by joining another, but unable by itself to produce the true result. Yet philosophy once justified the Greeks even by itself, though not to the whole righteousness, toward which it is found a fellow worker (as the first and second step are for one going up to the upper room, and the schoolmaster for one who will philosophize); nor does its removal make the whole account deficient or destroy the truth, since sight, hearing, and voice contribute to truth, but it is the mind that knows it naturally. But among fellow workers some contribute more power, others less. Clarity at any rate works together for the handing on of truth, and dialectic for not falling to the heresies that attack.

The teaching according to the Savior, then, is complete in itself and needs nothing, being “the power and wisdom of God”; and Greek philosophy, coming to it, does not make the truth more powerful, but, making the sophistic attack against it powerless and repelling the treacherous plots against the truth, it has fittingly been called the hedge and wall of the vineyard. The truth according to faith is necessary for life like bread; preliminary training is like relish and dessert, “a sweet sweetmeat at the end of dinner,” according to Pindar of Thebes. Scripture has said outright: “The innocent who understands will be more shrewd, and the wise will receive knowledge.” And “he who speaks from himself seeks his own glory,” says the Lord, “but he who seeks the glory of the one who sent him is true, and there is no unrighteousness in him.” Conversely, then, the one who appropriates the things of the barbarians and boasts of them as his own does wrong, increasing his own glory and falsifying the truth. Scripture calls him a thief. At any rate it says, “My son, do not be a liar; for lying leads to theft.” Yet the thief really has what he has taken, whether gold, silver, word, or doctrine. What they have stolen, then, is partly true, but they know it by guesswork and the necessities of argument. When they become disciples, then, they will know it with understanding.

We shall discuss a little later how the doctrines of the philosophers were devised from the Hebrews; but first, as was fitting, we must now speak about the times of Moses, by which it will be shown beyond dispute that the philosophy of the Hebrews is the most ancient of all wisdom. This has been discussed accurately by Tatian in his work To the Greeks, and also by Cassian in the first book of his Exegetica; nevertheless our record requires us too to run over what has been said on the subject. Apion the grammarian, surnamed Pleistonices, in the fourth book of his Egyptian Histories, though he was hostile to the Hebrews, being an Egyptian by race, so that he even composed a book against the Jews, when mentioning Amosis, king of the Egyptians, and his deeds, cites as witness Ptolemy of Mendes. His words run thus: “Amosis destroyed Avaris, having lived in the time of Inachus of Argos, as Ptolemy of Mendes wrote in his Chronicles.” This Ptolemy was a priest, and, setting out the deeds of the Egyptian kings in three whole books, he says that it was in the time of Amosis, king of Egypt, that the Jews made their departure from Egypt, led by Moses; from which it is seen that Moses flourished in the time of Inachus.

The oldest of Greek history is that of Argos, I mean from Inachus, as Dionysius of Halicarnassus teaches in his Chronicles; the Attic, from Cecrops, the two-natured and earthborn, is younger than these by … forty generations, as Tatian says word for word, and the Arcadian, from Pelasgus, by nine (he too is said to be earthborn). Younger than these by two more is the Phthiotic, from Deucalion. From Inachus to the time of the Trojan War, twenty generations or one more are counted, and roughly four hundred years or more. If the Assyrian history is many years older than the Greek, from what Ctesias says, it will appear that the departure of Moses from Egypt, in the time of Amosis the Egyptian and Inachus the Argive, was in the four hundred and second year of the Assyrian empire and the thirty-second of the reign of Beluchus the eighth. In Greece, in the time of Phoroneus, who came after Inachus, there was the flood in the time of Ogyges and the kingdom in Sicyon, first of Aegialeus, then of Europs, then of Telchis, and that of Cres in Crete. For Acusilaus says that Phoroneus was the first man; hence the poet of the Phoronis too said that he was “father of mortal men.”

Following Acusilaus, Plato writes in the Timaeus: “And once, wishing to lead them on to talk about ancient things, he tried to tell the most ancient things of this city, about Phoroneus, who was called the first, and Niobe, and what happened after the flood.” In the time of Phorbas was Actaeus, from whom Attica was called Actaea. In the time of Triopas were Prometheus, Atlas, Epimetheus, Cecrops the two-natured, and Io. In the time of Crotopus, the conflagration under Phaethon and the deluge under Deucalion. In the time of Sthenelus, the reign of Amphictyon, the coming of Danaus to the Peloponnese, and the founding of Dardania by Dardanus, “whom first,” says Homer, “cloud-gathering Zeus begot,” and the carrying of Europa from Phoenicia to Crete. In the time of Lynceus, the rape of the Maiden, the founding of the precinct at Eleusis, the agriculture of Triptolemus, the coming of Cadmus to Thebes, and the reign of Minos. In the time of Proetus, the war of Eumolpus against the Athenians. In the time of Acrisius, the crossing of Pelops from Phrygia, the arrival of Ion at Athens, the second Cecrops, the deeds of Perseus and Dionysus, and Orpheus and Musaeus.

Ilium was taken in the eighteenth year of Agamemnon's reign, in the first year of Demophon son of Theseus as king at Athens, on the twelfth of the month Thargelion, as Dionysius of Argos says; Agias and Dercylus in their third book say on the eighth day before the end of the month Panemus; Hellanicus says the twelfth of Thargelion. And some of those who wrote Attic histories say the eighth day before the end, in the last year of Menestheus' reign, at full moon: “It was midnight,” says the author of the Little Iliad, “and the bright moon was rising”; others say the same day of Scirophorion. Theseus, an emulator of Heracles, is one generation older than the Trojan War. At any rate Homer mentions Tlepolemus, a son of Heracles, as having fought against Ilium.

Moses, then, is shown to precede the deification of Dionysus by six hundred and four years, if he is deified in the thirty-second year of the reign of Perseus, as Apollodorus says in his Chronicles. From Dionysus to Heracles and the heroes with Jason who sailed in the Argo, sixty-three years are reckoned; Asclepius and the Dioscuri sailed with them, as Apollonius of Rhodes testifies in the Argonautica. From the reign of Heracles at Argos to the deification of Heracles himself and Asclepius, thirty-eight years are reckoned, according to the chronographer Apollodorus; from then to the deification of Castor and Pollux, fifty-three years. About this time too was the capture of Ilium. And if we must believe Hesiod the poet too, let us hear him: “To Zeus, Maia, daughter of Atlas, bore glorious Hermes, herald of the immortals, having gone up into his holy bed; and Cadmean Semele, joined in love, bore him a splendid son, Dionysus of many joys.”

Cadmus, the father of Semele, came to Thebes in the time of Lynceus and became the inventor of Greek letters. Triopas was contemporary with Isis, in the seventh generation from Inachus (they say that Isis is also Io, because she went wandering through the whole earth); Ister, in his work on the colonization of the Egyptians, says she was the daughter of Prometheus. And Prometheus, in the time of Triopas, was in the seventh generation after Moses, so that Moses appears to have flourished even before the origin of man according to the Greeks. Leon, who wrote about the gods of Egypt, says that Isis is called Demeter by the Greeks; she lived in the time of Lynceus, eleven generations after Moses. Apis, king of Argos, founded Memphis, as Aristippus says in the first book of his Arcadica. Aristeas of Argos says that he was surnamed Sarapis and that he is the one the Egyptians worship; Nymphodorus of Amphipolis, in the third book of his Customs of Asia, says that the bull Apis, when it died and was embalmed, was placed in a coffin in the temple of the honored god; hence it was called Soroapis, and later, by a certain usage of the natives, Sarapis.

Apis is third from Inachus. Leto too lived in the time of Tityus, for “he assaulted Leto, the glorious consort of Zeus,” and Tityus was contemporary with Tantalus. Fittingly, then, does Pindar the Boeotian write: “In time was Apollo born”; and it is no wonder, since he is found serving Admetus along with Heracles “for a great year.” Zethus and Amphion, the inventors of music, lived about the age of Cadmus. And if anyone tells us that Phemonoe first gave oracles to Acrisius, let him know that twenty-seven years after Phemonoe came Orpheus, Musaeus, and Linus, the teacher of Heracles. Homer and Hesiod are much younger than the Trojan War, and much younger again than they are the Greek lawgivers, Lycurgus and Solon, and the Seven Wise Men, and Pherecydes of Syros and the great Pythagoras, who lived somewhere about the Olympiads, as we have shown. So Moses has been shown to be older than most of the gods among the Greeks, not only than their so-called wise men and poets.

Not only he, but the Sibyl too is older than Orpheus. For there are several accounts of her name and of the oracles attributed to her: that, being a Phrygian, she was called Artemis, and that she came to Delphi and sang: “O Delphians, servants of far-shooting Apollo, I have come to declare the mind of aegis-bearing Zeus, angry with my own brother Apollo.” There is also another, the Erythraean, called Herophile; Heraclides of Pontus mentions them in his work On Oracles. I pass over the Egyptian and the Italian, who lived in the Carmalum at Rome, whose son Evander founded at Rome the shrine of Pan called the Lupercal.

Having come here, it is worth examining the times of the other prophets among the Hebrews after Moses. After the end of Moses' life, Joshua succeeded to the leadership of the people, fighting for … years and resting in the good land another twenty-five. As the book of Joshua contains, the man just mentioned succeeded Moses for twenty-seven years. Then the Hebrews, having sinned, were handed over to Chushan, king of Mesopotamia, for eight years, as the book of Judges relates; and afterward, having prayed to God, they received as leader Othniel, the younger brother of Caleb, of the tribe of Judah, who killed the king of Mesopotamia and ruled the people for fifty years. And again, having sinned, they were handed over to Eglon, king of the Moabites, for eighteen years; and when they turned back, Ehud led them for eighty years, a man ambidextrous, of the tribe of Ephraim; he is the one who killed Eglon.

When Ehud died, they sinned again and were handed over to Jabin, king of Canaan, for twenty years. In his time Deborah, the wife of Lappidoth, of the tribe of Ephraim, prophesied, and the high priest was Uzzi, son of Rhiesus. Through her, Barak, son of Benner, of the tribe of Naphtali, leading the army, drew up against Sisera, Jabin's commander, and conquered; and from then Deborah ruled the people as judge for forty years. When she died, the people sinned again and were handed over to the Midianites for seven years. After these, Gideon, son of Joash, of the tribe of Manasseh, marching out with three hundred men and destroying a hundred and twenty thousand of them, ruled forty years. After him his son Abimelech, three years. Boleas (that is, Tola), son of Bedan, son of Charran, of the tribe of Ephraim, succeeded him, ruling twenty-three years. After him the people, sinning again, were handed over to the Ammonites for eighteen years.

When they repented, Jephthah the Gileadite, of the tribe of Manasseh, led them and ruled six years; after him Ibzan of Bethlehem, of the tribe of Judah, ruled seven years; then Elon the Zebulunite, eight years; then Abdon of Ephraim, eight years. Some join Elon's eight years to Ibzan's seven. After him the people, sinning again, came under foreigners, the Philistines, for forty years. When they turned back, Samson of the tribe of Dan led them, having conquered the foreigners in war; he ruled twenty years. After him, there being no ruler, Eli the priest judged the people forty years. Samuel the prophet succeeded him, with whom Saul reigned, holding power twenty-seven years. He also anointed David.

Samuel died two years before Saul, when Abimelech was high priest. He anointed Saul as king, who was the first to reign over Israel after the judges, whose whole number up to Samuel comes to four hundred and sixty-three years and seven months. Then, according to the first book of Kingdoms, Saul reigned twenty years after he was renewed as king. After Saul's death David, son of Jesse, of the tribe of Judah, reigned a second time in Hebron, forty years, as the second book of Kingdoms contains; the high priest was Abiathar, son of Abimelech, of the family of Eli, and Gad and Nathan prophesied in his time. From Joshua son of Nun until David received the kingdom, then, there are, as some say, four hundred and fifty years; but, as the chronology given above shows, five hundred and twenty-three years and seven months are reckoned to David's death.

After this Solomon, son of David, reigned forty years. In his time Nathan continued prophesying, who also exhorted him about the building of the temple; likewise Ahijah of Shiloh prophesied; and both kings, David and Solomon, were prophets. Zadok the high priest was the first to serve as priest in the temple Solomon built, being eighth from Aaron, the first high priest. From Moses to the age of Solomon, then, there are, as some say, five hundred and ninety-five years, or, as others say, five hundred and seventy-six. If someone adds to the four hundred and fifty years from Joshua to David the forty years of Moses' leadership and the other eighty years that Moses lived before the Hebrews' exodus from Egypt, and adds to these the forty years of David's reign, he will reckon six hundred and ten years in all.

But our chronology proceeds more exactly, if one adds to the five hundred and twenty-three years and seven months up to David's death the hundred and twenty years of Moses and the forty of Solomon; for he will reckon in all, to Solomon's death, six hundred and eighty-three years and seven months. Hiram gave his daughter to Solomon at the time when Menelaus arrived in Phoenicia after the capture of Troy, as Menander of Pergamum and Laetus say in their Phoenician Histories. After Solomon, Rehoboam his son reigned seventeen years, and the high priest was Abimelech, son of Zadok. In his time, when the kingdom was divided, Jeroboam, of the tribe of Ephraim, Solomon's servant, reigned in Samaria; and Ahijah the Shilonite still prophesied, and Shemaiah son of Elam, and the man who came from Judah to Jeroboam and prophesied against the altar.

After him Abijam his son reigned twenty-three years, and likewise his son Asa forty-one years; he had gout in his old age, and Jehu son of Hanani prophesied in his time. After him Jehoshaphat his son reigned twenty-five years; in his time Elijah the Tishbite prophesied, and Micaiah son of Imlah, and Obadiah son of Hanani. In Micaiah's time there was also a false prophet, Zedekiah son of Chenaanah. There follows the reign of Joram son of Jehoshaphat for eight years, in whose time Elijah prophesied and, after Elijah, Elisha son of Shaphat. In his time those in Samaria ate dove's dung and their own children. The time of Jehoshaphat extends from the last part of the third book of Kingdoms into the fourth. In the time of Joram, Elijah was taken up, and Elisha son of Shaphat began to prophesy, and prophesied six years, being forty years old. Then Ahaziah reigned one year; in his time Elisha still prophesied, and Abdadonaeus with him.

After him Athaliah, the mother of Ahaziah, reigned eight years, having killed the children of her brother; for she was of the family of Ahab. But Jehosheba, the sister of Ahaziah, stole away Joash, the son of Ahaziah, and later put the kingdom on him. In the time of this Athaliah Elisha still prophesied; after her, as I said before, reigned Joash, who was saved by Jehosheba, the wife of Jehoiada the high priest, and the whole comes to forty years. From Solomon to the death of the prophet Elisha, then, are reckoned, as some say, a hundred and five years, as others, a hundred and two; but, as the chronology given above shows, a hundred and eighty-one years from the reign of Solomon.

From the Trojan War to the birth of Homer, according to Philochorus, is a hundred and eighty years, later than the Ionian colonization. Aristarchus, in his Commentaries on Archilochus, says he is placed at the time of the Ionian colonization, which took place a hundred and forty years after the Trojan War. Apollodorus says a hundred years after the Ionian colonization, when Agesilaus son of Doryssus was king of the Spartans, so that Lycurgus the lawgiver, while still young, overlapped with him. Euthymenes in his Chronicles says that he flourished with Hesiod and was born in Chios in the time of Acastus, about two hundred years after the capture of Ilium. Archemachus too, in the third book of his Euboean History, is of this opinion; so that he and Hesiod are younger than the prophet Elisha. And if anyone wishes to follow Crates the grammarian and say that Homer lived about the return of the Heraclidae, eighty years after the capture of Ilium, he will again be found later than Solomon, in whose time Menelaus came to Phoenicia, as has been said. Eratosthenes puts Homer's age after the hundredth year from the capture of Ilium. Theopompus, in the forty-third book of his Philippica, relates that Homer lived five hundred years after those who fought against Ilium. Euphorion, in his work on the Aleuadae, puts him in the time of Gyges, who began to reign from the eighteenth Olympiad, and who, he says, was the first to be called “tyrant.” Sosibius the Spartan, in his Chronological Record, puts Homer in the eighth year of the reign of Charillus son of Polydectes. Charillus reigned sixty-four years, and after him his son Nicander thirty-nine; in the thirty-fourth year of his reign, he says, the first Olympiad was established; so that Homer lived about ninety years before the institution of the Olympic games.

After Joash his son Amaziah succeeded to the kingdom for thirty-nine years; Uzziah his son likewise succeeded him for fifty-two years, and he died a leper. In his time Amos prophesied, and Isaiah his son, and Hosea son of Beeri, and Jonah son of Amittai of Gath-hepher, who preached to the Ninevites and came out of the whale. Then Jotham son of Uzziah reigned sixteen years; in his time Isaiah still prophesied, and Hosea, and Micah the Morasthite, and Joel son of Bathuel.

His son Ahaz succeeded him for sixteen years; in the fifteenth year of his reign Israel was carried away to Babylon, and Shalmaneser king of the Assyrians transported those in Samaria to the Medes and Babylon. Hoshea again succeeded Ahaz for eight years, then Hezekiah for twenty-nine years. To him, because of his holiness, when he was at the end of his life, God granted through Isaiah to live another fifteen years, by the sun's going back. Isaiah, Hosea, and Micah continued prophesying until this time. These are said to have lived after the age of Lycurgus, the lawgiver of the Spartans; for Dieuchidas, in the fourth book of his Megarian History, puts the prime of Lycurgus about the two hundred and ninetieth year after the capture of Ilium; while Isaiah is shown still prophesying in the three hundredth year from the reign of Solomon, in whose time Menelaus was shown to have come to Phoenicia, and with him Micah, Hosea, and Joel son of Bathuel.

After Hezekiah his son Manasseh reigned fifty-five years, then his son Amon two years, after whom Josiah his son, most faithful to the law, thirty-one years. He laid the carcasses of men on the carcasses of the idols, as is written in Leviticus. In the eighteenth year of his reign the Passover was held, which had not been celebrated since … Samuel, nor in the time between. Then too Hilkiah the priest, the father of Jeremiah the prophet, finding the book of the law laid up in the temple, read it and died. In his time Huldah, Zephaniah, and Jeremiah prophesied. In Jeremiah's time Hananiah was a false prophet. This Josiah, disobeying Jeremiah the prophet, was killed by Neco, king of Egypt, at the river Euphrates, having gone out to meet him as he marched against the Assyrians.

Jeconiah, also called Jehoahaz, his son, succeeded Josiah for three months and ten days. Neco king of Egypt bound him and carried him to Egypt, setting up in his place as king his brother Jehoiakim, under tribute of the land, for eleven years. After him his namesake Jehoiakim reigned three months, then Zedekiah eleven years. And Jeremiah continued prophesying until his time, and Buzi and Uriah son of Shemaiah and Habakkuk prophesied with him; and the history of the Hebrew kings ends. From the birth of Moses to this deportation, then, there are, as some say, nine hundred and seventy-two years, but according to the exact chronology, a thousand and eighty-five years, six months, and ten days; and from the reign of David to the captivity by the Chaldeans, four hundred and fifty-two years and six months, but as our exact reckoning of the times gathers, four hundred and eighty-two years, six months, and ten days.

In the twelfth year of Zedekiah's reign, seventy years before the Persian supremacy, Nebuchadnezzar marched against the Phoenicians and Jews, as Berossus says in his Chaldean History. Juba, writing about the Assyrians, admits that he took his history from Berossus, testifying to the man's truthfulness. Nebuchadnezzar, then, blinded Zedekiah and carried him to Babylon, and deported all the people (and the captivity lasted seventy years), except a few who fled to Egypt. In Zedekiah's time Jeremiah and Habakkuk still prophesied; in the fifth year of his reign Ezekiel prophesied in Babylon; after him Nahum the prophet, then Daniel; and again after him Haggai and Zechariah prophesied in the time of Darius the First, for two years; and after him the Angel among the Twelve.

After Haggai and Zechariah, Nehemiah, the chief cupbearer of Artaxerxes, son of Achel (Hachaliah) the Israelite, built the city of Jerusalem and restored the temple. In this captivity lived Esther and Mordecai, whose book is current, as is that of the Maccabees. In this captivity Mishael, Hananiah, and Azariah, refusing to worship the image, were thrown into the furnace of fire and were saved by the appearance of an angel. Then Daniel, cast into the lions' den because of the dragon, was fed by Habakkuk by God's providence and was rescued on the seventh day. Here too the sign of Jonah took place; and Tobias, through the angel Raphael, took Sarah as wife, the demon having killed her first seven suitors; and after the marriage of Tobias his father Tobit recovered his sight.

Here Zerubbabel, having conquered his rivals in wisdom, obtained from Darius the renewal of Jerusalem as his reward, and returned with Ezra to his ancestral land; through him came the redemption of the people, the recognition and renewal of the inspired oracles, the celebration of the saving Passover, and the dissolution of foreign marriages. Cyrus had already proclaimed the restoration of the Hebrews; and when the promise was fulfilled under Darius, the feast of dedication was held, as also for the tabernacle. And the whole comes, with the years of captivity, up to the restoration of the people, from the birth of Moses, to one thousand one hundred and fifty-five years, six months, and ten days; from the reign of David, as some say, five hundred and fifty-two years, or, more exactly, five hundred and seventy-two years, six months, and ten days.

So from the captivity to Babylon, which took place in the time of Jeremiah the prophet, what was said by Daniel the prophet was fulfilled, as follows: “Seventy weeks have been decreed for your people and for the holy city, to finish sin, to seal up sins, to wipe out iniquities, to make atonement, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophet, and to anoint a holy of holies. And you will know and understand: from the going out of the word to answer and to build Jerusalem until an anointed leader, seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; and it will return and the street and wall will be built, and the times will be emptied. And after the sixty-two weeks the anointing will be destroyed, and there is no judgment for him. And he will destroy the city and the sanctuary with the leader who is coming; they will be cut off in a flood; and until the end of the war cut short with desolations. And one week will confirm a covenant with many; and in half of the week my sacrifice and libation will be taken away; and on the temple an abomination of desolations, and until the end of the time an end will be given to the desolation. And half of the week will stop the incense of sacrifice, and the wing of destruction until the end, and the order of destruction with haste.”

That the temple was built in seven weeks is clear; for it is written in Ezra. And so an anointed one became king of the Jews, their leader, when the seven weeks were completed in Jerusalem; and in the sixty-two weeks all Judea was at peace and was without wars; and our Lord Christ, the Holy of holies, having come and fulfilled the vision and the prophet, was anointed in his flesh by the Spirit of his Father within these sixty-two weeks, as the prophet said. And in the one week, half of which Nero held as king, he set up the abomination in the holy city of Jerusalem; and in the half of the week he was killed, and Otho, Galba, and Vitellius too; and Vespasian prevailed, destroyed Jerusalem, and made the sanctuary desolate. And that this is so is clear to anyone who can understand, according to what the prophet has said.

When the eleventh year was completed, at the beginning of the following one, in the reign of Jehoiakim, the captivity to Babylon took place under King Nebuchadnezzar, in the seventh year of his reign over the Assyrians, in the second year of Vaphres' reign over the Egyptians, and in the first year of the forty-eighth Olympiad, when Philip was archon at Athens; and the captivity lasted seventy years, ending in the second year of Darius son of Hystaspes, who had become king of the Persians, Assyrians, and Egyptians. In his time, as I said before, Haggai, Zechariah, and the Angel of the Twelve prophesied, and the high priest was Jeshua son of Jozadak. And in the second year of the reign of Darius, who, Herodotus says, overthrew the rule of the Magi, Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel was sent to raise up and adorn the temple in Jerusalem.

The dates of the Persians are reckoned thus: Cyrus thirty years, Cambyses nineteen, Darius forty-six, Xerxes twenty-six, Artaxerxes forty-one, Darius eight, Artaxerxes forty-two, Ochus eight, Arses three. The Persian years together come to two hundred and thirty-five. When Alexander the Macedonian had overthrown this Darius, he began to reign, according to the years set out. Likewise the dates of the Macedonian kings are brought down thus: Alexander eighteen years, Ptolemy son of Lagus forty years, Ptolemy Philadelphus twenty-seven years, then Euergetes twenty-five years, then Philopator seventeen years, after whom Epiphanes twenty-four years; Philometor succeeded him and reigned thirty-five years, after whom Physcon twenty-nine years, then Lathyrus thirty-six years, then the one surnamed Dionysus twenty-nine years.

Last of all Cleopatra reigned twenty-two years, after whom the reign of Cleopatra's children lasted eighteen days. The dates of the Macedonian kings together come to three hundred and twelve years and eighteen days. So those who prophesied under Darius son of Hystaspes in the second year of his reign, Haggai, Zechariah, and the Angel of the Twelve, prophesying in the first year of the forty-eighth Olympiad, are shown to be older than Pythagoras, who is placed in the sixty-second Olympiad, and than Thales, the oldest of the wise men among the Greeks, who lived about the fiftieth Olympiad. And the wise men listed with Thales were contemporary with him, as Andron says in his Tripod. Heraclitus, being later than Pythagoras, mentions him in his writing.

Hence without dispute the first Olympiad would be earlier than the age of the prophets just named together with the so-called Seven Wise Men; and it is shown to be later than the Trojan War by four hundred and seven years. It is easy, then, to see that Solomon, who lived in the time of Menelaus (who was at the time of the Trojan War), was many years older than the wise men among the Greeks. And by how many years Moses precedes him has been shown by us above. Alexander, surnamed Polyhistor, in his work on the Jews recorded certain letters of Solomon to Vaphres, king of Egypt, and to the king of the Tyrians in Phoenicia, and theirs to Solomon; according to them Vaphres sent him eighty thousand Egyptian men for the building of the temple, and the other the same number with a Tyrian master builder, whose mother was a Jewess of the tribe of David, as is written there, named Hyperon.

Indeed, Onomacritus of Athens, whose are said to be the poems attributed to Orpheus, is found in the time of the rule of the Pisistratids, about the fiftieth Olympiad; Orpheus, who sailed with Heracles, was the teacher of Musaeus; Amphion precedes the Trojan War by two generations; Demodocus and Phemius were famous for playing the cithara after the capture of Ilium (the one among the Phaeacians, the other among the suitors). And they say that the oracles attributed to Musaeus are by Onomacritus, the Crater of Orpheus by Zopyrus of Heraclea, and the Descent to Hades by Prodicus of Samos. Ion of Chios in his Triagmi relates that Pythagoras too attributed some works to Orpheus. Epigenes, in his work on the poetry attributed to Orpheus, says the Descent to Hades and the Sacred Discourse are by Cercops the Pythagorean, and the Robe and the Physics by Brontinus. Some also make Terpander ancient; Hellanicus relates that he lived in the time of Midas, and Phanias, putting Lesches of Lesbos before Terpander, makes Terpander younger than Archilochus, and says Lesches competed with Arctinus and won. Xanthus the Lydian says that Thasos was founded about the eighteenth Olympiad (Dionysius says about the fifteenth), so that it is clear that Archilochus was already known after the twentieth Olympiad. He mentions the destruction of the Magnesians as recent. Simonides is placed in the time of Archilochus, and Callinus not much earlier; for Archilochus mentions the Magnesians as destroyed, Callinus as prospering. Eumelus of Corinth, being older, overlapped with Archias, the founder of Syracuse.

We have been led to say this because they put the poets of the Epic Cycle among the very ancient. Among the Greeks too there are said to have been many oracle-mongers, like the Bacides (one Boeotian, the other Arcadian), who foretold many things to many. By the advice of Amphilytus of Athens Pisistratus strengthened his tyranny, since he showed him the right moment to attack. Let me pass over in silence Cometes the Cretan, Cinyras the Cyprian, Admetus the Thessalian, Aristaeus of Cyrene, Amphiaraus the Athenian, Timoxenus of Corcyra, Demaenetus of Phocaea, Epigenes of Thespiae, Nicias of Carystus, Ariston the Thessalian, Dionysius the Carthaginian, Cleophon of Corinth, and Hippo, daughter of Chiron, and Boeo and Manto, and the multitude of Sibyls: the Samian, the Colophonian, the Cumaean, the Erythraean, Phyto, Taraxandra, the Macedonian, the Thessalian, the Thesprotian; and Calchas and Mopsus, who lived at the time of the Trojan War, Mopsus being older, since he sailed with the Argonauts.

They say that Battus of Cyrene composed the so-called Divination of Mopsus, and Dorotheus, in the first book of his Pandects, relates that Mopsus understood the kingfisher and the crow. The great Pythagoras always devoted himself to foreknowledge, and Abaris the Hyperborean, Aristeas of Proconnesus, Epimenides the Cretan, who came to Sparta, Zoroaster the Mede, Empedocles of Acragas, Phormion the Spartan, and indeed Polyaratus of Thasos and Empedotimus of Syracuse, and besides these especially Socrates of Athens. “For I have,” he says in the Theages, “from childhood, by divine fate, a certain daemonic sign; this is a voice, which, when it comes, stops what I am about to do, but never urges me on.” And Execestus, tyrant of the Phocians, wearing two enchanted rings, perceived the right times for actions by the sound they made against each other; yet he died murdered by treachery, though the sound had warned him, as Aristotle says in his Constitution of the Phocians.

And among the Egyptians there were men who were once men but became gods by human opinion, Hermes of Thebes and Asclepius of Memphis; and further Tiresias and Manto at Thebes, as Euripides says; Helenus, Laocoon, and Oenone, daughter of Cebren, at Ilium; … for Crenus, one of the Heraclidae, is reported a famous seer, and Iamus another in Elis, from whom the Iamidae come; and Polyidus in Argos and in Megara, whom tragedy mentions. Why should I list Telemus, who, being the seer of the Cyclopes, foretold to Polyphemus the wandering of Odysseus; or Onomacritus at Athens; or Amphiaraus, who marched with the Seven against Thebes, said to be a generation older than the capture of Ilium; or Theoclymenus in Cephallenia, or Telmessus in Caria, or Galeus in Sicily? There might be others besides these: Idmon, who sailed with the Argonauts; Phemonoe of Delphi; Mopsus, son of Apollo and Manto, in Pamphylia and Cilicia; Amphilochus, son of Amphiaraus, in Cilicia; Alcmaeon among the Acarnanians; Anius in Delos; and Aristander of Telmessus, who was with Alexander. Philochorus even relates, in the first book of his On Divination, that Orpheus was a seer.

Theopompus, Ephorus, and Timaeus record a seer named Orthagoras, as Pythocles of Samos, in the fourth book of his Italian History, records Gaius Julius Nepos. But these are all “thieves and robbers,” as Scripture says, having foretold most things from observation and probability, like the physiognomists, physicians, and seers; others were moved by demons or disturbed by waters, incense, and a certain kind of air. But among the Hebrews the prophets spoke by the power and inspiration of God. Before the law, Adam prophesied about the woman and the naming of the animals; Noah preached repentance; and Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob plainly revealed not a few things to come and already present. With the law were Moses and Aaron, after whom prophesied Joshua son of Nun, Samuel, Gad, Nathan, Ahijah, Shemaiah, Jehu, Elijah, Micaiah, Obadiah, Elisha, Abdadonai, Amos, Isaiah, Hosea, Jonah, Joel, Jeremiah, Zephaniah, Buzi, Ezekiel, Uriah, Habakkuk, Nahum, Daniel, Mishael, the one who wrote the syllogisms, Haggai, Zechariah, and the Angel among the Twelve.

All the prophets come to thirty-five. Of women (for they too prophesied), Sarah, Rebekah, Miriam, Deborah, and Huldah. Then about the same times John prophesied until the Savior's baptism, and after the birth of Christ, Anna and Simeon; for Zechariah, the father of John, is said in the Gospels to have prophesied even before his son. Let us gather the chronology according to the Greeks from Moses onward. From the birth of Moses to the exodus of the Jews from Egypt, eighty years, and to his death another forty; the exodus took place in the time of Inachus, Moses having left Egypt three hundred and forty-five years before the Sothic period. From the leadership of Moses and Inachus to the flood of Deucalion, I mean the second deluge, and the conflagration of Phaethon, which occurred in the time of Crotopus, … forty generations are counted; and three generations are reckoned in a hundred years. From the flood to the burning of Ida and the discovery of iron and the Idaean Dactyls, seventy-three years, as Thrasyllus says; and from the burning of Ida to the rape of Ganymede, sixty-five years.

From then to the expedition of Perseus, when Glaucus founded the Isthmian games in honor of Melicertes, fifteen years. From the expedition of Perseus to the founding of Ilium, thirty-four years. From then to the sailing of the Argo, sixty-four years. From this to Theseus and the Minotaur, thirty-two years; then to the Seven against Thebes, ten years; to the Olympic contest, which Heracles founded in honor of Pelops, three years; to the expedition of the Amazons against Athens and the rape of Helen by Theseus, nine years. From then to the deification of Heracles, eleven years; then to the rape of Helen by Alexander, four years; then to the capture of Troy, twenty years. From the capture of Troy to the return of Aeneas and the founding of Lavinium, ten years; to the rule of Ascanius, eight years; to the return of the Heraclidae, sixty-one years; and to the Olympiad of Iphitus, three hundred and thirty-eight years.

Eratosthenes records the dates thus: from the capture of Troy to the return of the Heraclidae, eighty years; from then to the founding of Ionia, sixty years; after these, to the guardianship of Lycurgus, a hundred and fifty-nine years; to the year before the first Olympic games, a hundred and eight years; from that Olympiad to the crossing of Xerxes, two hundred and ninety-seven years; from which to the beginning of the Peloponnesian War, forty-eight years; to its end and the defeat of the Athenians, twenty-seven years; to the battle at Leuctra, thirty-four years; after which to the death of Philip, thirty-five years; and after this to the death of Alexander, twelve years. Again, from the first Olympiad some say twenty-four years are reckoned to the founding of Rome; from then to the abolition of the kings, when consuls began, two hundred and forty-three years; and from the abolition of the kings to the death of Alexander, a hundred and eighty-six years.

From then to the victory of Augustus, when Antony killed himself at Alexandria, two hundred and ninety-four years, when Augustus was consul for the fourth time. From that time to the games that Domitian founded at Rome, a hundred and fourteen years; and from the first of those games to the death of Commodus, a hundred and eleven years. There are some who reckon from Cecrops to Alexander the Macedonian one thousand … eight hundred and twenty-eight years; from Demophon one thousand two hundred and fifty; and from the capture of Troy to the return of the Heraclidae a hundred and twenty or a hundred and eighty years. From this to the archonship of Euaenetus, in which they say Alexander crossed into Asia, according to Phanias seven hundred and fifteen years, according to Ephorus seven hundred and thirty-five, according to Timaeus and Clitarchus eight hundred and twenty, according to Eratosthenes seven hundred and seventy-four, and according to Duris, from the capture of Troy to Alexander's crossing into Asia, a thousand years. From then to … Euaenetus, archon at Athens, in whose time Alexander died, eleven years. From then to the reign of Germanicus Claudius Caesar, three hundred and sixty-five years; from which time the years that are reckoned to the death of Commodus are also clear.

After the Greek dates, those of the barbarians must also be given, by the largest intervals. From Adam to the flood are reckoned two thousand one hundred and forty-eight years and four days; from Shem to Abraham, one thousand two hundred and fifty years; from Isaac to the division of the inheritance, six hundred and sixteen years. Then from the judges to Samuel, four hundred and sixty-three years and seven months; and after the judges, of the kingdoms, five hundred and seventy-two years, six months, and ten days. After these times, of the Persian kingdom, two hundred and thirty-five years; then of the Macedonian, to the death of Antony, three hundred and twelve years and eighteen days. After this time the Roman empire to the death of Commodus, two hundred and twenty-two years. Again, from the seventy years' captivity and the people's restoration to their ancestral land to the captivity under Vespasian are reckoned four hundred and ten years; and lastly, from Vespasian to the death of Commodus are found a hundred and twenty-one years, six months, and twenty-four days.

Demetrius, in his work On the Kings in Judea, says that the tribes of Judah, Benjamin, and Levi were not taken captive by Sennacherib, but that from this captivity to the last, which Nebuchadnezzar carried out from Jerusalem, there were a hundred and twenty-eight years and six months; and from the time the ten tribes were taken captive from Samaria to Ptolemy the Fourth, five hundred and seventy-three years and nine months; and from the captivity from Jerusalem, three hundred and thirty-eight years and three months. Philo too recorded the kings of the Jews, differing from Demetrius. Further, Eupolemus, in a similar work, says that all the years from Adam to the fifth year of the reign of Demetrius, when Ptolemy was reigning in Egypt in his twelfth year, come to five thousand one hundred and forty-nine; and from the time when Moses led the Jews out of Egypt to the date just mentioned, two thousand five hundred and eighty years. From this time to the consuls at Rome Gnaeus Domitius and Asinius, a hundred and twenty years are gathered.

Ephorus and many other historians say that there are seventy-five nations and languages, having heard the words of Moses, which say, “All the souls from Jacob who went down into Egypt were seventy-five.” But according to the true account, the generic languages appear to be seventy-two, as our Scriptures hand down; and the many others arise from the combination of two or three or more languages. A dialect is a form of speech showing the peculiar character of a place, or a form of speech showing the peculiar or common character of a nation. The Greeks say that there are five dialects among them, Attic, Ionic, Doric, Aeolic, and fifth the Common; and that the languages of the barbarians, being innumerable, are not called dialects but tongues.

Plato assigns a certain language even to the gods, judging especially from dreams and oracles, and besides from the possessed, who do not utter their own voice or language but that of the demons who have entered them. He thinks that irrational animals too have languages, which those of the same kind understand. At any rate, when an elephant fell into mud and cried out, another that was present and saw what had happened went away and returned not long after, bringing a herd of elephants with it, and saved the one that had fallen. They say too that in Libya a scorpion, if it cannot reach a man to sting him, goes away and comes back with more, and they hang on to one another like a chain and so succeed in their plot; the irrational animals do not use some invisible nod, nor inform one another by gestures, but, I think, by their own language. Some others say that if a fish being drawn up escapes when the line breaks, no fish of the same kind will be found in that place on that same day. The first and generic languages are barbarian, but they have their names by nature, since people admit that prayers spoken in a barbarian tongue are more powerful. And Plato in the Cratylus, wishing to explain the word “fire,” says that the name is barbarian; at any rate he testifies that the Phrygians call it so, changing it a little.

It is no harm, I think, to add to these the dates of the Roman emperors, to show the birth of the Savior. Augustus forty-three years, Tiberius twenty-two, Gaius four, Claudius fourteen, Nero fourteen, Galba one, Vespasian ten, Titus three, Domitian fifteen, Nerva one, Trajan nineteen, Hadrian twenty-one, Antoninus twenty-three, and again Antoninus and Commodus thirty-two. From Augustus to the death of Commodus comes to two hundred and twenty-two years in all, and from Adam to the death of Commodus five thousand seven hundred and eighty-four years, two months, and twelve days. Some, however, record the dates of the Roman emperors thus: Gaius Julius Caesar three years, four months, six days; after whom Augustus reigned forty-six years, four months, one day; then Tiberius twenty-six years, six months, nineteen days; Gaius Caesar succeeded him, three years, ten months, eight days; then Claudius thirteen years, eight months, twenty-eight days; Nero thirteen years, eight months, twenty-eight days; Galba seven months, six days; Otho five months, one day; Vitellius seven months, one day; Vespasian eleven years, eleven months, twenty-two days; Titus two years, two months; Domitian fifteen years, eight months, five days; Nerva one year, four months, ten days; Trajan nineteen years, seven months, fifteen days; Hadrian twenty years, ten months, twenty-eight days; Antoninus twenty-two years, three months, seven days; Marcus Aurelius Antoninus nineteen years, eleven days; Commodus twelve years, nine months, fourteen days. From Julius Caesar to the death of Commodus, then, are two hundred and thirty-six years and six months. And all the years from Romulus, the founder of Rome, to the death of Commodus come to … forty-three years and six months.

Our Lord was born in the twenty-eighth year, when they first ordered registrations to be made, in the time of Augustus. That this is true is written in the Gospel according to Luke thus: “In the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar the word of the Lord came to John the son of Zechariah.” And again in the same: “And Jesus was coming to the baptism about thirty years old.” And that he had to preach for only one year is also written thus: “He has sent me to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.” The prophet said this, and the gospel. Fifteen years of Tiberius, then, and fifteen of Augustus: so the thirty years are completed until he suffered. From his suffering to the destruction of Jerusalem there are forty-two years and three months; and from the destruction of Jerusalem to the death of Commodus, a hundred and twenty-two years, ten months, and thirteen days. From the birth of the Lord to the death of Commodus, then, there are a hundred and ninety-four years, one month, and thirteen days in all. And there are those who, more curiously, add to the Savior's birth not only the year but also the day, which they say was in the twenty-eighth year of Augustus, on the twenty-fifth of Pachon.

The followers of Basilides celebrate the day of his baptism too, spending the preceding night in readings. They say that it was in the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar, on the fifteenth of the month Tybi, or, as some say, the eleventh of the same month. And those of them who are exact about his passion put it, some in the sixteenth year of Tiberius Caesar, on the twenty-fifth of Phamenoth, others on the twenty-fifth of Pharmuthi; others say that the Savior suffered on the nineteenth of Pharmuthi. Some of them indeed say that he was born on the twenty-fourth or twenty-fifth of Pharmuthi. We must also add to the chronology the days, I mean, which Daniel hints at, from the desolation of Jerusalem, the seven years and eleven months of Vespasian. For the two years are added to the seventeen months and eight days of Otho, Galba, and Vitellius, and so it comes to three years and six months, which is half of the week, as Daniel the prophet said. For he said that two thousand three hundred days would pass from the time the abomination was set up by Nero in the holy city until its destruction. So the following passage shows: “How long will the vision stand, the sacrifice taken away and the sin of desolation given, and the power and the sanctuary be trampled? And he said to him, Until evening and morning, two thousand three hundred days, and the sanctuary will be cleansed.” These two thousand three hundred days make six years and four months, half of which Nero held as emperor, and it was half a week; and the other half Vespasian with Otho, Galba, and Vitellius. That is why Daniel says, “Blessed is he who comes to one thousand three hundred and thirty-five days.” For until these days there was war, and after them it ceased.

This number is also shown from the following chapter, which runs thus: “And from the time of the change of the daily sacrifice, and the abomination of desolation being given, one thousand two hundred and ninety days. Blessed is he who waits and comes to one thousand three hundred and thirty-five days.” Flavius Josephus the Jew, who composed the Jewish histories, bringing down the dates, says that from Moses to David there are five hundred and eighty-five years, and from David to the second year of Vespasian one thousand one hundred and seventy-nine; then from this to the tenth year of Antoninus seventy-seven years; so that from Moses to the tenth year of Antoninus there are one thousand eight hundred and thirty-three years in all. Others, counting to the death of Commodus from Inachus and Moses, said there were one thousand eight hundred and forty-two years, and others …. And in the Gospel according to Matthew the genealogy from Abraham is carried down to Mary the mother of the Lord; for, it says, “from Abraham to David are fourteen generations, and from David to the deportation to Babylon fourteen generations, and from the deportation to Babylon to Christ likewise another fourteen generations,” three mystic intervals completed in six sevens.

Let what has been recorded by many differently about the dates and set out by us stand thus. They say that the Scriptures, both of the law and the prophets, were translated from the language of the Hebrews into the Greek tongue under King Ptolemy son of Lagus, or, as some say, under the one surnamed Philadelphus, who brought the greatest zeal to this, Demetrius of Phalerum also carefully managing the work of translation. For while the Macedonians still held Asia, the king, ambitious to adorn with all writings the library he had founded at Alexandria, asked the people of Jerusalem too to translate their prophecies into the Greek language.

And they, since they were still subject to the Macedonians, chose seventy elders from among the most esteemed of their people, experienced in the Scriptures and skilled in the Greek language, and sent them to him with the divine books. When each separately had translated each prophecy, all the translations, compared together, agreed both in sense and in words; for it was the will of God, devised for Greek ears. Indeed it is not strange that by the inspiration of God, who had given the prophecy, the translation too should be produced as a kind of Greek prophecy; since also, when the Scriptures had been destroyed in the captivity under Nebuchadnezzar, in the times of Artaxerxes king of the Persians, Ezra the Levite, the priest, became inspired and prophesied all the ancient Scriptures again, restoring them.

Aristobulus, in the first book of his work addressed to Philometor, writes word for word: “Plato too followed our legislation, and he has clearly studied carefully each of the things said in it. It was translated by others before Demetrius, before the conquest of Alexander and the Persians: the account of the leading out of the Hebrews our fellow citizens from Egypt, the manifestation of all that happened to them, the conquest of the land, and the exposition of the whole legislation; so that it is plain that the philosopher just mentioned took many things (for he was very learned), as Pythagoras too transferred many of our things into his own system of doctrines.” And Numenius the Pythagorean philosopher writes outright: “For what is Plato but Moses speaking Attic Greek?” This Moses was a theologian and prophet, and, as some say, an interpreter of sacred laws. The Scriptures themselves, worthy of trust, proclaim his race, his deeds, and his life; yet we too must speak of them as briefly as possible.

Moses, then, was a Chaldean by ancestry, born in Egypt, his forefathers having migrated from Babylon to Egypt because of a long famine. Born in the seventh generation and reared royally, he met with the following circumstance. When the Hebrews had increased to a great multitude in Egypt, the king of the country, fearing a plot from their numbers, ordered them to rear the female children of the Hebrews (for a woman is weak for war), but to destroy the males, suspecting a strong youth. But his parents, since the child was of noble birth, hid him and reared him for three months in succession, natural affection conquering tyrannical cruelty; but fearing later that they would perish with the child, they made a vessel of the native papyrus, put the child in it, and exposed him beside the banks of the river, which was marshy; and the child's sister, standing far off, watched what would happen.

Then the king's daughter, who for a long time had not conceived but longed for children, came that day to the river to use its baths and ablutions; and hearing the child crying, she ordered it brought to her, and, taking pity, sought a nurse. Then the child's sister ran up and said that she had a Hebrew woman who had given birth not long before to present to her as a nurse, if she wished; and when she agreed and asked for it, she brought the child's mother to be his nurse, as if she were someone else, for a stated wage. Then the princess gave the child the name Moses, appropriately, because she had taken him out of the water (for the Egyptians call water mōu), into which he had been exposed to die. And indeed they call Moses the one who breathes his last in the water.

It is clear, then, that earlier, when the child was circumcised, his parents gave him a name, and he was called Joachim. He also had a third name in heaven after his assumption, as the initiated say: Melchi. When he came of age, he was taught arithmetic, geometry, rhythm, harmony, and further meter and music by the most distinguished of the Egyptians, and besides the philosophy expressed through symbols, which they display in hieroglyphic letters. The rest of the general education Greeks taught him in Egypt, as a royal child, as Philo says in the Life of Moses; and he also learned the letters of the Assyrians and the knowledge of heavenly things from the Chaldeans and the Egyptians; hence in the Acts he is said to have been “educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians.” Eupolemus, in his work on the kings in Judea, says that Moses was the first wise man, and first handed on grammar to the Jews, that the Phoenicians received it from the Jews, and the Greeks from the Phoenicians. When he reached manhood, he increased his prudence, zealous for the education of his kin and ancestors, even to striking and killing the Egyptian who was unjustly attacking the Hebrew.

The initiated say that he killed the Egyptian by a word alone, as indeed later Peter in the Acts is said to have killed by a word those who kept back part of the price of the field and lied. Artapanus, at any rate, in his work on the Jews, relates that Moses was shut up in prison by Chenephres, king of the Egyptians, for asking that the people be released from Egypt; and that at night, when the prison was opened by God's will, he went out, came into the palace, stood over the sleeping king, and woke him; and the king, astonished at what had happened, ordered Moses to tell the name of the God who had sent him; and he, bending down, said it into his ear; and the king, hearing it, fell speechless, but, held by Moses, came to life again.

About the upbringing of Moses, Ezekiel too, the poet of Jewish tragedies, will agree with us, in the drama entitled The Exodus, writing thus in the person of Moses: “For seeing our race greatly increased, King Pharaoh devised much guile against us, tormenting men with brickwork and heavy building, and fortifying cities by the labor of us wretched ones. Then he proclaimed to us, the Hebrew race, to throw the males into the deep-flowing river. Then the mother who bore me hid me three months, as she used to say; but, not escaping notice, she put me out, dressing me in fine clothes, by the edge of the river, into a thick, deep marsh. Miriam my sister watched nearby. And then the king's daughter came down with her maidens to refresh her young body in the bath. Seeing me, at once pitying, she took me up, and knew that I was a Hebrew. And Miriam my sister, running to the princess, says this: ‘Do you wish me to find you quickly a nurse for this child from among the Hebrews?’ And she urged the girl on. She went and told our mother, and quickly my mother herself came and took me in her arms. And the king's daughter said: ‘Woman, nurse this child, and I will pay you your wage.’ And she called me by the name Moses, because she took me up from the wet bank of the river. When my time as an infant had passed, my mother brought me to the princess's palace, having first told and explained everything to me, my ancestral race and God's gifts. So as long as we had the time of boyhood, with royal nurture and education she provided everything, as if from her own womb; but when the full circle of days had come, I went out from the royal house.”

Then, having told of the fight between the Hebrew and the Egyptian and the burial of the Egyptian in the sand, he says of the second fight: “Why do you strike one weaker than yourself? And he said: Who sent you as judge or ruler over us here? Will you not kill me as you did the man yesterday? And I, afraid, said: How did this become known?” He fled from there and tended sheep, being trained beforehand for leadership by shepherding; for shepherding is a preparation for kingship for one who is to rule the tamest flock, that of human beings, just as hunting is for those warlike by nature. From there God led him to the command of the Hebrews.

Then the Egyptians, often without understanding, were often warned; and the Hebrews were spectators of the evils that others suffered, learning the power of God without danger. And further the Egyptians, not accepting by hearing the effects of his power, disbelieving through folly, then, as it is said, “the fools knew it when it was done.” And afterward, when the Hebrews went out, they departed carrying off much booty from the Egyptians, not from love of money, as the accusers say (for God did not persuade them to desire what belonged to others), but first receiving a necessary wage for the service they had rendered the Egyptians throughout the whole time, and then in some way avenging themselves by grieving the money-loving Egyptians in return, by carrying off the booty, as they had grieved the Hebrews by enslaving them. Whether, then, one should say that this took place as in war, they thought it right to take the goods of their enemies by the law of the victors, as the stronger over the weaker (and the cause of the war was just: the Hebrews came as suppliants to the Egyptians because of famine, and they enslaved the strangers and forced them to serve them like captives, not even paying them a wage); or as in peace, they took the booty as a wage from those unwilling to pay, who had for a long time not paid it but defrauded them.

Moses, then, is for us a prophet, a lawgiver, a tactician, a general, a statesman, and a philosopher. How he was a prophet will be said later, when we discuss prophecy. The tactical would be part of the art of generalship, and generalship part of kingship; and again lawgiving would be part of kingship, as is judging. Of kingship, one part is divine, such as that according to God and his holy Son, from whom the good things of the earth, external goods, and perfect happiness are supplied; for “ask,” he says, “for great things, and the small will be added to you.” The second kind of kingship, after the pure rational and divine administration, is that which uses only the spirited part of the soul for rule, by which kind Heracles reigned over Argos and Alexander over the Macedonians. The third is that which aims at one thing only, to conquer and subdue (whether to win victory for evil or for good does not concern such a one); this the Persians used when they marched against Greece. For of spiritedness one part is merely contentious, having made its power for the sake of ruling itself, the other is noble, when the soul uses spiritedness for what is good.

The fourth and worst of all is the kingship ranked according to the desires, like that of Sardanapalus and of those who make it their end to gratify their desires as much as possible. For the kingly art, both that which conquers by virtue and that which conquers by force, the tactical art is an instrument, different according to different nature and material. In arms and fighting animals, the arranging power working through living and lifeless things is soul and mind; but in the passions of the soul, which we master by virtue, the arranging power is reason, setting its seal on self-control and temperance with holiness, and on good knowledge with truth, referring the end to the piety of God. For in those who use virtue, prudence is what arranges: wisdom arranges divine things, statesmanship human things, and kingship all things. The king, then, is the one who rules according to laws, who has the knowledge of ruling over the willing, such as the Lord is, who receives those who believe in him and through him. For God has handed over all things and subjected all things to Christ our King, “so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, on earth, and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

Strategy has three forms: the safe, the daring, and a mixture of these; and each of these is made up of three: by word, by deeds, or by both together. All these it will be possible to accomplish by persuading, or compelling, or wronging in self-defense, which includes acting justly, or lying, or telling the truth, or using some of these together at the same time. The Greeks benefited by taking all these, and how each should be used, from Moses. For the sake of illustration I will mention one or two examples of strategy. Moses, having led the people out, suspecting that the Egyptians would pursue, left the short and direct road and turned toward the desert, and for the most part traveled at night. For there was another plan, by which the Hebrews were trained through much desert and a long time, being accustomed through self-controlled endurance to believe only that God exists.

The strategy of Moses, at any rate, teaches that before dangers one must see what is useful and so act. Indeed what he suspected happened: the Egyptians pursued with horses and chariots, but perished quickly when the sea broke and flooded them with their horses and chariots, so that not even a remnant of them was left. After this a pillar of fire following (for it guided them in front) led the Hebrews at night through trackless country, training and bringing them to courage and endurance in labors and journeys, so that the good things of the land might appear good after the experience of apparent hardships, the land into which he conducted them out of the trackless country.

Indeed, he also routed and killed the enemies who occupied the land, attacking them from a desert and rough road (for such is the excellence of the general). For it was a work of experience and generalship to take the land of the enemy. Miltiades, the general of the Athenians, who conquered the Persians in the battle at Marathon, having understood this, imitated this method: he led the Athenians at night by a trackless way and deceived the barbarians who were watching him. For Hippias, the renegade from the Athenians, had brought the barbarians into Attica and, having seized the strategic places in advance, was guarding them because he knew the country. It was a task, then, to escape Hippias' notice; hence Miltiades, fittingly using a trackless way and night, attacked the Persians, whom Datis led, and won the contest with those he led.

And Thrasybulus too, when he was bringing back the exiles from Phyle and wished to escape notice, had a pillar as guide as he went through untrodden ways. For Thrasybulus, at night, when there was no moon and the weather was stormy, a fire was seen going before, which, having escorted them safely, disappeared near Munychia, where the altar of the Light-Bearer now stands. So let our accounts be credible to the Greeks from this at least, that it is possible for God Almighty to make a pillar of fire go before the Hebrews at night, which also guided them on the way. It is also said in an oracle, “A pillar to the Thebans is Dionysus of many joys,” from the history among the Hebrews. And Euripides too says in the Antiope, “Within the chambers of the herdsmen, a pillar of the Evian god, crowned with ivy.” The pillar signifies that God cannot be represented by an image; and the luminous pillar, besides signifying this, shows the stability and permanence of God and his unchanging and formless light.

Before the forms of statues were perfected, the ancients set up pillars and worshiped them as images of the god. At any rate the author of the Phoronis writes: “Callithoe, key-bearer of the Olympian queen, Argive Hera, who first adorned with garlands and tassels the tall pillar of the queen.” And the author of the Europia relates that the statue of Apollo at Delphi was a pillar, in these words: “that we might hang up the tithe and first-fruits to the god, from the sacred pegs and the high pillar.” Apollo, however, understood mystically by the negation of the many, is the one God. But that fire like a pillar and the fire through the bush are a symbol of the holy light that passes from earth and returns again to heaven through the wood, through which the power of seeing spiritually has been given to us.

Plato the philosopher, having benefited from the writings of Moses in legislation, criticized the constitutions of Minos and Lycurgus as looking only to courage, and praised as more venerable the one that speaks of one thing and always tends toward one doctrine; for he says it would befit us more to philosophize with strength, dignity, and prudence toward the dignity of heaven, using the same judgment about the same things without change. Does he not interpret the things of the law, looking toward one God and commanding just action? He speaks of two kinds of statesmanship, one legal, and the other called statesmanship by the same name. He hints that the Creator is the statesman properly speaking, in the book of that name; and he calls those who look to him and live actively and justly, together with contemplation, statesmen; and the statesmanship called equally legal he divides into worldly magnanimity and private arrangement, which they have called orderliness, harmony, and self-control, when rulers are fitting for those ruled, and those ruled become obedient to their rulers; which the work of Moses earnestly aims to bring about.

Further, Plato, having benefited from the teaching that the legal concerns generation and statesmanship concerns friendship and concord, joined to the Laws the philosopher of the Epinomis, who knows the course of all generation through the planets; and another philosopher, Timaeus, an astronomer and contemplator of their motion and of their sympathy and communion with one another, he joins in sequence to the Republic. For the end, I think, both of the statesman and of the one who lives by law is contemplation. To live as a citizen rightly is necessary, but to philosophize is best. For the one who has sense would live directing all his efforts to knowledge, guiding his life by good works, despising their opposites, and pursuing the studies that help toward truth. And law is not what is customary (for what is seen is not sight), nor every opinion (for not the evil one), but law is good opinion, and good opinion is true opinion, and true opinion is that which finds what is and attains it: “He who is has sent me,” says Moses. Consistently with this good opinion some have said that law is right reason, commanding what must be done and forbidding what must not be done.

Hence the law is fittingly said to have been given through Moses, being a rule of just and unjust things. And this we might properly call an ordinance, handed down by God through Moses. At any rate it leads to the divine. And Paul says: “The law was added because of transgressions, until the seed should come to whom the promise was made.” Then, as if explaining his meaning, he adds: “Before faith came we were guarded under the law, shut up,” by fear, clearly, from sins, “for the faith that was to be revealed. So the law became our schoolmaster to Christ, that we might be justified by faith.” The lawgiver is one who assigns what is fitting to each part of the soul and to their works; and Moses, in short, was a living law, governed by good reason.

At any rate he served a good constitution; and a constitution is a good rearing of human beings in community. Thus he practiced the judicial art, which is a knowledge corrective of wrongdoing for the sake of justice. Coordinate with it is the punitive art, a knowledge of the measure of punishments. And punishment, when it is just, is a correction of the soul. In a word, the whole training of Moses is educative of those able to become noble and good men, and a hunting for those like them, which would be generalship. And the wisdom that uses properly, by reason, those who have been caught would be legislative; for to acquire and to use it belongs to this, which is the most kingly. At any rate the philosophers proclaim only the wise man king, lawgiver, general, just, holy, and dear to God. If we find these in Moses, as is shown from the Scriptures themselves, we would say with great conviction that Moses was truly wise.

As we say, then, that shepherding is providing for sheep (for so the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep), so we shall say that legislation is forming the virtue of human beings, rekindling the human good as far as possible, being a guardian and protector of the flock of human beings. And if the flock allegorized by the Lord is nothing other than a herd of human beings, the same will be the good shepherd and lawgiver of the one flock of his sheep who listen, the one guardian, who seeks and finds the lost by law and word, if indeed the law is spiritual and leads to happiness; for the one who has come to be in the Holy Spirit is spiritual. And this is the true lawgiver, who not only proclaims good and noble things, but also knows them. Of him who has knowledge the law is the saving command; or rather the law is a command of knowledge, for the Word of God is power and wisdom. And he himself is the interpreter of the laws, through whom the law was given, the first interpreter of the divine commands, the only-begotten Son who explains the bosom of the Father.

Then those who obey the law, through having some knowledge of it, can neither disbelieve nor be ignorant of the truth; but those who disbelieve and do not wish to be engaged in its works, these, if any, admittedly do not know the truth. What, then, is the unbelief of the Greeks? Not wishing to trust the truth that says the law was given by God through Moses, when they themselves, from their own accounts, honor Moses. They relate that Minos received the laws from Zeus every ninth year, going to the cave of Zeus; and Plato, Aristotle, and Ephorus write that Lycurgus was taught his legislation by continually going to Apollo at Delphi; and Chamaeleon of Heraclea in his work On Drunkenness, and Aristotle in his Constitution of the Locrians, record that Zaleucus the Locrian received his laws from Athena. Those who, as far as they can, raise the authority of Greek legislation to the divine, in imitation of the prophecy of Moses, are ungrateful, not admitting outright the truth and the archetype of what is related among them.

Let no one, then, attack the law because of its punishments as not noble and good. For if the one who removes a disease of the body will be thought a benefactor, will not the one who tries to free the soul from injustice be even more a protector, by as much as the soul is more precious than the body? For the sake of the body's health we submit to cuttings, burnings, and the drinking of medicines, and the one who applies these is called savior and physician, not out of envy or hostility toward the patient, but as the principle of the art dictates, even cutting off some parts, so that the healthy parts may not be destroyed with them; and no one would accuse the physician's art of wickedness. Shall we not in the same way, for the sake of the soul, submit to exile, fines, or bonds, if only one may at some time acquire righteousness in place of injustice? For the law, caring for its subjects, educates them in piety, dictates what must be done, and restrains each from sins, imposing penalties on the lesser of them; but when it sees someone in such a state as to seem incurable, driven to the extreme of injustice, then, caring for the others, so that they may not be corrupted by him, it puts such a person to death, as if cutting off a part from the whole body, and so most healthfully.

“But when we are judged by the Lord,” says the apostle, “we are disciplined, so that we may not be condemned with the world.” For the prophet said earlier: “The Lord has disciplined me severely, but he has not given me over to death.” “For in order to teach you his righteousness he disciplined you,” it says, “and tested you, and let you hunger and made you thirst in a desert land, so that all his ordinances and judgments might be known in your heart, all that I command you today; and you will know in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, so the Lord our God will discipline you.”

That example brings to self-control it says at once: “A cunning man, seeing a wicked man punished, is himself strongly instructed,” since “the fear of the Lord is the source of wisdom.” The greatest and most perfect good is when one can bring someone from doing evil to virtue and well-being, which the law accomplishes. So even when someone falls into an incurable evil, seized by injustice and greed, the one who is put to death would be benefited; for the law is a benefactor, able to make some just from unjust, if only they are willing to listen to it, and to release others from present evils. For it promises immortality to those who choose to live temperately and justly. To know the law belongs to a good mind. And again: “Evil men do not understand the law, but those who seek the Lord will understand in every good thing.” The providence that governs must be both sovereign and good. For the power of both arranges salvation, the one bringing to self-control by punishment as sovereign, the other showing kindness by good deeds as benefactor. It is possible not to be a son of disobedience, but to pass from darkness into life, and, lending one's ear to wisdom, to be lawful: at first a servant of God, then to become a faithful attendant, fearing the Lord God; and if one rises further, to be enrolled among the sons; and when love covers a multitude of sins, growing in love, to await the completion of blessed hope, as one ranked in the chosen adoption called the friendship of God, singing already the prayer and saying, “Let the Lord be my God.”

The apostle has shown the beneficence of the law through the passage addressed to the Jews, writing somewhat thus: “But if you call yourself a Jew and rest on the law and boast in God and know his will and approve what is excellent, being instructed from the law, and are confident that you are a guide to the blind, a light to those in darkness, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of infants, having in the law the form of knowledge and of truth.” For it is acknowledged that the law can do these things, even if those who do not live according to the law boast as though living in the law. “Blessed is the man who has found wisdom, and the mortal who has seen understanding”; and “from her mouth,” that is, wisdom's, “righteousness proceeds, and she bears law and mercy on her tongue.” For the law and the gospel are the working of one Lord, who is “the power and wisdom of God”; and the fear that the law begot is merciful for salvation. “Let not almsgiving and faith and truth forsake you, but bind them about your neck.”

Likewise with Paul, the prophecy reproaches the people as not understanding the law: “Destruction and misery are in their ways, and the way of peace they have not known; there is no fear of God before their eyes. Claiming to be wise, they became fools.” “And we know that the law is good, if one uses it lawfully”; but “those who wish to be teachers of the law do not understand,” says the apostle, “either what they say or the things about which they make confident assertions”; “but the aim of the commandment is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and sincere faith.”

The philosophy according to Moses, then, is divided into four parts: the historical and the properly legislative, which would belong to ethics; the third, the priestly, which already belongs to natural contemplation; and fourth, above all, the theological kind, the vision, which Plato says belongs to the truly great mysteries, and which Aristotle calls metaphysics. And dialectic according to Plato, as he says in the Statesman, is a knowledge that discovers the explanation of the things that are; and it is to be acquired by the self-controlled not for speaking and doing any of the things that concern human beings, as the present dialecticians do, busy with sophistries, but in order to be able to say what is pleasing to God and to do what is pleasing, everything as far as possible.

True dialectic, being mixed with true philosophy, examines things, tests powers and authorities, and rises step by step to the best essence of all, and dares beyond, to the God of the universe, professing not experience of mortal things but knowledge of divine and heavenly things; and the proper use of human matters in words and deeds follows from it. Fittingly, then, Scripture, wishing us to become such dialecticians, exhorts: “Become approved money-changers, rejecting some things and holding fast what is good.” For this truly is dialectic: prudence that divides intelligible things, showing each of the things that are purely and unmixed as it is in its substrate; or a power that divides the genera of things, descending to the most specific, presenting each of the things that are to appear pure as it is.

That is why this alone leads by the hand to true wisdom, which is a divine power, knowing the things that are as they are, having the perfect, freed from every passion; not without the Savior, who by the divine Word removed from the soul's power of sight the misty ignorance poured over it by evil conduct, and gave back the best, “so that we may know well both God and man.” He it is who truly showed how we should know ourselves; he reveals the Father of the universe to whom he wishes, and as far as human nature can understand. “For no one knows the Son except the Father, nor the Father except the Son and he to whom the Son reveals him.”

Fittingly, then, the apostle says that he knew the mystery by revelation: “as I wrote before briefly, by which, when you read, you can perceive my understanding in the mystery of Christ.” He said “you can,” since he knew that some had received only milk, and not yet solid food, and not simply milk. We must take the meaning of the law in three ways: as showing a sign, as establishing a commandment for right living, or as foretelling as prophecy. And I know well that it belongs to men to distinguish and speak of such things; for the whole of Scripture is not, as the proverb-makers say, “one Myconos” to understanding; but one must approach it as dialectically as possible, hunting the sequence of the divine teaching.

Hence very finely did the Egyptian priest in Plato say: “O Solon, Solon, you Greeks are always children, having in your souls no ancient opinion from ancient tradition; and there is no old man among the Greeks.” By “old men” he meant, I think, those who know the more ancient things, that is, ours; and conversely by “young” those who relate as old and ancient the newer things practiced by the Greeks, things of yesterday and the day before. He added, then, “learning gray with time,” we using the metaphor in a barbarian way, unaffected and not precise. Indeed the right-minded approach the whole fiction of the interpretation simply. Of the Greeks he says that their conceit differs little from children's myths; for we must not understand children's myths, nor myths made for children; but he called the myths themselves children, as the Greeks who think themselves wise see little, hinting at the “learning gray with time,” the most ancient truth among the barbarians; to which word he opposed the “child myth,” exposing the mythical character of the attempts of the moderns as, like children, having nothing older, and showing that both their myths and their reasonings are alike childish.

Divinely, then, the power that spoke to Hermas by revelation says: “The visions and revelations are for the double-minded, who reason in their hearts whether these things are or are not.” Likewise the demonstrations from abundant learning strengthen, confirm, and establish the demonstrative arguments, as long as the minds of such people, like those of the young, are fluttering. “The commandment is a lamp,” according to Scripture, “and the law a light for the way; for instruction reproves the ways of life.” “Law, king of all, mortals and immortals,” says Pindar. I understand by these words the one who gave the law, and I take Hesiod's saying too as said of the God of all, even if the poet said it by guesswork and not with understanding: “For this law the son of Cronus ordained for men: fish, beasts, and winged birds should eat one another, since there is no justice among them; but to men he gave justice, which is by far the best.”

Whether, then, he means the law given together with birth or the one given later, both the law of nature and the law of learning are from God, being one; as Plato too says in the Statesman that the lawgiver is one, and in the Laws that the one who understands music is one, teaching by these words that the Word is one and God is one. And Moses appears to call the Lord a covenant, saying, “Behold, I, my covenant is with you”; since he said “covenant” earlier too, … not to seek it in writing. For a covenant is what God, the cause of all, sets; and God (θεός) is so called from setting (θέσις) and order, the arrangement of the world. And in the Preaching of Peter you would find the Lord called Law and Word. But let the first Stromateus of our gnostic notes according to the true philosophy end here.

Next it would be fitting to discuss how it will be shown briefly, since Scripture has called the Greeks thieves of the barbarian philosophy. For we shall show not only that they wrote imitating the marvels recorded among us, but we shall also prove that they falsified and counterfeited the most important of the doctrines, since our Scriptures are older, as we have shown: concerning faith, wisdom, knowledge and understanding, hope and faith, repentance and self-control, and indeed the fear of God (simply a swarm of the virtues of truth, of which as many will be included as the sketch of the present subject requires); and that those who philosophized in earnest about the teachings of the ancients especially emulated the hidden element of the barbarian philosophy, this symbolic and enigmatic form, which is most useful, or rather most necessary, for the knowledge of the truth.

After this I think it follows to defend ourselves, using a few Scriptures, against the charges the Greeks bring against us, in case the Jew too, listening quietly, might be able to turn from what he has believed to him in whom he has not believed. A loving refutation of the life of the noble philosophers and of their invention of new doctrines will fittingly follow, not to take revenge on our accusers (far from it; we have learned to bless those who curse, even if they hurl empty blasphemous words at us), but for their own conversion, if perhaps these all-wise men, brought to their senses by a barbarian refutation, might feel shame, so as at least late to see what kind of studies those are for which they undertake journeys across the sea. What they have stolen must be shown, their self-love being stripped away; and what they boast of having discovered by searching themselves must be refuted. Following on this, we must also run through the so-called encyclical education, for what it is useful, and astrology, mathematics, magic, and sorcery. For the Pan-Hellenes boast of these too as the greatest sciences. “But he who rebukes boldly makes peace.”

We have often said that we have neither practiced nor pursue writing good Greek; for this is enough to lead the many away from the truth, while the truly philosophical work will benefit the hearers not in their tongue but in their mind. The one who cares for truth, I think, should not compose his phrasing with design and effort, but try only to name, as well as he can, what he means; for things escape those who cling to words and busy themselves about them. It is the farmer's task to pick without harm the rose growing among thorns, and the craftsman's to find the pearl buried in the flesh of the oyster; and they say that birds have the sweetest flesh when, not being given abundant food, they scratch with their feet and pick out their food with labor. If, then, someone who contemplates the same thing … longs for the truth, which has escaped notice among many plausible Greek things, like the true face under masks, he will hunt it out with much searching. For the power that appeared to Hermas in the vision says: “Whatever can be revealed to you will be revealed.”

“Do not be elated at your own wisdom,” Proverbs says, “but in all your ways know it, that it may make your ways straight; and your foot will not stumble.” By this he wishes to show that deeds must follow speech, and also to indicate that we must choose and keep what is useful from all education. The ways of wisdom are various, making straight toward the way of truth, and the way is faith. “And let your foot not stumble,” he says, about some things that seem to oppose the one divine providential government. Hence he adds: “Do not be wise in your own eyes,” according to the godless reasonings that rebel against God's plan, “but fear” the only powerful God; from which it follows that nothing opposes God. Moreover the sequel teaches clearly that divine fear is turning away from evil; for he says, “and turn away from every evil.” This is the instruction of wisdom; “for whom the Lord loves he disciplines,” causing pain for understanding, but restoring to peace and incorruption.

The barbarian philosophy, then, which we follow, is truly perfect and true. At any rate it says in Wisdom: “For he himself has given me unerring knowledge of the things that are, to know the constitution of the world,” and so on, up to “and the powers of roots.” In all these he has included the natural contemplation of all things that have come into being in the sensible world. And next he hints also at intelligible things, by what he adds: “All things hidden and manifest I knew; for wisdom, the artisan of all, taught me.” You have in brief the profession of our philosophy. The learning of these things, practiced with right living, leads up through wisdom, the artisan of all, to the ruler of the universe, a thing hard to grasp and hard to hunt, always withdrawing and standing far off from the one who pursues it. But the same, being far away, has come very near, an unspeakable wonder: “I am a God who draws near,” says the Lord. Far off in essence (for how could the begotten ever come near the unbegotten?), but very near in power, by which all things are held in his bosom. “If someone does something in secret,” he says, “shall I not see him?” And indeed the power of God is always present, touching us with its power of watching, of doing good, and of instructing.

Hence Moses, persuaded that God would never be known by human wisdom, says, “Show yourself to me,” and forces himself to enter into the darkness where the voice of God was, that is, into the inaccessible and formless conceptions about Being. For God is not in darkness or in place, but above both place and time and the character of created things. That is why he is never found in a part, neither containing nor contained, either by definition or by division. “For what house will you build for me?” says the Lord. But he has not built one even for himself, since he cannot be contained; and though heaven is called his throne, not even so is he contained, but he rests, delighting in his creation. It is clear, then, that the truth has been hidden from us, as has already been shown by one example, and a little later we shall present it by more.

How are they not worthy of acceptance who wish to learn, and are able, according to Solomon, “to know wisdom and instruction, and to perceive words of prudence, and to receive subtleties of words, and to understand true righteousness” (as there is also another, not taught according to the truth, by the laws of the Greeks and of the other philosophers); “and to direct judgments,” he says, meaning not judicial ones, but that we must have the criterion within us sound and unerring; “that he may give shrewdness to the innocent, and to the young child perception and understanding.” “For the wise man who hears these things,” the one persuaded to obey the commandments, “will be wiser” in knowledge; “and the understanding man will acquire direction, and will understand a parable and a dark saying, the words of the wise and riddles.” For those inspired by God do not bring forth counterfeit words, nor do those who trade in them, nor snares, with which most of the sophists entangle the young, spending their time on nothing true; but those who have the Holy Spirit “search the depths of God,” that is, they attain to the hidden meaning of the prophecies. But it is forbidden to share holy things with the dogs, as long as they remain beasts. For it is never fitting to mix for envious and disturbed characters, still unbelieving, shameless in barking out inquiries, the divine and pure stream of living water.

“Let not your waters overflow outside your spring, but let your waters pass through your own streets.” “For the many do not think such things as they meet with, nor do they know them when they have learned, but they think they do,” according to the noble Heraclitus. Does he not seem to you too to blame those who do not believe? “And my righteous one will live by faith,” the prophet has said. And another prophet says: “If you do not believe, neither will you understand.” For how could a soul ever contain the transcendent contemplation of these things while unbelief about learning fights within? And faith, which the Greeks slander, thinking it empty and barbarian, is a voluntary preconception, an assent of piety, “the substance of things hoped for, the proof of things not seen,” according to the divine apostle; “for by it especially the elders were attested. And without faith it is impossible to please God.”

Others have defined faith as an intellectual assent to an unseen thing, just as indeed demonstration is a clear assent to a thing not known. If, then, it is choice, being desirous of something, the desire here is intellectual; and since choice is the beginning of action, faith is found to be the beginning of action, the foundation of a rational choice, when someone first shows a demonstration to himself through faith. To follow what is advantageous voluntarily is the beginning of understanding. At any rate, an undistracted choice gives a great impulse toward knowledge. Thus the practice of faith becomes knowledge, resting on a firm foundation. The children of the philosophers define knowledge as a state not shaken by reason. Is there, then, any other such true condition than that of piety itself, whose only teacher is the Word? I at least think not. Theophrastus says that sense-perception is the beginning of faith; for from it the first principles extend to the reason and the mind within us. The one, then, who has believed the divine Scriptures, having a firm judgment, receives as an irrefutable demonstration the voice of God, who has given the Scriptures. So faith is no longer something that becomes fortified by demonstration. “Blessed, then, are those who have not seen and have believed.” At any rate, the charms of the Sirens, displaying a superhuman power, astonished those who came near, preparing them, almost against their will, to accept what was said.

At this point the followers of Basilides consider faith to be natural, and so they also assign it to election, as finding the doctrines without demonstration, by an intellectual apprehension. The followers of Valentinus, assigning faith to us, the simple, and knowledge to themselves, who are saved by nature by the superiority of the superior seed, would have it that knowledge is far separated from faith, as the spiritual from the psychic. Further, the followers of Basilides say that faith and election are proper to each stage, and that, as a consequence of the supramundane election, the worldly faith of every nature follows, and that the gift of faith corresponds to each one's hope.

Faith, then, is no longer the achievement of choice, if it is an advantage of nature; nor will the one who does not believe receive a just recompense, being not responsible, nor is the one who believes responsible; and the whole distinctiveness and difference of faith and unbelief would fall neither under praise nor blame, if one reasons rightly, having as its antecedent a natural necessity coming from the one who can do all things. And if we are pulled by strings like lifeless puppets by natural forces, the voluntary and the involuntary become superfluous, and so does the impulse that leads them. I no longer understand this to be a living being, whose impulse has been allotted necessity, moved by an external cause. Where, further, is the repentance of the one who was once unbelieving, through which comes forgiveness of sins? So neither is baptism reasonable any longer, nor the blessed seal, nor the Son, nor the Father; but God, I think, turns out for them to be the distribution of natures, lacking the foundation of salvation, voluntary faith.

But we, who have received from the Lord through the Scriptures that choice and avoidance have been given to human beings with sovereign freedom, rest on faith as an unshakable criterion, having shown a willing spirit, because we have chosen life and have believed God through his voice. And the one who has believed the Word knows the matter to be true; for the Word is truth. But the one who disbelieved the speaker disbelieved God. “By faith we understand that the ages were framed by the word of God, so that what is seen came into being from what does not appear,” says the apostle. “By faith Abel offered a greater sacrifice than Cain, through which he was attested to be righteous, God bearing witness to his gifts; and through it, though he died, he still speaks,” and so on, down to “than to have the passing enjoyment of sin.” These, then, faith justified even before the law and made heirs of the divine promise.

Why, then, should I go on collecting and setting out the testimonies to faith from our history? For “time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David and Samuel and the prophets,” and what follows. There being four things in which truth lies, sense, mind, knowledge, and opinion, mind is first by nature, but sense is first for us and in relation to us; from sense and mind the essence of knowledge is composed; and what is evident is common to mind and sense. But sense is the stepping stone to knowledge; and faith, having traveled through sensible things, leaves opinion behind, hastens to what is free from falsehood, and remains in the truth. If someone says that knowledge is demonstrative with reason, let him hear that first principles are indemonstrable; for they are known neither by art nor by prudence; for prudence concerns what can be otherwise, and art is only productive, not also contemplative.

So only by faith is it possible to reach the first principle of the universe. For all knowledge can be taught, and what can be taught comes from what is already known. But the first principle of the universe was not known beforehand to the Greeks; not to Thales, who thought water the first cause, nor to the other natural philosophers after him. For even if Anaxagoras was the first to set mind over things, even he did not keep to the efficient cause, painting some senseless vortexes, together with the inactivity and folly of mind. That is why the Word says, “Call no one on earth your teacher.” For knowledge is a demonstrative state, but faith is a grace that raises from indemonstrable things to the universal, the simple, which is neither with matter, nor matter, nor subject to matter.

But the unbelievers, it seems, drag everything from heaven and the invisible to earth, literally grasping rocks and oaks with their hands, according to Plato; for, laying hold of all such things, they insist that only that exists which offers resistance and touch, defining body and essence as the same. And those who dispute with them defend themselves very cautiously from above, from somewhere invisible, compelling that certain intelligible and bodiless forms are the true essence. “Behold, I make new things,” says the Word, “which eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man”: with a new eye, a new hearing, a new heart, whatever can be seen, heard, and grasped through faith and understanding, when the Lord's disciples speak, hear, and act spiritually. For there is genuine coin and another counterfeit, which deceives the unskilled no less, but not the money-changers, who have learned to separate and distinguish the counterfeit from the genuine. So the money-changer tells the unskilled only that the coin is counterfeit; but how, only the banker's apprentice, trained for this, learns. Aristotle says that the judgment following knowledge, that this particular thing is true, is faith. Faith, then, is more authoritative than knowledge and is its criterion.

Conjecture, being a weak opinion, counterfeits faith, as the flatterer counterfeits the friend and the wolf the dog. And since we see that the carpenter becomes a craftsman by learning something, and the pilot, having been taught the art, will be able to steer, reckoning that merely wishing to become noble and good is not enough, one must learn by obeying; and to obey the Word, whom we have proclaimed Teacher, is to believe him, opposing him in nothing. For how is it possible to stand against God? Knowledge, then, is worthy of faith, and faith worthy of knowledge, by a certain divine sequence and reciprocity. Indeed Epicurus too, who most of all preferred pleasure to truth, supposes faith to be a preconception of the mind; and he defines preconception as an application to something evident and to the evident notion of the thing; and says that no one can inquire, or doubt, or even hold an opinion, or even refute, without preconception.

How could anyone who has no preconception of what he seeks learn about what he inquires into? The one who has learned has already turned the preconception into apprehension. And if the learner does not learn without a preconception that receives what is said, he has ears to hear the truth; and “blessed is he who speaks into the ears of those who hear,” as indeed the one who obeys is blessed too. To hear attentively is to understand. If, then, faith is nothing but a preconception of the mind about what is said, and this is called obedience, understanding, and persuasion, no one will learn without faith, since not without preconception either. So what was said by the prophet is shown to be true above all: “If you do not believe, neither will you understand.” Heraclitus of Ephesus too, paraphrasing this oracle, said: “If one does not hope for the unhoped-for, one will not find it, since it is unsearchable and trackless.”

And Plato the philosopher too says in the Laws that the one who is to become blessed and happy must share in the truth right from the beginning, so as to live as long a time as possible being true; for he is trustworthy. But the untrustworthy is he to whom voluntary falsehood is dear, and the one to whom it is involuntary is senseless; neither of these is to be envied; for everyone untrustworthy and ignorant is friendless. And perhaps he speaks of this as the kingly wisdom in a veiled way in the Euthydemus. At any rate in the Statesman he says word for word: “So the knowledge of the true king is kingly, and the one who possesses it, whether he happens to be a ruler or a private person, will rightly be called kingly according to the art itself.” Thus those who have believed in Christ are and are called good (chrēstoi), as those cared for by the king are truly kingly. For as the wise are wise by wisdom and the lawful lawful by law, so those who belong to Christ the King are kingly, the Christians. Then, further on, he adds clearly: “What is right would be lawful, and law, being by nature right reason, and not in writings or other things.” And the Eleatic Stranger declares the kingly and political man to be a living law.

Such is the one who fulfills the law and does the will of the Father, inscribed plainly on a high wood, set out as an example of divine virtue to those able to see. The Greeks know the scytales of the ephors in Sparta, inscribed with the law on wooden staffs; but my law, as has been said, is kingly and living and right reason: “Law, king of all, mortals and immortals,” as Pindar the Boeotian sings. Speusippus, in the first book of his work against Cleophon, seems to write things like Plato in this: “For if kingship is good, and the wise man alone is king and ruler, the law, being right reason, is good”; which is so. Consistently with these, the Stoic philosophers teach, attributing kingship, priesthood, prophecy, legislation, wealth, true beauty, nobility, and freedom only to the wise man; who is admitted even by them to be very hard to find.

All the doctrines mentioned above appear, then, to have been handed down from the great Moses to the Greeks. He teaches that all things belong to the wise man by these words: “And because God has had mercy on me, I have all things.” And he shows him to be dear to God, saying: “The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob.” For the one is found expressly called a friend, the other is shown to have been renamed “the one who sees God”; and Isaac, allegorized as a consecrated sacrifice, he chose for himself to be a type for us of the plan of salvation. And among the Greeks Minos is sung as a king “who at nine years old conversed with Zeus,” since they had heard how God once talked with Moses, “as one would speak to his own friend.”

Moses, then, was wise, king, and lawgiver; but our Savior surpasses all human nature. He is beautiful, so as alone to be loved by us who long for the true beauty, for he was the true light; he is shown to be king, proclaimed both by children still innocent and by unbelieving and ignorant Jews, and heralded by the prophets themselves; so rich that he despised all the gold above and below the earth, together with all the glory offered him by the adversary. What need is there to say that he alone is the high priest, alone knowing the worship of God, Melchizedek, king of peace, the most fit of all to lead the human race? He is the lawgiver, giving the law in the mouth of the prophets, commanding and teaching most clearly what must and must not be done.

Who could be of nobler birth than he, whose only Father is God? Come, let us present Plato too as approaching the same doctrines. He called the wise man rich in the Phaedrus, saying: “O dear Pan and all you other gods of this place, grant me to become beautiful within; and that whatever I have outside may be friendly to what is within. And may I consider the wise man rich.” And the Athenian Stranger, blaming those who think that those who possess much money are rich, says this: “It is impossible for people to be very rich and good, at least those whom the many count rich; and they mean those who possess, among a few people, possessions worth the most money, which even a bad man may possess.” “The whole world of wealth belongs to the believer,” says Solomon, “but to the unbeliever not even an obol.” Much more, then, must we believe Scripture, which says that a camel will pass through the eye of a needle sooner than a rich man will philosophize. On the other hand it blesses the poor, as Plato understood when he said: “Poverty must be thought to be not diminishing one's property but increasing one's greed.” For it is never lack of money but insatiability, from which the good man is free, that makes poverty; and he would be rich. And in the Alcibiades he calls vice slavish and virtue fit for a free man. “Take off from yourselves the heavy yoke and take the gentle one,” Scripture says, as the poets too speak of a “yoke of slavery.” And “you were sold by your sins” agrees with what has been said. “Everyone who commits sin is a slave. And the slave does not remain in the house forever. But if the Son sets you free, you will be free, and the truth will set you free.” And the Athenian Stranger says that the wise man is beautiful, in this way: “As if someone should insist that the just, even if they happen to be ugly in body, are altogether beautiful in respect of their most just character, hardly anyone would seem to speak amiss in saying so.” And “his form was lacking beyond all the sons of men,” the prophecy foretold. And Plato called the wise man king in the Statesman, and the passage has been quoted.

Having shown these things, let us run back again to the discussion of faith. Plato, then, with every demonstration, presents somewhat thus that faith is needed everywhere, praising peace at the same time: “For no one would be faithful and sound in civil strife without the whole of virtue; but there are very many mercenaries who are warlike and willing to die in war, most of whom become bold and unjust, insolent and senseless, except a very few. If this is rightly said, every lawgiver who is of the least use will make his laws looking above all to the greatest virtue. And this is faithfulness, which we need at every time, in peace, in every war, and in all the rest of life; for it seems to contain the others by embracing them. The best is neither war nor civil strife, for it is to be prayed against that there should be need of these; but peace with one another together with friendliness is the best.” From these it appears that according to Plato the greatest prayer is to have peace, and the greatest mother of the virtues is faith.

Fittingly, then, it is said in Solomon, “Wisdom is in the mouth of the faithful,” since Xenocrates too, in his work On Prudence, says that wisdom is the knowledge of first causes and of intelligible substance, considering prudence twofold, the practical and the contemplative, which is human wisdom. So wisdom is prudence, but not all prudence is wisdom. It has been shown that the knowledge of the first principle of the universe is faith, not demonstration. For it is absurd that the followers of Pythagoras of Samos, renouncing demonstrations of what is inquired into, should consider “He himself said it” as faith, and be satisfied with this voice alone for the confirmation of what they had heard, while those who love to behold the truth, attempting to disbelieve the trustworthy Teacher, the only Savior God, should demand from him proofs of what is said. But he says, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” And who is this? Let Epicharmus say: “Mind sees and mind hears; all else is deaf and blind.” Heraclitus, rebuking some as unbelievers, says, “knowing neither how to hear nor how to speak,” benefiting no doubt from Solomon: “If you love to hear, you will receive; and if you incline your ear, you will be wise.”

“Lord, who has believed our report?” says Isaiah. “For faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of God,” says the apostle. “How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how will they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher? And how will they preach unless they are sent? As it is written: How beautiful are the feet of those who preach good news.” You see how he leads faith up through hearing and the preaching of the apostles to the word of the Lord and the Son of God? Do we not yet understand that the word of the Lord is a demonstration? As playing ball depends not only on the one who throws the ball skillfully, but also requires the one who catches it well, so that the game may be carried out by the rules of ball-playing; so teaching too is trustworthy when the faith of the hearers, being, so to speak, a natural art, helps toward learning.

So too fertile soil works together for the sowing of seeds. For there is no benefit from the best teaching without the learner's reception, nor from prophecy, if the hearers' ready obedience is not present. For dry twigs, being ready to receive the power of fire, are kindled more easily; and the famous stone attracts iron through kinship, as the amber tear draws twigs and amber stirs chaff; and the things drawn obey them, drawn by an unspeakable spirit, not as causes but as joint causes. Since, then, the form of vice is twofold, one with deceit and escaping notice, the other leading and carrying off by force, the divine Word has cried out, calling all together, knowing well especially those who will not obey; but nevertheless, since obeying or not rests with us, so that none may plead ignorance, he has made the calling just, and demands from each according to his ability. For some have both willing and power together, having increased this by practice and been purified; others, even if they are not yet able, already have the will. Willing is a work of the soul, but doing is not without the body. Nor are actions measured by the result alone; they are also judged by each one's choice: whether he chose easily, whether he repented of his sins, whether he gained understanding of his failures and changed his mind, that is, came to know afterward. For repentance is slow knowledge, but the first knowledge is sinlessness.

Repentance too, then, is an achievement of faith. For if someone does not believe that what he was held by is a sin, he will not change; and if he does not believe that punishment hangs over the offender and salvation over the one who lives by the commandments, not even so will he change. Hope too is constituted from faith. The followers of Basilides define faith as the assent of the soul to something that does not stir the senses because it is not present. Hope is the expectation of possessing a good; and the expectation must be faithful. The faithful man is one who keeps unswervingly what has been entrusted to him; and what is entrusted to us are the words about God and the divine words, the commandments, together with the carrying out of the precepts. This is “the faithful servant” praised by the Lord. And when it says “God is faithful,” it shows that he is worthy to be believed when he declares something; and his Word declares, and God himself would be faithful. How, then, if believing is supposing, do the philosophers think their own teachings firm? For voluntary assent before demonstration is not supposition, but assent to something strong.

And who could be stronger than God? Unbelief is a weak negative supposition of the opposite, as incredulity is a state that hardly admits faith. Faith is a voluntary supposition and a well-disposed preconception before apprehension; expectation is an opinion about the future, while the expectation of others is an opinion about what is uncertain; confidence is a firm judgment about something. That is why we believe in whom we have confidence, for divine glory and salvation. And we have confidence in God alone, whom we know will not transgress what he has nobly promised us, and what he has created and given us for these ends out of goodwill. Goodwill is wishing good things to another for his own sake. For he needs nothing; but the benefaction and the kindness from the Lord end in us, being divine goodwill and goodwill directed to doing good. And if “Abraham believed and it was reckoned to him as righteousness,” and we are the seed of Abraham through hearing, we too must believe. For we are Israelites, obedient not through signs but through hearing. That is why it says: “Rejoice, barren one who does not bear; break forth and shout, you who are not in labor; for the children of the desolate are more than those of her who has a husband.” “You have lived in the enclosure of the people; your children were blessed in the tents of the fathers.” And if the same dwellings are proclaimed by the prophecy to us and to the patriarchs, the one God of both covenants is shown.

At any rate he adds more clearly: “You have inherited the covenant of Israel,” speaking to the calling from the Gentiles, once barren of this husband, who is the Word, formerly deserted by the Bridegroom. “And the righteous will live by faith,” the faith according to the covenant and the commandments, since these, two in name and time, given by the divine plan according to age and progress, but one in power, the one old, the other new, are supplied through the Son by one God. As the apostle too says in the letter to the Romans: “For the righteousness of God is revealed in it from faith to faith,” teaching the one salvation, perfected from prophecy to gospel through one and the same Lord. “This charge I commit to you,” he said, “my child Timothy, according to the prophecies that went before about you, that by them you may wage the good warfare, having faith and a good conscience, which some have rejected and made shipwreck of the faith,” because they defiled with unbelief the conscience that came from God.

So we must not … fittingly slander faith as something ready to hand, easy, and common, belonging to ordinary people. For if the pursuit were human, as the Greeks supposed, it would have been extinguished; but it grows, and there is no place where it is not. I say, then, that faith, whether founded by love or by fear, as its accusers say, is something divine, neither torn away by other worldly friendship nor dissolved by present fear. For love makes believers by friendship toward faith, and faith, the foundation of love, brings in turn good deeds; when fear too, the law's schoolmaster, is believed from its effects. Fear too is believed to exist. For if existence is shown in acting, then fear, which is about to act and threatens, not acting and present, is believed; and, believed to exist, it is not itself the begetter of faith, since it is by faith that it is proved trustworthy.

Divine, then, is so great a change, that someone from unbelief should become a believer and believe both in hope and in fear. Faith appears to us as the first inclination toward salvation, after which fear, hope, and repentance, advancing together with self-control and endurance, lead us to love and to knowledge. Fittingly, then, the apostle Barnabas says: “From what I have received, I have been eager to send you a little at a time, so that with your faith you may also have perfect knowledge. The helpers of our faith, then, are fear and endurance, and our allies long-suffering and self-control. While these remain pure,” he says, “in what concerns the Lord, wisdom, understanding, knowledge, and insight rejoice with them.” Since the virtues just mentioned are the elements of knowledge, faith turns out to be more elementary still, as necessary to the one who knows as breathing is to life for one living in this world; and as without the four elements it is not possible to live, so without faith knowledge cannot follow. This, then, is the foundation of truth.

Those who accuse fear attack the law; and if the law, then clearly also God who gave the law. For these three things necessarily exist in relation to the subject: the one who governs, the governing, and the governed. If, then, by hypothesis they should take away the law, it would necessarily follow that each one who is led by desire, gratifying pleasure, would neglect what is right, despise the divine, and at the same time act impiously and unjustly without fear, having leapt away from the truth. “Yes,” they say, “fear is an irrational avoidance and a passion.” What are you saying? And how will this definition still hold for you, when the commandment has been given me through the Word? The commandment forbids, hanging fear over us for the training of those who thus accept being admonished. Fear, then, is not irrational; it is rational. For how could it not be, when it exhorts, “You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness”? But if they quibble about names, let the philosophers call the fear of the law “caution,”

since it is a reasonable avoidance. Critolaus of Phaselis not inappropriately called such people “fighters about names.” So the commandment has now appeared elegant and most beautiful even to those who accuse us, once understood by a change of name. Caution, then, is shown to be rational, being an avoidance of what harms; and from it springs repentance for sins previously committed. For “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and good understanding belongs to all who practice it.” He speaks of the practice of wisdom, which is the fear of God making a road to wisdom. And if the law produces fear, the knowledge of the law is the beginning of wisdom, and there is no one wise without law. Those who reject the law, then, are without wisdom, and it follows that they are to be counted godless. And “instruction is the beginning of wisdom.” “But the ungodly will despise wisdom and instruction,” says Scripture.

Let us see what fearful things the law announces. If they are the things between virtue and vice, such as poverty, disease, lack of reputation, low birth, and the like, the laws of cities are praised for holding these out, and this view is in harmony with the Peripatetics, who introduce three kinds of goods and reckon their opposites to be evils. But the law given to us commands us to flee what are truly evils: adultery, licentiousness, the corruption of boys, ignorance, injustice, disease of the soul, death, not the death that separates the soul from the body, but the one that separates the soul from the truth. For these vices are truly terrible and fearful, and the actions that come from them. “Not unjustly are nets spread for birds,” say the divine oracles; “for they themselves, sharing in blood, treasure up evils for themselves.” How, then, is the law still said by certain heresies not to be good, when they cry out the apostle's words, “For through the law comes the knowledge of sin”? To them we say: the law did not make sin, but showed it. For by commanding what must be done it exposed what must not be done. And it is the mark of a good thing to teach what saves and to point out what harms, to counsel the use of the one and to command flight from the other.

Indeed the apostle, whom they do not understand, said that the knowledge of sin was made manifest through the law, not that sin received its existence from it. And how is the law not good, which trains, which was given as a “schoolmaster to Christ,” so that, being set straight through fear in the way of training, we might turn to the perfection that comes through Christ? “I do not wish,” he says, “the death of the sinner so much as his repentance.” And the commandment produces repentance, forbidding what must not be done and promising benefits. By death, I think, he means ignorance. And “the one who is near the Lord is full of stripes”: clearly the one who draws near to knowledge enjoys dangers, fears, troubles, and afflictions because of his longing for the truth. For “an instructed son turned out wise,” and “an understanding son was saved from the burning heat,” and “an understanding son will receive commandments.” And Barnabas the apostle, after first saying, “Woe to those who are wise in their own sight and understanding before themselves,” added: “Let us become spiritual, a perfect temple to God. As far as it lies with us, let us practice the fear of God and strive to keep his commandments, so that we may rejoice in his ordinances.” Hence “the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom” has been divinely said.

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.

The involuntary, at any rate, is not judged (and it is twofold: what happens with ignorance, and what happens by necessity). For how could you judge those said to sin in involuntary ways? For either someone was ignorant of himself, like Cleomenes and Athamas, who went mad; or of the act he does, as Aeschylus, who divulged the mysteries on the stage, was tried on the Areopagus and acquitted when he showed that he had not been initiated; or one might be ignorant of the one toward whom it is done, like the man who let fly at his opponent and killed a kinsman instead of the enemy; or of the thing with which it is done, like the man exercising with spears tipped with buttons who killed someone when the spear shed its button; or of the manner, like the man who killed his competitor in the stadium (for he was contending not for death but for victory); or of the purpose for which it is done, as when a physician gave a healthful remedy and killed, but gave it not for this purpose but to save.

The law at that time held liable even the one who killed involuntarily, as it did the one who had an involuntary emission, but not equally with the one who acted voluntarily. And yet even he will be punished as for a voluntary act, if one transfers the condition to the truth; for truly the one who has no control over the generative word is to be punished. This too is an irrational passion of the soul, bordering on idle talk; but “the faithful one has chosen to hide matters in his breath.” Deliberate acts, then, are judged. For “the Lord examines hearts and kidneys”; and “the one who looks with desire” is judged. That is why it says, “You shall not desire”; and “This people honors me with their lips,” it says, “but their heart is far from me.” For God looks at the intention itself, since also Lot's wife, who only turned back willingly toward worldly vice, he left without sense, showing her as a pillar of salt and fixing her so that she could not go farther, not a foolish and useless image, but one to season and preserve the one able to see spiritually.

The voluntary is either what is according to appetite, or according to choice, or according to thought. Now these lie somehow close to one another: a sin, a mishap, a wrong. A sin, for example, is living luxuriously and licentiously; a mishap is striking a friend, through ignorance, as an enemy; a wrong is robbing tombs or temples. Sinning arises from ignorance in judging what one ought to do, or from inability to do it, as indeed someone falls into a pit either not knowing of it or unable to get over it through bodily weakness. But it rests with us, at any rate, to present ourselves for our training and to obey the commandments.

If we are unwilling to take part in these, giving ourselves up to anger and desire, we will sin, or rather we will wrong our own soul. For that famous Laius, according to the tragedy, says: “None of these things you warn me of escapes me; but though I have judgment, nature forces me”; that is, he has become given over to passion. And Medea likewise cries out on the stage: “I understand what evils I am about to do, but anger is stronger than my plans.” Nor is Ajax silent, but, about to slay himself, he cries out: “No pain, then, so bites the soul of a free man as dishonor. So I have suffered, and a deep stain … stirs me up from the depths, provoked by the bitter goads of madness.”

Anger, then, makes tragedy of these, and desire of countless others: Phaedra, Anthea, Eriphyle, “who accepted precious gold for her dear husband.” And another stage has that comic Thrasonides saying, “A cheap little slave girl has enslaved me.” A mishap, then, is an unexpected sin; a sin is an involuntary wrong; and a wrong is voluntary vice. Sin, then, is my own involuntary act. That is why he says, “For sin will not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace,” speaking to those who have already believed, that “by his wound we were healed.” A mishap is another's involuntary act against me; but a wrong alone is found to be voluntary, whether mine or another's.

The psalmist hints at these differences among sins when he calls blessed those some of whose lawless acts God has wiped out, some of whose sins he has covered, others he has not counted, and the rest he has forgiven. For it is written: “Blessed are those whose lawless acts are forgiven and whose sins are covered; blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not count sin, and in whose mouth there is no deceit.” This blessing came upon those who have been chosen by God through Jesus Christ our Lord. For “love covers a multitude of sins,” and he who chooses the repentance of the sinner rather than his death wipes them out.

Those are not counted that do not arise from choice; for “he who has desired,” it says, “has already committed adultery.” And the Word who enlightens forgives sins: “And in that time,” says the Lord, “they will seek the injustice of Israel, and it will not exist, and the sins of Judah, and they will not be found. For who is like me? And who will stand against my face?” You see one God proclaimed as good, rendering what is deserved and forgiving sins. And John too, in his larger letter, is seen teaching the differences among sins in these words: “If anyone sees his brother sinning a sin not unto death, he will ask, and he will give him life,” he said, for those who sin not unto death; “for there is a sin unto death; I do not say that one should ask about that. All injustice is sin,

and there is sin not unto death.” But David too, and before David Moses, show knowledge of the three doctrines in these words: “Blessed is the man who has not walked in the counsel of the ungodly,” as the fish go in darkness into the depths; for those that do not have scales, which Moses forbids us to touch, feed at the bottom of the sea; “nor stood in the way of sinners,” as those who seem to fear the Lord sin like the pig, for when hungry it squeals, but when full it does not know its master; “nor sat in the seat of the pestilent,” as the birds ready for plunder. And Moses exhorted: “You shall not eat the pig, nor the eagle, nor the hawk, nor the raven, nor any fish that has no scales on it.” So says Barnabas. But I myself have heard a wise man explaining such things, taking “the counsel of the ungodly” to be the Gentiles, “the way of sinners” the Jewish belief, and “the seat of the pestilent” the heresies.

Another said more properly that the first blessing is set down for those who have not followed the evil opinions that have fallen away from God; the second for those who do not remain on the broad and wide way, whether those brought up in the law or those from the Gentiles who have repented; while “the seat of the pestilent” would be the theaters and the law courts, or, what is more likely, following the evil and destructive powers and sharing in their works. “But his will is in the law of the Lord.” Peter, in the Preaching, called the Lord “Law and Word.” The lawgiver also seems to teach, in another way, abstinence from three kinds of sin: sins in word, through the voiceless fish (for there is indeed a case where silence is better than speech; “there is also a safe reward for silence”); sins in deed, through the rapacious and flesh-eating birds; the pig delights in mud and dung,

and one must not have a defiled conscience either. Fittingly, then, the prophet says: “Not so the ungodly, but like the chaff that the wind drives away from the face of the earth. Therefore the ungodly will not rise in judgment” (those already condemned, since “he who does not believe is already judged”), “nor sinners in the counsel of the righteous” (those already condemned so as not to be united with those who have lived without stumbling), “for the Lord knows the way of the righteous, and the way of the ungodly will perish.” Again the Lord shows plainly that both trespasses and offenses rest with us, setting out ways of healing suited to the passions, wishing us to be corrected by the shepherds through Ezekiel, blaming some of them, I think, for not keeping the commandments: “You have not strengthened the weak,” and so on until, “and there was none who sought or turned back.” For “there is great joy with the Father when one sinner is saved,” says the Lord. In this way Abraham is more praiseworthy, because “he went as the Lord had told him.”

From this one of the wise among the Greeks drew the saying, “Follow God.” “But the godly,” says Isaiah, “have counseled wise things.” Counsel is inquiry into how we might conduct ourselves rightly in present circumstances, and good counsel is prudence regarding our counsels. What then? Does not God too, after his pardon of Cain, fittingly introduce not long afterward Enoch, who repented, showing that repentance naturally begets pardon? And pardon consists not in remission but in healing. The same thing happens in the people's making of the calf under Aaron. From this one of the wise among the Greeks said, “Pardon is better than punishment,” as indeed also “Give a pledge, and ruin is at hand” comes from the saying of Solomon: “Son, if you become surety for your friend, you will deliver your hand to an enemy; for a man's own lips are a strong snare, and he is caught by the words of his own mouth.” And more mystically “Know yourself” has been taken from there: “You have seen your brother, you have seen your God.”

In this way, I suppose, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and your neighbor as yourself.” On these commandments, he says, the whole law and the prophets hang and depend. With these the following agree: “These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be fulfilled. And this is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” “For the Lord is merciful and compassionate, and the Lord is kind to all.” And Moses, enjoining “Know yourself” more clearly, often says, “Take heed to yourself.” “By acts of mercy and faithfulness, then, sins are purged; and by the fear of the Lord everyone turns away from evil.” And the fear of the Lord is instruction and wisdom.

Here again the accusers fasten on us, saying that joy and grief are passions of the soul. For they define joy as a reasonable elation, and exultation as rejoicing at good things, and pity as grief at one suffering undeservedly; and such things, they say, are changes and passions of the soul. But we, it seems, do not stop understanding such things in the Scriptures in a fleshly way, and, starting from our own passions, taking the will of the passionless God to be like our own movements; and, supposing that it is with the Almighty as we are able to hear, we err godlessly. For the divine could not be spoken of as it is; but as we, fettered by flesh, were able to listen, so the prophets spoke to us, the Lord accommodating himself for our salvation to human weakness.

Since, then, it is the will of God that the one who obeys the commandments and the one who repents of his sins should be saved, and we rejoice at our salvation, the Lord who spoke through the prophets has made our joy his own, as in the Gospel he says in his love for humankind: “I was hungry and you gave me to eat; I was thirsty and you gave me to drink. For what you have done to one of these least, you have done to me.” As, then, he is fed without being fed, because the one he wishes has been fed, so he rejoiced without being changed, because the one who repented has come to be in joy, as he wished. And since God, being good, shows mercy richly, giving the commandments through the law and the prophets, and more closely now through the coming of the Son, saving and showing mercy, as has been said, to those who have received mercy; and since properly the greater shows mercy to the lesser, and a man could not be greater than a man, insofar as he is a man, but God is greater than man in every way; if, then, the greater shows mercy to the lesser, God alone will show us mercy. For a man becomes sociable through righteousness and shares what he has received from God, both through natural goodwill and relationship and through the commandments he obeys.

But God has no natural relationship to us, as the founders of the heresies would have it (neither if he made us from what does not exist, nor if he fashioned us from matter, since the one does not exist at all, and the other is in every way different from God), unless someone will dare to say that we are a part of him and of the same substance with him. And I do not know how anyone who has known God will bear to hear this, when he looks at our life and at the evils in which we are mixed up. For in that case God would, which it is not lawful even to say, sin in part, if indeed the parts of the whole are parts and complete the whole; and if they do not complete it, they would not be parts either. But God, being by nature “rich in mercy,” cares for us through his goodness, though we are neither parts of him nor his children by nature.

And indeed this is the greatest demonstration of God's goodness: that, though we are so related to him and wholly estranged by nature, he nevertheless cares for us. For the love of animals for their young is natural, and so is friendship among the like-minded from familiarity; but God's mercy toward us is rich, though we are in no way related to him, I mean in our substance or nature or in the power proper to our substance, but only in being the work of his will. And he calls to adoption, the greatest advance of all, the one who willingly, with discipline and teaching, has taken up the knowledge of the truth. “Lawless deeds ensnare a man, and each one is bound with the cords of his own sins”; and God is not responsible. And truly “blessed is the man who is in awe of all things” through reverence.

As, then, knowledge is a state that knows, from which knowing results, and its apprehension is unshakable by reason; so ignorance is a yielding impression, shakable by reason. And what can be shaken, like what is trained by reason, rests with us. Close to knowledge lie experience and cognizance, understanding, intellection, and knowing. Cognizance would be knowledge of universals by species; experience is comprehensive knowledge, so as to inquire into what each thing is like; intellection is knowledge of what is intelligible; understanding is knowledge of what can be compared, or unshakable comparison, or the power of comparing things of which there is prudence and knowledge, both of each one and of all that fall under one account. Knowing is knowledge of the thing itself, or knowledge in agreement with what happens; and truth is knowledge of what is true, and the state of truth is knowledge of true things.

Knowledge is formed through reason and cannot be shaken by another argument. Here it inquires into knowing. What we do not do, we do not do either because we cannot, or because we do not wish to, or for both reasons. We do not fly, since we neither can nor wish to; we do not swim right now, say, since we can but do not wish to; and we are not like the Lord, since we wish to but cannot. “For no disciple is above the teacher, but it is enough if we become like the teacher”: not in substance, for it is impossible for what is by adoption to be equal in existence to what is by nature, but in having become eternal, having come to know the contemplation of what exists, being called sons, and beholding the Father alone through what is his own. Willing, then, precedes everything; for the rational powers are by nature the servants of willing. “Will,” it says, “and you will be able.” For the one who knows, willing, judging, and practice are the same. For if the purposes are the same, the doctrines and judgments are the same too, so that his words, life, and manner may be consistent with his stance. “An upright heart seeks knowledge,” and hears it. “God has taught me wisdom, and I have come to know the knowledge of the holy.”

All the other virtues recorded by Moses are plain, which supplied the Greeks with the beginning of the whole field of ethics: I mean courage, self-restraint, prudence, and justice, endurance and patience, reverence and self-control, and godliness in addition to these. Godliness is evident to everyone, teaching to worship and honor the highest and oldest cause. And the law itself presents justice, training it, and prudence, through abstaining from idols perceived by the senses and attaching oneself to the Maker and Father of the universe; from which belief, as from a spring, all understanding grows.

For “the sacrifices of the lawless are an abomination to the Lord, but the prayers of the upright are acceptable to him.” Since such too are the words in Isaiah: “What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the Lord,” and the whole passage; “Loose every bond of injustice.” For this is a sacrifice acceptable to God: a broken heart that seeks the One who formed it. “Deceitful scales are an abomination before God, but a just weight is acceptable to him.” From this Pythagoras exhorts, “Do not step over a balance.” And the profession of the heresies is called deceitful justice; and “the tongue of the unjust will be destroyed, but the mouth of the righteous drips wisdom.” Yet they call the wise and prudent worthless. It would be long to set out testimonies about these virtues, since the whole of Scripture sings their praises. Since, then, they define courage as knowledge of what is fearful, what is not fearful, and what is between, and self-restraint as a state that preserves the judgments of prudence in choosing and avoiding; and since patience, which they call endurance, lies close to courage, being knowledge of what to persist in and what not, and magnanimity, knowledge that rises above what happens; and caution, which is avoidance with reason, lies close to self-restraint:

the keeping of the commandments, being their harmless observance, is the securing of safety in life. And it is not possible to be enduring without courage, nor self-controlled without self-restraint. The virtues follow one another; and with the one in whom the virtues follow one another is salvation too, being the preservation of what is well. Fittingly, then, having discussed these virtues, we would have examined them all, since the one who has one virtue in the way of knowledge has all, because they follow one another. For example, self-control is a disposition that does not transgress what appears according to right reason. The self-controlled person is one who restrains the impulses contrary to right reason, or restrains himself so as not to be moved contrary to right reason. And this self-restraint is not without courage, since from the commandments comes prudence, following God who has given the orders, and justice, which imitates the divine disposition; by which, exercising self-control, we are sent forth pure to godliness and to the conduct that follows God, being made like the Lord as far as is possible for us who are mortal by nature.

And this is to become just and holy with prudence. For the divine is without need and without passion, which is why it is not, properly speaking, self-controlled; for it never falls under a passion, so as to master it. But our nature, being subject to passion, needs self-control, by which, being trained to need little, it tries to draw near in disposition to the divine nature. For the good man needs little, standing on the boundary between immortal and mortal nature: he has need because of the body and because of birth itself, but has been taught by rational self-control to need few things. For what reason does the law forbid a man to put on a woman's clothing? Is it not that it wishes us to be manly, not becoming effeminate either in body and actions or in mind and speech? For it wishes the one who gives himself to the truth to be manly in endurance and patience, in life, manner, speech, and discipline, night and day, and if ever the need should arise of a martyrdom that goes as far as blood.

Again, it says, if anyone has recently built a house and has not yet moved into it, or has planted a new vineyard and has not yet shared in its fruit, or has become engaged to a virgin and has not yet married her, the humane law commands that these be released from military service: strategically, so that we may not serve half-heartedly in war, distracted by our desires (for those who strip for danger without excuses are free in their impulses); and humanely, since the outcomes of war are uncertain, considering it unjust that one should not enjoy his own labors, while another should take without toil what belongs to those who have toiled.

The law seems also to indicate courage of soul, laying down that the one who planted should enjoy the fruit, the one who built should live in the house, and the one who wooed should marry; for it will not leave unfulfilled the hopes of those who have trained themselves according to the knowing Word. For when a good man dies, or lives, hope does not perish. “I love those who love me,” says Wisdom, “and those who seek me will find peace,” and so on. What then? Did not the women of the Midianites, by their beauty, lead the Hebrews, who were at war with them, from self-restraint through lack of self-control into godlessness? For making them their companions, enticing them by beauty from their reverent discipline into harlots' pleasures, they drove them mad for the sacrifices to idols and for foreign women. Overcome by women and pleasure together, they fell away from God and fell away from the law, and almost the whole people had come under the power of the enemy by a woman's stratagem, until fear, admonishing them, reined them in when they were in danger.

At once those who were left, taking up boldly the contest for godliness, became masters of the enemy. “The beginning of wisdom,” then, is godliness, “and the understanding of the holy” is forethought, “and to know the law belongs to a good mind.” Those, then, who have supposed that the law produces a fear that is a passion are neither good at understanding nor have they truly understood the law. For “the fear of the Lord makes life; but the one who goes astray will suffer in toils that knowledge does not look upon.” Indeed Barnabas says mystically: “May God, who rules the whole world, give you too wisdom, understanding, knowledge, insight into his ordinances, patience. Be taught by God, then, seeking out what the Lord seeks from you, so that you may find it in the day of judgment.” Those who attain these things he called, in the way of knowledge, children of love and peace. Although much can be said about sharing and fellowship, it is enough to say only this: that the law forbids lending at interest to a brother (calling brother not only one born of the same parents, but also whoever is of the same race, of like mind, and has shared in the same Word), not thinking it right to collect interest on money, but to give to those in need with open hands and minds. For God is the creator of such grace; and the one who shares already receives worthy interest, the most precious things among men: gentleness, kindness, magnanimity, good report, and fame.

Does not this precept seem to you to belong to philanthropy, as does that one, to pay the poor man his wages the same day? It teaches that the wage for services must be paid without delay; for, I think, the poor man's eagerness is weakened when he goes without food for the next day. Again, it says, let the creditor not enter the debtor's house to take a pledge by force, but let him tell him to bring it out, and let the one who has it not hold back. And in harvest it forbids the owners to pick up what falls from the sheaves, as in reaping too it exhorts them to leave something uncut; by this training the owners very well in sharing and generosity, by giving up something of their own to those in need, and providing the poor with a means of food.

Do you see how the legislation proclaims God's justice and goodness together, since he supplies food to all ungrudgingly? And again, in the vintage it has forbidden those who gather to go back over what was left and to pick up the fallen grapes; the same is ordered for those gathering olives. Indeed, the tithes of the fruits and of the flocks taught people to be godly toward the divine and not to be wholly greedy for gain, but to share their humanity with their neighbors too. For from these, I think, and from the firstfruits the priests also were supported. Do we now understand that we are being trained by the law in godliness, fellowship, justice, and philanthropy? Is it not so? Does it not command that the land be left idle in the seventh year, and bid the poor use without fear the fruits that grow by God's doing, nature farming for those who wish? How, then, is the law not good and a teacher of justice? And again in the fiftieth year it commands the same things to be done as in the seventh, restoring to each his own, if anyone in the meantime had been deprived of land through some misfortune, limiting the desire of those eager to acquire by a measured time of enjoyment, and pitying those who have paid the penalty of long poverty and are punished for life. “Acts of mercy and faithfulness are royal guards”; “blessing is on the head of the one who shares”; and “the one who pities the poor will be blessed,” because he shows love to his like through love for the Creator of the human race.

The things just mentioned also have other, more natural … interpretations, about rest and the recovery of the inheritance; but they are not to be spoken of now. Love is understood in many ways: through gentleness, kindness, patience, freedom from envy and jealousy, freedom from hatred, freedom from resentment. It is undivided in all things, impartial, sharing. Again, it says, if you see a beast of burden wandering in the wilderness belonging to one of your family or friends, or in general to people you know, lead it back and return it. And if its owner happens to be far away, keep it with your own until he recovers it, and return it. Because of natural fellowship it teaches us to consider what we find as a deposit, and not to bear a grudge against an enemy.

“The commandment of the Lord is a fountain of life,” and truly “makes one turn aside from the snare of death.” What then? Does it not command us to love strangers, not only as friends and relatives, but as ourselves, in body and soul? Indeed it has honored the Gentiles too, and bears no grudge against those who have done it wrong. At any rate it says plainly: “You shall not abhor an Egyptian, because you were a sojourner in Egypt,” calling Egyptian either the Gentile or anyone of the world. And it commands that enemies, even if they are already standing at the walls trying to take the city, not yet be regarded as enemies until, sending heralds, they have invited them to peace. Indeed, it commands that the captive woman not be approached for outrage; but, allowing her thirty days to mourn whom she wishes, it says, after changing her clothes, “go in to her as a wife according to the law.” For it holds that intercourse should take place neither for outrage, nor for hire as with harlots, but only for the begetting of children.

Do you see philanthropy with self-control? It does not allow the lover who has become master of the captive to gratify his pleasure, but checks desire by a measured interval, and moreover cuts off the captive's hair, to shame an insolent passion; for if reason persuades him to marry, he will hold to her even when she has become unattractive. Then, if someone, sated with desire, no longer thinks fit to have relations with the captive, it is ordered that he may not sell her, nor even keep her as a servant; it wishes her to be free and released from the household, so that, when another wife comes in, she may not suffer any of the incurable things that come from jealousy.

What then? It also commands us to help lighten and raise up the burdened beasts of our enemies, the Lord teaching us from afar not to welcome rejoicing at another's misfortune nor to take pleasure in our enemies' troubles, so that, having been trained in these things, he may teach us to pray for our enemies. For it is not fitting to envy and grieve at a neighbor's good things, nor to take pleasure in a neighbor's evils. “And if you find the beast of burden of some enemy of yours wandering,” it says, leaving aside the kindlings of the quarrel, “lead it back and return it.” For nobility follows forgetting wrongs, and from this comes the end of enmity. From this we are fitted for concord, and concord leads by the hand to happiness. And if you regard someone as an enemy from habit, but find him misled irrationally by desire or anger, turn him to nobility.

Does not the law now appear humane and kind, the law that is a schoolmaster to Christ, and God the same, good with justice, from the beginning to the end dealing with each generation fittingly for salvation? “Show mercy,” says the Lord, “that you may be shown mercy; forgive, that you may be forgiven; as you do, so it will be done to you; as you give, so it will be given to you; as you judge, so you will be judged; as you show kindness, so kindness will be shown to you; with the measure you measure, it will be measured back to you.” Further, it forbids dishonoring those who serve for their food, and gives those enslaved for debts a complete release in the seventh year. It also forbids handing over suppliants for punishment. More than anything, then, that oracle is true: “As gold and silver are tested in the furnace, so the Lord chooses the hearts of men.” And “the merciful man is long-suffering,” and “in everyone who takes thought there is wisdom”; for “care will fall on a man of understanding,” and, being thoughtful, “he will seek life”; and “the one who seeks God will find knowledge with righteousness, and those who have sought him rightly have found peace.”

It seems to me that Pythagoras too took his gentleness toward irrational animals from the law. For example, he forbade taking the young born in flocks of sheep, goats, and cattle for immediate enjoyment, not even on the pretext of sacrifices, for the sake of the young and the mothers, training man up to gentleness from below, from the irrational animals. “Grant the young,” it says, “to its mother at least for the first seven days.” For if nothing happens without a cause, and milk pours down in those who have given birth for the nourishment of the young, the one who tears the newborn from the provision of milk dishonors nature. Let the Greeks, then, be ashamed, and anyone else who runs down the law, if the law shows kindness even to irrational animals, while they expose even the offspring of human beings; though the law, from afar and prophetically, cut short their savagery through the commandment just mentioned. For if it forbids the young of irrational animals to be separated from the mother before weaning, much more does it treat in advance the cruel and untamed disposition in the case of human beings, so that, if they despise nature, they may at least not despise instruction.

For it is permitted to eat one's fill of kids and lambs, and perhaps there is some defense for the one who separates the young from its mother; but what reason does the exposure of a child have? For the one who did not wish to have children should not have married at all in the first place, rather than become a child-killer through lack of self-control in pleasure. Again, the good law forbids sacrificing the young and its mother on the same day. From this the Romans too, if a pregnant woman is condemned to death, do not allow her to undergo the punishment before she gives birth. Indeed the law plainly does not allow any animals that are pregnant to be slaughtered until they give birth, restraining from afar the recklessness of those who wrong human beings. So it extended fairness even to irrational animals, so that, having practiced on those of another kind, we might show an abundance of humanity toward those of our own kind.

But those who kick the bellies of certain animals before they give birth, so as to feast on flesh mixed with milk, have made the womb, created for birth, a tomb for the unborn, though the lawgiver expressly commands: “But you shall not boil a lamb in its mother's milk.” For let not the food of the living animal become a seasoning for the slain one, it says, the flesh; and let not the cause of life become a helper in the consuming of the body. The same law orders that an ox treading out grain not be muzzled; for the worker too must be counted worthy of food. And it forbids yoking an ox and a donkey together to plow the land, perhaps aiming at what is unsuitable between the animals, but at the same time showing that one must not wrong anyone of another nation and bring him under the yoke, when there is nothing to accuse him of except that he is of another race, which is no charge, being neither vice nor arising from vice. But to me the allegory also seems to indicate that one must not share the husbandry of the Word equally with the clean and the unclean, the faithful and the unfaithful; because the one, the ox, is clean, while the donkey has been reckoned among the unclean.

The good Word, lavish in its humanity, teaches that it is not fitting to cut down even what belongs to cultivated trees, nor to crop the ear of grain for mischief before harvest, nor in general to destroy cultivated fruit, whether of the earth or of the soul; for it does not allow even the land of enemies to be ravaged. Indeed farmers too have been helped by the law in this: for it commands that newly planted trees be tended for three years in a row, cutting off the superfluous growths, so that they may not be weighed down and pressed, and may not weaken from lack when their nourishment is divided up; and that they be dug and trenched around, so that nothing sprouting beside them may hinder their growth. And it does not allow the fruit to be picked unripe from unripe trees, but after three years, in the fourth year, consecrating the firstfruits to God after the tree has matured.

This figure of farming would be a way of teaching, teaching that we must cut off the outgrowths of sins and the vain weeds of thought that spring up with the fruitful crop, until the shoot of faith is perfected and made firm. For in the fourth year, since time is needed for the one being instructed to be firmly established, the tetrad of the virtues is consecrated to God, the third stage now joining on to the fourth, the Lord's own reality. “A sacrifice of praise is better than burnt offerings.” “For he,” it says, “gives you strength to do mighty things.” And if matters have been made clear to you, having received and acquired strength in knowledge, do mighty things. For by these words he shows that good things and gifts are supplied by God, and that we, having become ministers of divine grace, must sow God's benefits and make those who come near us noble and good; so that, as far as possible, the self-restrained may make others self-controlled, the courageous make them noble, the prudent make them understanding, and the just make them just.

This is the one who is according to the image and likeness, the one who knows, who imitates God as far as possible, leaving out nothing that leads to the likeness that is attainable: exercising self-control, enduring, living justly, ruling over the passions, sharing what he has as far as he can, doing good both in word and in deed. “He is greatest in the kingdom,” it says, “who does and teaches,” imitating God by giving similar gifts; for the gifts of God are for the common good. “But whoever undertakes to do anything with arrogance provokes God,” it says; for pride is a vice of the soul, and from it, as from the other vices, it commands us to repent, bringing our life from disharmony into harmony for the change to the better through these three: mouth, heart, and hands.

These would be symbols: the hands of action, the heart of counsel, the mouth of speech. Well, then, has that oracle been spoken about those who repent: “You have chosen God today to be your God, and the Lord has chosen you today to become his people.” For God makes his own the one who hastens to serve Him who Is, being a suppliant. And even if he is one in number, he is honored equally with the people; for being part of the people, he helps to complete it, restored to what he was; and the whole is also named from the part. This nobility is shown in choosing and practicing the best things. For what did his great nobility profit Adam? No mortal was his father; for he himself was the father of men who are born. He eagerly chose shameful things, following the woman, and neglected what is true and good; for which he exchanged immortal life for a mortal one, but not forever.

But Noah, who did not become like Adam, was saved by divine oversight; for he offered himself freely to God. And of Abraham, who had children by three women, not for the enjoyment of pleasure but, I think, in the hope of multiplying the race at the beginning, only one succeeded as heir of the father's goods, while the others were settled away from the family. And of the twins born from him, the younger inherits, having become pleasing to his father, and receives the blessings, while the elder serves him; for it is the greatest good for a worthless man not to be his own master. This arrangement is both prophetic and typical. And that all things belong to the wise man he clearly shows, saying: “Because God has had mercy on me, I have all things.” For he teaches that we must long for one thing, through which all things came to be and the promised things are distributed to the worthy.

So the good man who has become an heir of the kingdom is enrolled, through divine wisdom, as a fellow citizen also of the righteous of old, those who lived lawfully under the law and before the law, whose actions have become laws for us. And again, teaching that the wise man is a king, it makes those not of his race say to him, “You are a king from God among us,” since those ruled obey the good man by a willing mind through zeal for virtue. And Plato the philosopher, setting happiness as the goal, says that it is likeness to God as far as possible; whether he in some way met with the doctrine of the law (for great natures, stripped of passions, somehow hit the mark concerning the truth, as the Pythagorean Philo says in expounding the books of Moses), or whether he was taught by certain oracles of that time, being always thirsty for learning. For the law says: “Walk after the Lord your God, and keep my commandments.” For the law calls likeness “following”; and such following makes one like, as far as possible. “Be merciful,” says the Lord, “and compassionate, as your heavenly Father is compassionate.”

From this the Stoics too laid down that the goal is to live consistently with nature, improperly renaming God “nature,” since nature extends to plants, to seeds, to trees, and to stones. Clearly, then, it has been said: “Evil men do not understand the law, but those who love the law put a wall around themselves.” “For the wisdom of the shrewd will recognize its ways, but the folly of fools is in error.” “For on whom shall I look, but on the one who is meek and quiet and trembles at my words?” says the prophecy. We are taught that there are three kinds of friendship. Of these the first and best is that according to virtue; for love that comes from reason is firm. The second and middle is that according to exchange; this is sociable, generous, and useful for life; for friendship from favor is shared. The last and third we call that from habit, while others call it the one according to pleasure, changeable and unstable.

And Hippodamus the Pythagorean seems to me to write very finely: “Of friendships, some come from knowledge of the gods, some from the provision of men, some from the pleasure of animals.” So one is the friendship of a philosopher, another of a man, another of an animal. For truly the man who does good is an image of God, and in doing good he himself receives good; as the helmsman saves and is saved at once. That is why, when someone who asks receives, he does not say to the giver, “You gave well,” but, “You received well.” So the giver receives, and the receiver gives. “The righteous pity and show mercy”; “the kind will inhabit the earth, and the innocent will be left on it; but transgressors will be destroyed from it.” And Homer seems to me to have spoken prophetically of the believer when he said, “Give to a friend.” We must share with a friend, so that he may remain a friend still more; and we must help an enemy, so that he may not remain an enemy; for goodwill is bound by help, and enmity dissolved. But “if there is a ready will, it is acceptable according to what one has, not according to what one does not have. For it is not that others should have relief and you affliction, but out of equality at the present time,” and so on. “He scattered, he gave to the poor; his righteousness remains forever,” says Scripture. For “according to the image and likeness,” as we said before, does not refer to the body; for it is not lawful for the mortal to be made like the immortal; but to mind and reason, on which the Lord fittingly stamps the likeness both in doing good and in ruling. For governments are directed rightly not by qualities of bodies but by judgments of the mind; “for by the counsels of holy men cities are well governed, and a house too.”

Endurance too presses on toward likeness to God, reaping freedom from passion through patience, if the story of Hananiah and his companions still rings in anyone's ears, one of whom was Daniel the prophet, filled with divine faith. Daniel lived in Babylon, as Lot lived in Sodom, and Abraham, soon to be the friend of God, in the land of the Chaldeans. The king of the Babylonians, then, cast Daniel down into a pit full of beasts; but the King of all, the faithful Lord, brought him up unharmed.

The one who knows, insofar as he knows, will acquire this patience. He will bless when tested, like the noble Job; like Jonah, he will pray when swallowed by the sea monster, and faith will restore him to prophesy to the Ninevites; and even if he is shut up with lions, he will tame the beasts; and if he is thrown into fire, he will be bedewed and not burned up. He will bear witness by night, he will bear witness by day; in word, in life, in manner he will bear witness. Dwelling with the Lord, he will remain his familiar friend and companion at table according to the Spirit, pure in flesh, pure in heart, sanctified in word. “The world,” it says, “has been crucified to him, and he to the world.” Carrying the Savior's cross, he follows the Lord, “stepping in the footprints as of a god,” having become holy among the holy.

The divine law, then, mindful of every virtue, trains man above all for self-control, laying this down as the foundation of the virtues; and it trains us beforehand for the acquiring of self-control from our use of animals, forbidding us to partake of those that are naturally fat, like the race of pigs, which is the fleshiest; for such use is supplied to the luxurious. It is said, at any rate, that one of the philosophers, deriving the name, said that the pig (hys) is thys, as being fit only for sacrifice (thysis) and slaughter; for a soul was given to this animal for no other reason than to keep its flesh fresh. Likewise it forbade us to eat fish that have neither fins nor scales, restraining our desires for them; for these excel the other fish in fleshiness and fatness.

From this, I think, the one who founded the mysteries also not only forbade touching certain animals, but there are also parts of the sacrificed animals that he excluded from use for reasons the initiates know. If, then, the belly and what is below the belly must be mastered, it is clear that we have received from above, from the Lord through the law, the command to cut out desire. And this would be done perfectly if we should sincerely condemn the kindling of desire, I mean pleasure. They say that its concept is a smooth and gentle motion with some sensation. Serving this, they say, Menelaus, after the capture of Troy, rushed to kill Helen as the cause of so many evils, yet was not able to do it, overcome by her beauty, through which he came to remember pleasure.

That is why the tragic poets, mocking him, cried out in reproach: “But you, when you saw her breast, threw away your sword and received her kiss, fawning on the traitorous bitch.” And again: “Have swords been blunted by beauty?” And I approve of Antisthenes, who said, “I would shoot Aphrodite if I could catch her, because she has corrupted many of our good and noble women.” And he says that love is a vice of nature; those overcome by it, the wretched, call the disease a god. For by these words it is shown that the more ignorant are overcome through ignorance by pleasure, which must not be admitted, even if it is called a god, that is, even if it has been given by God for the need of begetting children. And Xenophon, plainly calling pleasure vice, says: “Wretched one, what good do you know, or what noble thing do you consider? You who do not even wait for the desire for pleasant things, eating before you are hungry and drinking before you are thirsty; and to eat with pleasure you contrive cooks, and to drink with pleasure you provide costly wines and run about seeking snow in summer; and to sleep with pleasure you provide not only soft beds but also supports for the beds.”

Hence, as Ariston said, against the whole tetrachord, pleasure, grief, fear, desire, there is need of much training and fighting; “for these, these go within the entrails and stir up the heart of men.” For pleasure makes wax of the spirits even of those who think themselves serious, according to Plato, because each pleasure and pain nails the soul to the body of the one who does not separate and crucify himself from the passions. “He who loses his life,” says the Lord, “will save it,” either by giving it up at risk for the Savior, as he himself has done for us, or by releasing it from its fellowship with ordinary life. For if you are willing to release, withdraw, and separate (for this is what the cross signifies) your soul from the delight and pleasure of this life, you will have it found and at rest in the expected hope.

This would be the practice of death: if we were willing to be content with the appetites measured by nature alone, which do not go beyond what is natural to excess or against nature, where sinfulness springs up. We must, then, “put on the whole armor of God, so that we may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil,” since “the weapons of our warfare are not fleshly, but powerful before God for the pulling down of strongholds, pulling down reasonings and every height raised up against the knowledge of God, and taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ,” says the divine apostle. There is need, then, of a man who will use without admiration or confusion the things from which the passions arise, such as wealth and poverty, glory and disgrace, health and disease, life and death, toil and pleasure. For in order to use indifferent things indifferently, we need much discernment, since we have been corrupted beforehand by great weakness and by the distortion of bad upbringing and nurture, having indulged ourselves in ignorance.

The simple account of our philosophy, then, says that all the passions are impressions on the soft and yielding soul, and as it were seal-marks of the spiritual powers against which our wrestling is. For it is the business, I think, of the evil-working powers to try at every point to produce something of their own state, so as to overcome and make their own those who have renounced them. Naturally, it follows that some are thrown in the wrestling; but those who carry on the contest more like athletes, fighting the whole fight and going on to the crown, then the powers mentioned, covered in much gore, give up, admiring the victors. For of things that move, some move by impulse and impression, like animals, others by transference, like lifeless things. And they say that among lifeless things plants too move by transition toward growth, if one will grant them that plants are lifeless.

Stones, then, share in cohesion, plants in nature, and irrational animals in impulse and impression, as well as in the two already mentioned. But the rational power, being proper to the human soul, ought not to be moved in the same way as the irrational animals, but should also discern impressions and not be carried away with them. The powers we have spoken of, then, hold out beauties, glories, adulteries, pleasures, and such enticing impressions to souls that are easily swayed, like those who drive cattle by shaking branches at them; then, having deceived those unable to distinguish true pleasure from false, and perishable and insolent beauty from holy beauty, they lead them away enslaved. And each deception, pressing continually on the soul, stamps its impression on it. And the soul, without knowing it, carries about the image of the passion, the cause coming both from the bait and from our assent.

The followers of Basilides are accustomed to call the passions “appendages,” saying that these are in substance certain spirits attached to the rational soul through some original disturbance and confusion; and that other spurious and alien natures of spirits grow on to these again, such as those of a wolf, an ape, a lion, a goat; and they say that their characteristics, appearing around the soul, make the desires of the soul like those of the animals. For they imitate the deeds of those whose characteristics they bear; and they are assimilated not only to the impulses and impressions of irrational animals, but also emulate the movements and beauties of plants, because they bear the characteristics of plants attached to them,

and also characteristics of cohesion, such as the hardness of adamant. But we will argue against this doctrine later, when we treat of the soul. For now only this must be noted: that the man according to Basilides preserves the image of a Trojan horse, as in the poetic myth, holding in the fold of one body an army of so many different spirits. At any rate Isidore himself, the son of Basilides, in his work On the Attached Soul, perceiving the problem with the doctrine, writes word for word as though accusing himself: “For if you persuade anyone that the soul is not undivided, but that the passions of the worse come about by the force of the appendages, the wicked among men will have no small excuse to say: ‘I was forced, I was carried away, I did it unwillingly, I acted without wishing to,’ though they themselves led the desire for evil and did not fight against the forces of the appendages.

We must, becoming stronger in the reasoning part, show ourselves masters of the lower creation within us.” For he too supposes two souls in us, like the Pythagoreans; we will examine them later. But Valentinus too, writing to certain people, writes in these very words about the appendages: “There is one who is good, whose free manifestation is the one through the Son; and through him alone could the heart become pure, every evil spirit being driven out of the heart. For the many spirits dwelling in it do not allow it to be pure; each of them carries out its own works, insulting it in many ways with unfitting desires. And the heart seems to me to experience something like an inn: for an inn is bored through and dug up and often filled with dung by men who stay in it licentiously and take no forethought for the place, since it belongs to someone else. In this way too the heart, as long as it receives no forethought, is unclean, being the dwelling place of many demons; but when the only good Father visits it, it is sanctified and shines with light; and so the one who has such a heart is blessed, for he will see God.”

Let them tell us, then, what is the reason why such a soul is not cared for from the beginning. Either it is not worthy (and then how does providence come to it as if from repentance?), or it is a nature that is saved, as he would have it, and then, being cared for from the beginning because of its kinship, it necessarily gives no entry to the unclean spirits, unless it were forced and shown to be weak. For if he grants that it repented and chose the better things, he will unwillingly say what the truth among us teaches: that salvation comes from an obedient change, not from nature. For as exhalations from the earth and from marshes gather into mists and cloudy masses, so the vapors of fleshly desires bring an ill condition on the soul, spreading the images of pleasure before the soul.

At any rate they darken the light of the mind, the soul drawing in the vapors of desire and thickening the masses of the passions by continual pleasures. A lump of gold is not lifted from the earth, but is boiled and strained, and then, having become pure, it is called gold, earth purified. For “ask and it will be given to you” is said to those who are able to choose the best things of themselves. And as for how we say that the energies of the devil and the unclean spirits sow themselves in the sinner's soul, I need no more words, setting forth as witness the apostolic Barnabas (he was one of the Seventy and a fellow worker of Paul), who says word for word something like this: “Before we believed in God, the dwelling place of our heart was corrupt and weak, truly a temple built by hand; for it was full of idolatry and was a house of demons, because it did whatever was contrary to God.”

So he says that sinners carry out the energies corresponding to the demons, but he does not say that the spirits themselves dwell in the unbeliever's soul. That is why he adds: “Take heed, that the temple of the Lord may be built gloriously. How? Learn: having received the forgiveness of sins and having hoped on the Name, let us become new, created again from the beginning.” For it is not the demons that are driven out from us, he says, but the sins are forgiven, which we committed like them before we believed. Fittingly, then, he set against this what follows: “Therefore in our dwelling place God truly dwells in us. How? His word of faith, his calling of promise, the wisdom of the ordinances, the commandments of the teaching.” I know of meeting a certain heresy, and its leader said that he fought pleasure with pleasure by using it, this noble knower deserting to pleasure through a feigned battle (for he claimed to be one who knows, too); since, he said, it is no great thing to abstain from pleasure without having tried it, but, when one is in it, not to be mastered by it; and therefore one should train oneself through it and in it.

But the wretch did not notice that he was deceiving himself by the pleasure-loving art. Aristippus of Cyrene, clearly, held this opinion too, the sophist who boasted of the truth. Reproached, at any rate, for constantly consorting with the Corinthian courtesan, he said, “I have Lais, and I am not had by her.” Such too are those who claim to follow Nicolaus, bringing forward a saying of the man, by a distortion, that one must “abuse the flesh.” But the noble man showed that one must cut back pleasures and desires and by this discipline wither the impulses and assaults of the flesh. They, however, pouring themselves into pleasure like goats, as though insulting the body, live in luxury, not knowing that the body wears out, being by nature fluid, while their soul is buried in the mire of vice, since they follow the teaching of pleasure itself, not of an apostolic man. For in what do they differ from Sardanapalus, whose life the epitaph shows: “I have what I ate and my wanton deeds and the delights I had with love; but those many prosperous things are left behind. For I too am dust, who ruled great Nineveh.” For in general the passion of pleasure is not necessary, but a consequence of certain natural needs: hunger, thirst, cold, marriage.

If, at any rate, it were possible without it to drink, take food, or beget children, it would be shown that there is no other need for it. For pleasure is neither an activity nor a disposition, nor indeed any part of us, but it entered life as a helper, as they say salt did, for the digestion of food. But it, throwing off the reins and taking control of the house, … first begets desire, which is an irrational longing and appetite for what gratifies it; and it persuaded even Epicurus to set pleasure as the goal of the philosopher. He deifies, at any rate, a stable condition of the flesh and the confident hope about it. For what else is luxury but pleasure-loving gluttony and a superfluous excess for the self-indulgence of the dissolute? Diogenes writes expressively in a tragedy: “Those whose hearts are crammed with the pleasures of unmanly and filthy luxury, not willing to toil even a little,” and what follows, which is said shamefully but worthily of lovers of pleasure.

That is why it seems to me that the divine law necessarily hangs fear over us, so that by caution and attention the philosopher may acquire and keep freedom from care, remaining unfailing and sinless in all things. For peace and freedom are gained in no other way than by unceasing and untiring struggle against our passions. For these opponents, stout and Olympic, are, so to speak, sharper than wasps, and pleasure most of all, plotting and stinging enticingly with witchcraft not only by day but also by night in our very dreams. How, then, can the Greeks justly still run down the law, when they themselves teach that pleasure is enslaved by fear? Socrates, at any rate, bids us guard against what persuades us to eat when not hungry and drink when not thirsty, and against the glances and kisses of the beautiful, as by nature injecting a poison more dangerous than scorpions and spiders.

And Antisthenes chooses to go mad rather than to feel pleasure; and Crates of Thebes says, “Master these things, a soul rejoicing in character, neither enslaved by gold nor by loves that melt with longing, nor by anything that goes with insolence.” And he concludes the whole: “Unenslaved and unbent by slavish pleasure, they love an immortal kingdom and freedom.” He writes elsewhere, plainly, that the plaster for an uncontrollable urge toward sexual pleasures is hunger, and if not, the noose. And the comic poets bear witness to the teaching of Zeno the Stoic, though mocking him, in this way: “For this man philosophizes a new philosophy: he teaches hunger and gets disciples; one loaf, a dried fig for relish, water to drink after.”

All these, then, are not ashamed to confess plainly the benefit of caution. But true and not irrational wisdom, trusting not in bare words and oracles but in invulnerable defenses and effective mysteries, the divine commandments, practicing in training and exercise together with them, receives divine power in the part of it inspired by the Word. Indeed they even describe the aegis of the poets' Zeus as terrible: “around which Fear is set as a crown on every side, and in it is Strife, in it Strength, in it chilling Pursuit; and in it the Gorgon's head of the dread monster, dread and terrible, a portent of aegis-bearing Zeus.”

But to those who can rightly discern what is saving, I do not know whether anything will appear dearer than the dignity of the law and its daughter, caution. But when someone is said to sing too high, as the Lord does toward some, so that some who emulate him may not sing out of tune and off the string, I understand it so: not that he is too high, but that to those unwilling to take up the divine yoke, to these he is too high. For to the slack and weak the moderate seems too high, and to the unjust what is due seems excessively just. For those whom pardon enters because they are friendly toward sins suppose the truth to be harshness, and strictness to be severity, and the one who does not sin with them and is not dragged down with them to be merciless.

The tragedy, at any rate, writes well about Hades: “To what a god you will come … who knew neither fairness nor grace, but loved only justice pure and simple.” For even if you are not yet able to do what is not commanded by the law, yet, perceiving that the finest examples are set out for us in it, we can nourish and increase the love of freedom; and in this way we would be helped, as far as we can, more eagerly, being challenged by some, imitating others, and shamed by others. For the righteous of old who lived according to the law were not “from an oak of ancient story, nor from a rock.” At any rate, by their willingness to philosophize genuinely, they offered themselves wholly to God, and it was “counted to them as faith.”

Zeno spoke very finely about the Indians: that he would rather see one Indian being burned than learn all the demonstrations about pain. But we have abundant springs of martyrs every day before our eyes, being burned, impaled, beheaded. The fear that comes from the law, leading them all like a schoolmaster to Christ, trained them to show their reverence even by their blood. “God stood in the assembly of gods; in the midst he judges gods.” Who are these? Those who are stronger than pleasure, who rise above the passions, who know each thing they do, those who know, those greater than the world. And again: “I said, you are gods, and all sons of the Most High.” To whom does the Lord say this? To those who reject, as far as possible, everything human. And the apostle says: “For you are no longer in the flesh, but in the Spirit.” And again he says: “Though we are in the flesh, we do not wage war according to the flesh.” “For flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does corruption inherit incorruption.” “But behold, you die like men,” the Spirit has said, reproving us.

We must, then, train ourselves to caution about what falls under the passions, banishing, as true philosophers do, the foods that excite, and the loose indulgence in bed, and luxury, and the passions that lead to luxury; for others let this be a heavy contest, but for us no longer; for self-restraint is the greatest gift of God. For he himself has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you,” judging one worthy because of a genuine choice. So the kind yoke of the Lord will receive us as we try to approach with caution, the one Charioteer driving each of us by advance “from faith to faith” to salvation, so that the fitting fruit of happiness may be gained. And training, according to Hippocrates of Cos, is not only of the body but also of the soul: “health: tirelessness in toil, not eating one's fill of food.”

Epicurus, placing godlike happiness in not being hungry, thirsty, or cold, uttered an impious saying, that in these things one could fight even with Father Zeus, as if laying down the blessed victory of dung-eating pigs and not of rational beings and philosophers. For among those who start from pleasure are the Cyrenaics and Epicurus; for these say expressly that the goal is to live pleasantly, and that pleasure alone is the perfect good. Epicurus also says that the removal of pain is pleasure; and he says that what is choiceworthy is that which first draws to itself from itself, being clearly entirely in motion. Dinomachus and Calliphon said that the goal was to do everything in one's power for the sake of attaining and enjoying pleasure; and Hieronymus the Peripatetic said that the goal was to live without disturbance, and that happiness alone is the final good. And Diodorus, from the same school, likewise declares that the goal is to live without disturbance and nobly.

Epicurus and the Cyrenaics, then, say that pleasure is the first thing proper to us; for virtue, they say, came in for the sake of pleasure and produced pleasure. According to Calliphon's followers, virtue entered for the sake of pleasure, but later, seeing its own beauty, made itself equal in honor to its origin, that is, to pleasure. Aristotle's followers declare that the goal is to live according to virtue, but that neither happiness nor the goal is present to everyone who has virtue; for the wise man who is tortured and falls into unwanted misfortunes, and for this reason gladly wishes to escape from life, is neither blessed nor happy. For virtue also needs some time; for it is not gained in one day, and it consists in a complete life, since, as they say, a child is never happy; and a complete time would be a human lifetime. Happiness, then, is completed from the three kinds of goods. So, according to them, neither the poor man nor the man without reputation, nor the sick man, nor anyone who is a slave, is happy.

Again, Zeno the Stoic considers the goal to be living according to virtue; Cleanthes, living in agreement with nature; Diogenes thought the goal lay in reasoning well, which he held lay in the selection of things according to nature. Antipater, his pupil, supposes the goal lies in continually and unswervingly selecting what is according to nature and rejecting what is against nature. Archedemus in turn explained the goal thus: to live selecting the greatest and most important things according to nature, which cannot be surpassed. In addition, Panaetius declared the goal to be living according to the starting points given us by nature; and last of all Posidonius, living in contemplation of the truth and order of the universe and forming himself accordingly as far as possible, being led in nothing by the irrational part of the soul. Some of the younger Stoics put it thus: the goal is to live consistently with the constitution of man. Why should I list Ariston for you? He said the goal was indifference, leaving the indifferent simply indifferent. Or should I bring forward the views of Herillus? Herillus sets living according to knowledge as the goal. Some think the younger Academics give as the goal a safe suspension of judgment toward impressions. Indeed, Lycon the Peripatetic said the goal was the true joy of the soul, as … Leucimus said, joy in noble things. And Critolaus, also a Peripatetic, spoke of the perfection of a life flowing well according to nature, meaning the threefold perfection completed from the three kinds.

We must not stop, then, content with these, but must be eager, as far as possible, to set out also what the natural philosophers have taught on the subject. They say that Anaxagoras of Clazomenae said the goal of life is contemplation and the freedom that comes from it; and Heraclitus of Ephesus, contentment. Heraclides of Pontus relates that Pythagoras taught that the knowledge of the perfection of the numbers of the soul is happiness. The Abderites too teach that there is a goal: Democritus, in his On the Goal, cheerfulness, which he also called well-being (and he often adds: “For delight and lack of delight are the boundary … of those past their prime”); Hecataeus, self-sufficiency; Apollodotus of Cyzicus, the delighting of the soul; as Nausiphanes, imperturbability, for he said this was called by Democritus “fearlessness.” Besides these, Diotimus declared the goal to be the complete possession of goods, which he says is called well-being. Again, Antisthenes set it as freedom from vanity; the so-called Annicereans, of the Cyrenaic succession, set no fixed goal for the whole of life, but said that each action has its own goal, the pleasure that results from the action. These Cyrenaics reject Epicurus's definition of pleasure, that is, the removal of pain, calling it the condition of a corpse; for we rejoice, they say, not only in pleasures but also in company and in honors. Epicurus thinks that every joy of the soul arises from a prior experience of the flesh.

And Metrodorus, in his work On the Cause of Happiness within Us Being Greater than That from Things, says: “What else is the good of the soul but the stable condition of the flesh and the confident hope about it?”

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.”

Those who derive from Carpocrates and Epiphanes think that wives should be held in common; from them the greatest blasphemy against the Name has flowed. This Epiphanes, whose writings are still in circulation, was the son of Carpocrates and of a mother named Alexandria; on his father's side he was an Alexandrian, on his mother's side from Cephallenia. He lived seventeen years in all, and he is honored as a god at Same in Cephallenia, where a temple of rough stones, altars, precincts, and a museum have been built and consecrated to him; and the Cephallenians, gathering at the temple at each new moon, sacrifice to Epiphanes on his birthday as a god, pour libations, feast, and sing hymns. He was educated by his father in general learning and in Plato, and he founded the knowledge of the Monad, from which the heresy of the Carpocratians also comes.

He says, then, in his work On Justice, that the justice of God is a kind of fellowship with equality. “The heaven, stretched out equally on every side, surrounds the whole earth in a circle, and the night shows all the stars equally; and God poured out from above the sun, the cause of the day and father of light, equally on the earth for all who are able to see, and they all see in common, since he does not distinguish rich or poor, people or ruler, fools and the wise, females, males, free, slaves. Nor does he do anything different for the irrational animals, but, pouring it out from above equally for all living things, he establishes justice for good and bad alike, since no one can have more or take from his neighbor, so as to double the light and have his neighbor's too. The sun makes common food spring up for all living things, justice in common being given to all equally; and for such purposes the race of oxen is born alike as the oxen, of pigs as the pigs, of sheep as the sheep, and so all the rest; for in them community appears as justice. Then all things are sown alike according to kind by community; and common food is released on the ground for all the cattle that graze, and for all equally, ruled by no law, justice being present to all harmoniously by the provision of the one who gives and commands.

Nor do the matters of generation have a written law (for it would have been rewritten); they sow and beget equally, having a fellowship implanted by justice. The Maker and Father of all, legislating by his own justice, gave the eye for seeing to all in common and equally, not distinguishing female from male, rational from irrational, nor, in short, anything from anything, but, distributing sight by equality and community, he has granted it alike to all by one command. But the laws,” he says, “being unable to punish men's ignorance, taught them to transgress. For the particularity of the laws cut up and gnaws away the fellowship of the divine law”; not understanding the apostle's saying, “Through the law I knew sin.” And he says that “mine” and “yours” came in through the laws, so that people no longer enjoy … in common either land or possessions, nor indeed marriage. “For he made the vines for all in common, which refuse neither sparrow nor thief, and the grain likewise, and the other fruits. But fellowship, once transgressed, and the rules of equality, begot the thief of flocks and fruits.

God, then, having made all things in common for man, and having brought the female together with the male in common and joined all living things alike, declared justice to be fellowship with equality. But those who were born in this way denied the fellowship that brought about their birth, and say, ‘Let the one who has married one woman keep her,’ though all could share, as the rest of the living things show.” Having said this word for word, he adds again in the very same words: “For he implanted in males a vigorous and more violent desire for the continuance of the races, which neither law nor custom nor anything else can abolish. For it is God's decree.” And how could this man still be considered in our discussion, when he plainly destroys both the law and the gospel by these words? For the one says, “You shall not commit adultery”; the other says, “Everyone who looks with desire has already committed adultery.” For “You shall not covet,” said by the law, shows the one God proclaimed through the law, the prophets, and the gospel; for it says, “You shall not covet your neighbor's wife.” And the neighbor is not the Jew to the Jew, for he is a brother and of the same spirit; it remains, then, that “neighbor” means the foreigner. For how is one who is able to share in the Spirit not a neighbor? For Abraham is the father not only of Hebrews but also of Gentiles.

And if the adulteress and the man who committed sexual immorality with her are punished with death, it is clear that the commandment that says, “You shall not covet your neighbor's wife,” speaks about the Gentiles, so that one who, according to the law, abstains from his neighbor's wife and from his sister may hear plainly from the Lord: “But I say, you shall not desire.” The addition of the word “I” shows the more intense force of the commandment, and that Carpocrates and Epiphanes fight against God. In that much-talked-of book, I mean On Justice, Epiphanes adds, word for word: “Hence the saying ‘You shall not covet’ must be heard as spoken ridiculously by the lawgiver, and still more ridiculous is his saying ‘your neighbor's goods.’ For the very one who gave desire, as holding together what belongs to generation, commands it to be taken away, though he took it from no living thing. And ‘your neighbor's wife,’ which forces fellowship into private ownership, he said even more ridiculously.”

These are the teachings of the noble Carpocratians. They say that these and certain others, emulators of similar evils, gathering for their dinners (for I would not call their meeting an agape), men and women together, after they have eaten their fill (“in satiety is Aphrodite,” as they say), overturn the lamp and so put out the light that would shame this harlots' justice of theirs, and then have intercourse as they wish with whom they wish; and having practiced fellowship in such an agape, by day they demand from whatever women they wish obedience to the law of Carpocrates, for it is not lawful to call it divine. Such laws, I think, Carpocrates should have laid down for the lusts of dogs, pigs, and goats. He seems to me also to have misunderstood Plato, who says in the Republic that the wives of all should be common: common before marriage, for those who are going to ask for them, as the theater is common to the spectators, he says, but each belonging to the one who first takes her, and the married woman no longer common.

And Xanthus, in the work entitled Magica, says: “The Magi … consider it lawful to have intercourse with mothers, daughters, and sisters, and hold wives in common, not by force and in secret, but with both consenting, when one wishes to marry the other's wife.” It is of these, I think, and of similar heresies that Jude spoke prophetically in his letter: “Likewise these too, dreaming” (for they do not lay hold of the truth awake), as far as “and their mouth speaks arrogant things.”

Now if Plato himself and the Pythagoreans, as later also the followers of Marcion, supposed birth to be evil (and Plato was far from proposing that wives be common), yet the Marcionites consider nature evil, made from evil matter and by a just Demiurge. For this reason, not wishing to fill up the world made by the Demiurge, they wish to abstain from marriage, opposing their own Maker and hastening to the Good One who called them, not to the one who, as they say, is God in another way. Hence, wishing to leave nothing of their own here, they become self-controlled not by choice, but through hatred of the one who made them, not wishing to use the things he created. But these, departing from natural reasoning in their impious fight against God, despising the patience and kindness of God, even if they do not wish to marry, still use the created foods and breathe the Creator's air, being his works and remaining among his things; and they preach, as they say, a foreign knowledge, though for this very reason they ought to be grateful to the Lord of the world, that here they received the gospel.

But we will argue against these most precisely when we treat of first principles. The philosophers we have mentioned, from whom the Marcionites impiously learned that birth is evil and then vaunt it as their own doctrine, do not hold that it is evil by nature, but evil for the soul that has seen through to the truth. For they bring the soul, which is divine, down here into the world as into a place of punishment; and according to them the souls embodied must be purified. And this doctrine belongs no longer to the Marcionites but to those who hold that souls are embodied, change bodies, and are poured from one vessel into another; against them there will be another occasion to speak, when we treat of the soul.

Heraclitus, at any rate, clearly speaks ill of birth when he says: “Once born, they wish to live and to have their fates, or rather to rest; and they leave children behind to become fates.” And Empedocles clearly agrees with him, saying: “I wept and wailed when I saw the unfamiliar place.” And further: “For from living things he made dead ones, changing their forms.” And again: “Alas, wretched race of mortals, sorely unblessed, from what strifes and groanings you were born!” And the Sibyl says: “Mortal men and fleshly, being nothing,” as the poet writes likewise: “Earth nourishes nothing feebler than man.”

Indeed, Theognis too shows birth to be evil, speaking thus: “Best of all for those on earth is never to be born, nor to see the rays of the piercing sun; but, once born, to pass as quickly as possible through the gates of Hades.” And in agreement with them the tragic poet Euripides writes: “For we ought to gather and lament the one who is born, for the evils into which he comes; but the one who has died and ceased from toils we should send from the house with joy and blessings.” And again he will say similar things thus: “Who knows if living is dying, and dying living?”

Herodotus seems to do the same, making Solon say: “O Croesus, every man is a misfortune.” And his story about Cleobis and Biton clearly means nothing else than to censure birth and praise death. “As is the generation of leaves, so is that of men,” says Homer. And Plato in the Cratylus attributes to Orpheus the account of the soul being punished in the body, and says this: “For some say that the body is the tomb (sēma) of the soul, as though it were buried in the present life; and because by it the soul signifies whatever it signifies, it is also rightly called a sign (sēma) for this reason. But the followers of Orpheus seem most of all to have given this name, as though the soul were paying the penalty for whatever it pays it.”

It is worth recalling also the words of Philolaus; for the Pythagorean says this: “The ancient theologians and seers also bear witness that the soul has been yoked to the body as a punishment, and is buried in it as in a tomb.” And Pindar too, speaking of the mysteries at Eleusis, adds: “Blessed is he who, having seen those things, goes beneath the earth: he knows the end of life, and he knows its Zeus-given beginning.” And Plato, in agreement, does not hesitate to write thus in the Phaedo: “And those who established the initiations for us,” as far as “will dwell with the gods.” And what of when he says: “As long as we have the body, and our soul is mixed up with such an evil, we will never sufficiently gain what we desire”? Does he not hint that birth is the cause of the greatest evils? And in the Phaedo he further testifies: “For those who happen to touch philosophy rightly are likely to have escaped the notice of others, that they themselves practice nothing but dying and being dead.”

And again: “So here too the philosopher's soul most dishonors the body and flees from it, and seeks to be by itself.” And does this not agree with the divine apostle when he says, “Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from the body of this death?” unless he means figuratively by “body of death” the agreement of those who have been swept into vice. And Plato, even before Marcion, seems to turn away from sexual intercourse, which is the beginning of birth, in the first book of the Republic. For, praising old age, he adds: “Know well that for me, as much as the other pleasures of the body wither, so much do the desires and pleasures of discussion increase.” And recalling the use of sexual pleasures: “Hush, man! I have most gladly escaped it, as if I had escaped a raging and savage master.”

Again, in the Phaedo, speaking ill of birth, he writes: “The account given about them in secret teachings, that we men are in a kind of prison.” And again: “Those who are judged to have been outstanding in living holily are the ones who are freed and released from these places in the earth as from prisons, and arrive above at the pure dwelling.” But nevertheless, holding this view, he perceives that the government of the world is good, and says: “One must not release oneself from it or run away.” And, to put it briefly, he gave Marcion no starting point for considering matter evil, since he himself spoke piously of the world thus: “From the one who put it together it has acquired all good things; but from its former state it has whatever is harsh and unjust in the heaven, and it has these from that and produces them in living things.”

And he adds still more clearly: “The cause of these things for it is the bodily element of its mixture, native to its ancient nature, because it shared in much disorder before coming into the present world.” No less in the Laws does he lament the human race, speaking thus: “But the gods, pitying the race of men, born to toil, appointed for them as rests from their toils the alternation of festivals.” And in the Epinomis he goes through the causes of the pity, and says this: “How from the beginning birth is hard for every living thing: first sharing in the state of those carried in the womb, then being born, and further being nourished and educated, all of which come about through countless toils, as we all say.”

What then? Does not Heraclitus too call birth death, like Pythagoras and like Socrates in the Gorgias, when he says: “Death is all that we see awake, and all that we see asleep is sleep”? But enough of these. When we treat of first principles, we will then examine these contradictions too, which the philosophers hint at and the Marcionites teach. Yet I think we have shown, not unclearly, that Marcion took the starting points of his strange doctrines from Plato, ungratefully and ignorantly.

Let our discussion of self-control go on. We were saying that the Greeks, seeing the troubles, said many things against the begetting of children, and that the Marcionites, taking these godlessly, are ungrateful to the Creator. For the tragedy says: “Not to be born is better for mortals than to be born. Then I bear children with bitter pains; and having borne them, if I bear fools, I groan in vain, seeing them bad, while losing the good; and if they are saved, I melt my wretched heart with dread. What good is this? Is it not enough for one soul to be distraught and have toils for it?” And again likewise: “To me it seems, now and long ago, that men should never beget children, seeing into how many toils we beget them.” And in what is said further he clearly traces the cause of evils back to the beginnings, saying thus: “You who were born to misfortune and to fare ill, you became a man and received the misfortune of life from the time when this ether began to nourish all, giving breath to mortals. Do not, then, being mortal, take mortal things amiss.”

Again he renders similar things thus: “No mortal is blessed or happy; for no one yet was born free from grief.” And then again: “Alas, alas, how many are the chances of mortal woes, how many their forms! No one could tell their end.” And likewise: “For of those among mortals there is none that is happy to the end.”

For this reason, they say, the Pythagoreans too abstain from sexual intercourse. But to me it seems, on the contrary, that they marry for the sake of begetting children, and after the begetting of children wish to master the pleasure of intercourse. For this reason they mystically forbid the use of beans: not because the pulse causes wind, is hard to digest, and makes dreams disturbed; nor because a bean is likened to a man's head, according to that little verse, “Eating beans is the same as eating your parents' heads”; but rather because beans, when eaten, make women barren. Theophrastus, at any rate, in the fifth book of his Causes of Plants, relates that bean husks placed around the roots of newly planted trees dry up the shoots; and domestic hens that feed on them continually become barren.

Of those who are led by a heresy, we have mentioned Marcion of Pontus, who rejects the use of worldly things out of opposition to the Creator. For him the cause of his self-control, if one should call it self-control, is the Creator himself, against whom this giant who fights God, thinking to stand, is self-controlled against his will, running down both the creation and man's formation. Even if they use the Lord's saying to Philip, “Leave the dead to bury their own dead, but you follow me,” let them consider that Philip too bears the same formation of flesh, but not a polluted corpse. How, then, did he have flesh and not have a corpse? Because he rose from the tomb when the Lord put his passions to death, and he lived to Christ. We also mentioned the lawless community of wives according to Carpocrates; and in discussing the saying of Nicolaus we left this out. He had a beautiful wife, they say, and after the Savior's ascension, being reproached by the apostles for jealousy, he brought his wife into the middle and allowed anyone who wished to marry her. For they say that this act was consistent with that saying of his, that one must “abuse the flesh.” And following both what was done and what was said, simply and without examination, those who follow his heresy commit sexual immorality without restraint.

But I learn that Nicolaus had relations with no woman other than the one he married, and that of his children the daughters grew old as virgins and the son remained uncorrupted. This being so, his bringing his wife, of whom he was jealous, into the midst of the apostles was a casting off of passion; and self-control over the pleasures eagerly pursued taught him to “abuse the flesh.” For he did not wish, I think, contrary to the Savior's command, to serve two masters, pleasure and God. They say, at any rate, that Matthias too taught thus: to fight the flesh and abuse it, giving it nothing for licentious pleasure, but to make the soul grow through faith and knowledge.

There are some who proclaim vulgar Aphrodite to be a mystical fellowship, insulting even the name. For doing something bad is called “working,” just as doing something good is called “working” by the same name; so too fellowship is good in the sharing of money, food, and clothing; but they have impiously called any kind of sexual coupling “fellowship.” They say, at any rate, that one of them approached a virgin of ours who was beautiful to look at and said, “It is written, ‘Give to everyone who asks you’”; and she, not understanding the man's licentiousness, answered very modestly, “But speak to my mother about marriage.” Oh, the godlessness! These partners in licentiousness, these brothers in lust, falsify even the Lord's words; a disgrace not only to philosophy but to all of life, counterfeiting the truth, or rather tearing it down as far as they can. For the thrice-wretched make a sacred mystery of carnal and sexual fellowship, and think that this leads them up to the kingdom of God.

Such fellowship leads into the brothels, and the pigs and goats would be their partners; and among them, in their greater hopes, the prostitutes who stand at the head of the house would be first, receiving without restraint all who wish. “But you did not so learn Christ, if indeed you heard him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Christ Jesus, to put off, according to your former way of life, the old man, which is corrupted according to the desires of deceit; and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new man, created according to God in righteousness and holiness of truth,” according to likeness to the divine. “Be, then, imitators of God, as beloved children, and walk in love, as Christ also loved you and gave himself up for us, an offering and sacrifice to God for a fragrant aroma. But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is fitting for saints, nor shamefulness and foolish talk.” For, teaching us to practice purity even in speech, the apostle writes: “For know this well, that every sexually immoral person,” and so on, as far as “but rather even expose them.”

Their doctrine flowed from some apocryphal book, and I will set out the passage that is the mother of their licentiousness; whether they themselves are the authors of the book (see the madness, if they lie even about God because of their lack of self-control), or whether, coming upon others, they have understood this fine doctrine in a perverted way. The passage runs thus: “All things were one; but since it seemed good to its unity not to be alone, an Inspiration came out from it, and it had fellowship with her and made the Beloved. From this came out from him an Inspiration, with which he had fellowship and made powers that can be neither seen nor heard,” as far as “each by its own name.” For if these too, like the Valentinians, had posited spiritual fellowships, perhaps someone would have accepted their supposition; but to raise the fellowship of carnal outrage into a holy prophecy belongs to one who has despaired of salvation.

Such things too are taught by the followers of Prodicus, who call themselves, falsely, Gnostics, saying that they are by nature sons of the first God; and, abusing their noble birth and freedom, they live as they wish; and they wish to live for pleasure, thinking themselves ruled by no one, as lords of the Sabbath and royal children born above every race; and for a king, they say, there is no written law. In the first place, then, they do not do all they wish; for many things will hinder them, even when they desire and try. And what they do, they do not as kings but as slaves who deserve the whip; for they commit adultery in secret, afraid of being caught, avoiding condemnation, and fearing punishment. How can lack of self-control and shameful talk be free? “For everyone who sins,” it says, “is a slave,” says the apostle.

But how does one live as a citizen according to God who has given himself over to every desire, when the Lord said, “But I say, do not desire”? And does anyone wish to sin willingly and make a doctrine of committing adultery, living in luxury, and corrupting others' marriages, when we pity even others who sin unwillingly? Even if they have come into the world as into a foreign land, if they have not been faithful in what belongs to another, they will not have what is true. Does a foreigner insult and wrong the citizens, and not rather live as a sojourner, using what is necessary, without offense to the citizens? And how, doing the same things as those whom the Gentiles hate for not doing what the laws command, that is, the unjust, the intemperate, the covetous, and adulterers, do they say that they alone have known God? For they should have lived well even while present among what belongs to others, so as to show truly their royal nature.

And they have made themselves hateful both to human lawgivers and to the divine lawgiver, having chosen to live lawlessly. The one who pierced the fornicator is shown in Numbers, at any rate, being blessed by God. And “if we say,” says John in his letter, “that we have fellowship with him,” that is, with God, “and walk in darkness, we lie and do not do the truth. But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with him, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from sin.”

How, then, are those who do such things better than worldly people, when they are like the worst of the worldly? For those alike in their deeds are, I think, alike in their natures. Those whom they claim to surpass in noble birth they ought also to surpass in character, so as to escape being shut up in prison. For truly, as the Lord said, “Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of God.” And self-control in food is shown in Daniel. To put it briefly, David, singing of obedience, says: “By what will a young man set his way straight?” and at once hears: “By keeping your word with his whole heart.” And Jeremiah says: “Thus says the Lord: Do not walk according to the ways of the Gentiles.”

Moved by this, certain others, vile and worthless, say that man was formed by different powers: the parts down to the navel are of a more godlike craft, the parts below of an inferior one, and that is why he longs for intercourse. But they fail to notice that the upper parts too crave food and lust for some things; and they contradict Christ, who said to the Pharisees that the same God made both our outer and our inner man. Besides, appetite is not of the body, even if it arises because of the body. Certain others, whom we also call Antitactae (“Opposers”), say that the God of the universe is our Father by nature, and all that he made is good; but one of those who came from him sowed the tares, begetting the nature of evils, in which he also wrapped us all, setting us against the Father. “That is why we too oppose him, to avenge the Father, acting against the will of the second. Since, then, he has said, ‘You shall not commit adultery,’ let us,” they say, “commit adultery to destroy his commandment.”

To these too we would say that we have received the teaching that false prophets and all who feign the truth are known by their works. Your works are condemned; how will you still say that you hold fast to the truth? For either there is no evil, and the one you accuse as opposed to God is no longer worthy of blame, nor has he become the maker of any evil (for the tree is destroyed together with its fruit); or, if evil exists, let them tell us what they say the commandments given about justice, self-control, patience, forbearance, and the like are: bad or good. If the commandment that forbids doing most shameful things were bad, vice would legislate against itself for the destruction of its own form, which is impossible. But if it is good, then, opposing the good commandments, they confess that they oppose the good and do evil.

Indeed the Savior himself, whom alone they claim to obey, has forbidden hating and reviling, and says: “When you go with your adversary, try to be released from him as his friend.” Either, then, they will deny Christ's exhortation by opposing the Opposer, or, becoming friends with him, they will not contend against him. What then? Do you not know, noble sirs (for I would speak as to those present), that by fighting against the good commandments you resist your own salvation? For you overturn not what was usefully enjoined, but yourselves. And the Lord said, “Let your good works shine,” but you make your licentious acts shine forth. Besides, if you wish to destroy the lawgiver's commandments, why do you try to destroy “You shall not commit adultery” and “You shall not corrupt boys” and whatever contributes to self-control, because of your own lack of self-control, but do not destroy the winter made by him, so as to make summer in the middle of winter, nor make the land navigable and the sea walkable, as the historians say the barbarian Xerxes wished to do?

Why do you not oppose all the commandments? For when he said, “Increase and multiply,” you who oppose him ought not to use intercourse at all; and when he said, “I have given you all things for food and enjoyment,” you ought to enjoy nothing. And when he said, “Eye for eye,” you ought not to return opposition for opposition; and when he ordered the thief to repay fourfold, you ought also to give something more to the thief. Likewise, opposing the commandment “You shall love the Lord,” you ought not to love even the God of the universe; and again, when he said, “You shall not make a carved or molten image,” it would follow that you should worship carved images. How, then, are you not impious, opposing the Creator, as you say, while emulating prostitutes and adulterers? And how do you not see that you make him greater whom you consider weak, if what he wishes comes about, and not what the good God wished? Conversely your “father,” as you call him, is shown by you yourselves to be weak.

These too collect words culled from certain prophetic passages and stitched badly together, taking literally what was said allegorically. For they say it is written: “They opposed God and were saved.” Some also add “the shameless God,” and they take this saying as advice given them, and count opposing the Creator as their salvation. Now “the shameless God” is not written; but even if it were so, you fools, understand the one called the devil as shameless, either as slandering man, or as accuser of sinners, or as apostate. At any rate the people about whom the passage is spoken, being chastised for their sins, bearing it hard and groaning, muttered the words cited: that the other nations transgress the law and are not punished, while they alone are cut down at every turn; as Jeremiah too said, “Why does the way of the ungodly prosper?” Similar to this is what is in Malachi, cited above: “They opposed God and were saved.” For the prophets, receiving oracles, not only say that they hear something from God, but are also shown reporting, by way of objection, what was being muttered among the people, bringing up, as it were, questions raised by men; and the saying in question is one of these.

And is not the apostle aiming at these when he writes in the letter to the Romans: “And not, as we are slandered and as some say that we say, ‘Let us do evil that good may come’? Their condemnation is just.” These are the ones who, in reading, twist the Scriptures by the tone of voice toward their own pleasures, and by changing certain accents and punctuation force what was commanded wisely and usefully to their own self-indulgence. “You who have provoked God with your words,” says Malachi, “and you said, ‘How have we provoked him?’ In your saying, ‘Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and he has taken pleasure in them’; and, ‘Where is the God of justice?’”

So that we may not, by picking over the subject further, mention more absurd heresies, nor again be compelled to speak against each one of them, be ashamed on their account, and prolong these notes to great length, come, let us divide all the heresies into two classes and answer them. Either they teach living indifferently, or, singing too high a note, they proclaim self-control out of impiety and love of quarreling. First we must discuss the first division. If it is permitted to choose any life, clearly the life of self-control is permitted too; and if every life is without danger for the elect, clearly the life with virtue and self-restraint is much more without danger. For if the lord of the Sabbath has been given authority to be unaccountable if he lives licentiously, much more will the one who has lived decently not be accountable. “For all things are lawful, but not all things are profitable,” says the apostle. And if all things are lawful, clearly being self-restrained is lawful too.

As, then, the one who has used his authority to live according to virtue is praiseworthy, so much more is the one who has given us authority, free and sovereign, and has allowed us to live as we wish, venerable and to be worshiped, since he did not allow our choices and avoidances to be slaves of necessity. And if each has freedom from fear, both the one who chose lack of self-control and the one who chose self-control, yet their dignity is not alike. For the one who has run aground on pleasures gratifies the body, but the self-restrained frees the soul, the mistress of the body, from the passions. Even if they say that we were called to freedom, only let us not give our freedom as an occasion to the flesh, according to the apostle. But if desire must be gratified and a shameful life considered indifferent, as they themselves say, then either we must obey the desires in everything, and, if so, do all the most licentious and unholy things, following what persuades us; or we will turn away from some desires, and then we must no longer live indifferently, nor be slaves without restraint to the most dishonorable parts of us, belly and genitals, which flatter our corpse because of desire. For desire is nourished and brought to life when it is served for enjoyment, just as, conversely, it withers when cut back.

And how is it possible for one overcome by the pleasures of the body to be made like the Lord or to have knowledge of God? For desire begins every pleasure; and desire is a kind of pain and anxiety longing for something through lack. So those who have chosen this way seem to me to suffer nothing other than what the saying describes, “to suffer disgrace in their vessels,” choosing for themselves an evil drawn on themselves now and hereafter. If, then, all things were permitted and there were no fear of failing to attain our hope through evil deeds, perhaps they would have some excuse for living badly and pitiably. But since a blessed life has been shown to us through commandments, which all must hold to, neither disregarding any of the things said nor neglecting what is fitting, even if it is very small, following wherever the Word leads; and since, if we should fail of it, we must fall into an immortal evil, while if we follow the divine Scripture, by which believers walk, we are made like the Lord as far as possible: we must not live indifferently, but must purify ourselves as far as possible from pleasures and desires and care for the soul, which must continue devoted to the divine alone. For the mind, being pure and freed from all vice, is somehow able to receive the power of God, the divine image being raised up in it. “And everyone who has this hope in the Lord purifies himself,” it says, “as he is pure.”

It is impossible for those still led by the passions to receive the knowledge of God; so neither can those who have acquired no knowledge of God attain the hope. And ignorance of God seems to accuse the one who fails of this goal; and the conduct of one's life shows ignorance of God. For it is altogether impossible to be at once a person of understanding and not to be ashamed of flattering the body; for that pleasure is the good can never agree with the view that only the noble is good, or that the Lord alone is noble and God alone good and alone worthy of love. “In Christ you were circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands, in putting off the body of the flesh, in the circumcision of Christ. If, then, you were raised with Christ, seek the things above, set your mind on the things above, not on the things on the earth. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God,” but not the sexual immorality that they practice. “Put to death, then, your members that are on the earth: sexual immorality, uncleanness, passion, desire, because of which the wrath comes.” Let them too, then, put away “anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, shameful talk from their mouth, having put off the old man with its desires, and having put on the new, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of the one who created him.”

For conduct clearly tests those who have known the commandments, since as the word is, so is the life. And the tree is known from its fruits, not from its flowers and leaves. Knowledge, then, comes from the fruit and from conduct, not from talk and flower. For we do not say that knowledge is bare talk, but a divine understanding and that light which arises in the soul from obedience to the commandments, making all things plain, both what is in creation and man himself, preparing one to know oneself and teaching one to become a partaker of God. For what the eye is in the body, knowledge is in the mind. And let them not call slavery to pleasure freedom, as though they called bile sweet. For we have learned that freedom is that with which the Lord alone frees us, releasing us from pleasures and desires and the other passions. “The one who says, ‘I have known the Lord,’ and does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him,” says John.

To those who, under the fair name of self-control, act impiously toward creation and the holy Creator, the Almighty, the only God, and teach that marriage and the begetting of children must not be accepted, nor others brought into the world to be unhappy, nor food supplied to death, we must say this. First, the words of the apostle John: “And now many antichrists have come, from which we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us.” Then we must also turn them around, refuting what they put forward in this way. When Salome asked, “How long will death have power?” the Lord said, “As long as you women bear children,” not as though life were evil and creation wicked, but teaching the natural sequence; for decay always follows birth.

The law, then, has chosen to lead us away from luxury and all disorder, and this is its goal: to lead us from injustice to justice, choosing self-restrained marriages, begetting of children, and ways of life. And the Lord comes not to destroy the law but to fulfill it: to fulfill it not as though it were lacking, but in that the prophecies according to the law were accomplished by his coming; since the ways of right conduct were proclaimed through the Word even to those who lived justly before the law. The many, then, who do not know self-control live by the body, not by the spirit; and the body without the spirit is earth and ashes. The Lord, for example, judges adultery from the intention. What then? Is it not possible to use marriage with self-control too, and not try to dissolve what God has joined? For such things are taught by those who divide the union, because of whom the Name is blasphemed. And these who say that intercourse is polluted, having themselves received their existence from intercourse, how would they not be polluted?

And the seed of those who have been sanctified is, I think, holy too. For not only our spirit ought to be sanctified, but also our character, life, and body. Otherwise, for what reason does the apostle Paul say that the wife is sanctified by the husband or the husband by the wife? And what is it that the Lord said to those who asked about the certificate of divorce, whether it is lawful to put away a wife, since Moses permitted it? “Because of your hardness of heart,” he says, “Moses wrote these things. But have you not read that God said to the first-formed man, ‘You two shall be one flesh’? So whoever puts away his wife except for the reason of sexual immorality makes her commit adultery.” “But after the resurrection,” he says, “they neither marry nor are given in marriage.” For it has also been said about the belly and foods: “Foods are for the belly and the belly for foods; but God will do away with both it and them”; rebuking those who think they may live like boars and goats, so that they may not eat and mate without fear.

If, at any rate, they have received the resurrection, as they themselves say, and for this reason reject marriage, let them neither eat nor drink; for the apostle said that the belly and foods are done away in the resurrection. How, then, do they hunger and thirst and suffer the things of the flesh, and the other things which the one who has received through Christ the perfect resurrection that is awaited will not suffer? Besides, even idol-worshipers abstain from food and from sexual intercourse. “But the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking,” it says. Indeed the Magi too take care to abstain at once from wine, from meat, and from sexual intercourse, while they serve angels and demons. But as humility is gentleness, not ill-treatment of the body, so self-control is a virtue of the soul, not in the open, but in secret.

There are some who say plainly that marriage is sexual immorality, and teach that it was handed down by the devil; and these boasters say that they imitate the Lord, who neither married nor acquired anything in the world, boasting that they have understood the gospel better than others. But Scripture says to them: “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” And they do not know the reason why the Lord did not marry. First, he had his own bride, the church; then, he was not an ordinary man, so as to need a helper according to the flesh; nor was it necessary for him to beget children, since he remains forever and is the only Son of God. This same Lord says: “What God has joined, let no man separate.” And again: “As it was in the days of Noah, they were marrying and giving in marriage, building and planting; and as it was in the days of Lot, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.” And to show that he is not speaking to the Gentiles, he adds: “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?” And again: “Woe to those who are pregnant and those who are nursing in those days,” though these things too are allegorized. For this reason he did not define the times which the Father has set in his own authority, so that the world might continue through the generations.

And as for “Not all can receive this saying; for there are eunuchs who were born so, and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven; let the one who can receive it receive it,” they do not know that after his saying about divorce, when some asked, “If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is not expedient to marry,” then the Lord said: “Not all can receive this saying, but those to whom it is given.” For what the questioners wished to learn was whether he allowed a man to marry another wife when his wife had been condemned for sexual immorality and put away. They say that not a few athletes too abstain from sexual intercourse, exercising self-control for bodily training, such as Astylus of Croton and Crison of Himera. And Amoebeus the lyre-singer, though newly married, abstained from his bride. And Aristotle of Cyrene alone disdained Lais when she loved him.

Having sworn to the courtesan that he would take her to his homeland if she helped him in something against his rivals, when she had done it, he fulfilled the oath wittily: he had a portrait of her painted, as lifelike as possible, and set it up in Cyrene, as Istrus relates in his work On the Peculiarity of Contests. So not even the eunuchate is virtuous unless it comes about through love of God. Indeed, about those who abhor marriage the blessed Paul says: “In later times some will depart from the faith, paying attention to deceiving spirits and teachings of demons, forbidding to marry, commanding to abstain from foods.” And again he says: “Let no one disqualify you by self-made worship of humility and severity to the body.” The same writer also writes this: “Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek to be released. Are you released from a wife? Do not seek a wife.” And again: “Let each one have his own wife, so that Satan may not tempt you.”

What then? Did not the righteous of old partake of creation with thanksgiving? Some of them even married and begot children with self-control. Ravens brought Elijah bread and meat for food; and Samuel the prophet brought and gave Saul to eat the leg that he had kept back from what he ate. But those who say that they surpass even these in conduct and life will not be able even to be compared with their deeds. “Let the one who does not eat not despise the one who eats, and let the one who eats not judge the one who does not eat; for God has accepted him.” Besides, the Lord says of himself: “John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’ The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’” Or do they reject the apostles too?

For Peter and Philip had children, and Philip also gave his daughters to husbands; and Paul does not hesitate in one letter to address his own yokefellow, whom he did not take about with him for the sake of the convenience of his ministry. He says, then, in one letter: “Do we not have the right to take about a sister as wife, as the other apostles also do?” But these, devoting themselves, as befitted their ministry, to preaching without distraction, took their wives about not as wives but as sisters, to be fellow ministers to the women who kept at home, through whom the Lord's teaching entered even the women's quarters without scandal. For we know also what the noble Paul lays down about women deacons in the other letter to Timothy. And this same man cried out that “the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking,” nor indeed abstaining from wine and meat, “but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” Which of them goes about with a sheepskin and a leather belt, like Elijah? Who is clothed in sackcloth, naked otherwise and barefoot, like Isaiah? Or only in a linen loincloth, like Jeremiah? And who will imitate John's knowing way of life? Yet the blessed prophets, living so, gave thanks to the Creator.

The “justice” of Carpocrates and of those who pursue licentious community equally with him is refuted in this way. For at the same time as saying, “Give to the one who asks you,” he adds, “and do not turn away from the one who wishes to borrow,” teaching this kind of sharing, not the lustful kind. And how can there be one who asks, receives, and borrows, if there is no one who has, gives, and lends? And what of when the Lord says: “I was hungry and you fed me, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you took me in, naked and you clothed me”? Then he adds: “Inasmuch as you did it to one of these least, you did it to me.” And does he not lay down the same things in the old covenant too? “The one who gives to the poor lends to God,” and, “Do not refrain from doing good to the needy,” it says.

And again he said: “Let not acts of mercy and faithfulness fail you.” “Poverty humbles a man, but the hands of the vigorous make rich.” And he adds: “Behold a man who did not give his money at interest: he is acceptable.” And “a man's own wealth is judged the ransom of his soul.” Does he not make it plain? As, then, the world consists of opposites, as of hot and cold, dry and wet, so too of those who give and those who receive. And again, when he says, “If you wish to be perfect, sell your possessions and give to the poor,” he convicts the one who boasted of having kept all the commandments from his youth; for he had not fulfilled “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Then, being perfected by the Lord, he was taught to share out of love.

So he has not forbidden being rich rightly, but being rich unjustly and insatiably; for “property hastily gained with lawlessness becomes less.” For “there are those who sow and make more, and those who gather and become less.” About them it is written: “He scattered, he gave to the poor; his righteousness remains forever.” For the one who sows and gathers more is the one who, through earthly and temporary sharing, acquires the heavenly and eternal things; but the other is the one who shares with no one, but vainly stores up treasure on earth, where moth and rust destroy (about whom it is written, “He who gathered wages gathered them into a bag with holes”). The Lord says in the Gospel that this man's land bore well, and then, wishing to store the fruits, he was going to build bigger barns, and said to himself, in the personification: “You have many goods laid up for many years; eat, drink, be merry.” “Fool,” he said, “this night they demand your soul from you; the things you have prepared, whose will they be?”

Human self-control, then, I mean that of the Greek philosophers, professes to fight against desire and not to serve it in deeds; but ours is not to desire at all, not that one should desire and hold out, but that one should exercise self-control even over desiring. And it is not possible to gain this self-control except by the grace of God. That is why he said, “Ask and it will be given to you.” Moses too received this grace, though clothed in a needy body, so that for forty days he was neither hungry nor thirsty. And as it is better to be healthy than to discourse about health while sick, so it is better to be light than to talk about light, and true self-control is better than that taught by the philosophers. For where light is, there is no darkness; but where desire sits within, even if it is alone, and even if it is quiet in its activity through the body, it has intercourse in memory with what is not present.

In general, let our account go forward about marriage, food, and the rest: to do nothing from desire, but to will only what is necessary. For we are children not of desire but of will. And the one who has married for the begetting of children must practice self-control, so as not even to desire his own wife, whom he ought to love, begetting children with a reverent and self-restrained will. For we have learned not to make provision for the flesh to fulfill its desires, but to walk decently as in the day, in Christ and in the Lord's enlightened way of life, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in strife and jealousy.

But self-control should be seen not only in one kind of thing, that is, sexual pleasures, but also in the other things that our soul, living luxuriously, desires, not content with necessities but busy about luxury. Self-control is to despise money, to look down on luxury, possessions, and shows, to control the mouth, and to master evil thoughts. Indeed some angels, becoming without self-control and caught by desire, have fallen from heaven to here. And Valentinus, in his letter to Agathopus, says: “Enduring all things, he was self-controlled; Jesus practiced divinity; he ate and drank in a peculiar way, not giving back the food. Such was the power of his self-control that the food was not even corrupted in him, since he himself did not have corruption.” We, then, embrace self-control through love for the Lord and for the sake of the good itself, sanctifying the temple of the Spirit. For it is good, for the sake of the kingdom of heaven, to make oneself a eunuch from all desire, and “to cleanse the conscience from dead works to serve the living God.”

But those who, out of hatred for the flesh, long ungratefully to be rid of union in marriage and of partaking of the proper foods, are ignorant and godless, exercising self-control irrationally, like most of the other nations. The Brahmans, at any rate, neither eat meat nor drink wine; some of them take food every day, as we do, and some every three days, as Alexander Polyhistor says in his Indica. They despise death and count living as nothing, for they are persuaded that there is rebirth … and they worship Heracles and Pan. Those of the Indians called Holy Men live naked their whole life; they practice truth, foretell the future, and worship a certain pyramid under which they think the bones of some god lie. Neither the gymnosophists nor the so-called Holy Men have to do with women; for they think this contrary to nature and unlawful, and for this reason they keep themselves pure; and the Holy Women too remain virgins. They seem to observe the heavenly bodies and by their signs to foretell some future things.

Since those who introduce indifference, forcing a few Scriptures, think that they support their self-indulgence, especially this one, “For sin will not have dominion over you; for you are not under law but under grace” (and some others like it, which it is not reasonable to mention in such a connection, for I am not fitting out a pirate ship), come, let us cut through their attempt briefly. For the noble apostle himself, adding to the saying just quoted, will dispose of the charge: “What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means.” So, in an inspired and prophetic way, he at once destroys the sophistical art of pleasure.

They do not understand, it seems, that “we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each may receive through the body according to what he has done, whether good or bad,” so that each may receive back what he did through the body. “So if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation,” no longer sinful; “the old things have passed away”; we have washed away the old life; “behold, new things have come”: purity from sexual immorality, self-control from lack of self-control, justice from injustice. “For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What agreement has Christ with Beliar? What portion has a believer with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of God with idols? Having, then, these promises, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.”

Those who, under the fair name of self-control, oppose God's creation also cite the words spoken to Salome, which we mentioned before; they are found, I think, in the Gospel according to the Egyptians. For they say that the Savior himself said, “I came to destroy the works of the female”: by “female” meaning desire, and by “works” birth and decay. What, then, would they say? Has this order been destroyed? They would not say so; for the world remains under the same arrangement. But the Lord did not lie; for he truly destroyed the works of desire: love of money, love of strife, love of glory, madness for women, the corruption of boys, gluttony, profligacy, and the like. The birth of these is the decay of the soul, if indeed we become “dead in trespasses”; and this “female” was lack of self-control. But birth and decay in creation must go on in their proper course until the complete separation and restoration of the elect, through which the substances mixed up with the world are also assigned to what is proper to them.

Fittingly, then, when the Word had spoken about the consummation, Salome says, “How long will men die?” Scripture speaks of man in two ways: the visible one and the soul; and again the one who is saved and the one who is not. And sin is called the death of the soul. That is why the Lord answers carefully, “As long as women bear children,” that is, as long as desires are active. “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and through sin death spread to all men, because all sinned; and death reigned from Adam to Moses,” says the apostle. By the natural necessity of the divine arrangement, death follows birth, and the dissolution of soul and body follows their union. And if birth is for the sake of learning and knowledge, dissolution is for the sake of restoration. As woman is considered a cause of death because she bears children, so for the same reason she will be called the leader of life.

Indeed, the woman who began the transgression was called Life, because she became the cause of the succession both of those born and of those who sin, mother of the righteous and the unrighteous alike, each of us either justifying himself or, conversely, making himself disobedient. So I for my part do not think that the apostle loathes life in the flesh when he says: “But with all boldness, as always, so now too Christ will be magnified in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain. If it is to live in the flesh, this is fruit of labor for me; and what I shall choose I do not know. I am hard pressed between the two, having the desire to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better; but to remain in the flesh is more necessary for your sake.” For by these words, I think, he clearly showed that the perfection of love toward God is departure from the body, and that presence in the flesh is thankful endurance for the sake of those who need to be saved.

And why do those who follow anything rather than the true gospel rule not also cite what follows in the words to Salome? For when she said, “Then I did well in not bearing children,” as though birth were not properly accepted, the Lord answers, saying: “Eat every plant, but do not eat the one that has bitterness.” For by these words too he signifies that either self-control or marriage rests with us, and not by necessity through a prohibiting commandment, and he makes clear besides that marriage cooperates in some way with creation.

Let no one, then, think marriage according to reason a sin, unless he supposes the rearing of children bitter (for to many, on the contrary, childlessness is most grievous); nor, if the begetting of children seems bitter to someone because it draws him away from divine things through necessary occupations, yet he cannot easily bear the single life, let him desire marriage; since what is pleasing with self-restraint is harmless, and each of us is master of his choice about begetting children. And I see how, on the pretext of marriage, some who abstained from it not in accordance with holy knowledge have flowed over into hatred of mankind, and love has departed from them; while others, entangled in it and indulging themselves by the law's indulgence, as the prophet says, “have become like the beasts.”

Who are the two or three gathered in the name of Christ, among whom the Lord is in the midst? Does he not mean by the three a husband, a wife, and a child, since a wife is joined to a husband through God? But if someone wishes to be unencumbered, not choosing to beget children because of the occupation it involves, “let him remain unmarried as I am,” says the apostle. For they explain that the Lord means that with the many is the Creator, the God who causes birth, but with the one, the elect one, is the Savior, clearly the son of another God, the good one. But this is not so; rather, God through the Son is with those who marry with self-restraint and beget children, and the same God is likewise with the one who exercises self-control according to reason. The three might also be, in another way, anger, desire, and reason; and in another sense flesh, soul, and spirit.

Perhaps the triad just mentioned also hints at the calling, the election second, and third the race ranked in the first honor; with whom the all-overseeing power of God is present, divided without division. The one, then, who uses the natural activities of the soul as he should desires what is suitable and hates what is harmful, as the commandments prescribe: “For you will bless the one who blesses,” it says, “and curse the one who curses.” But when he rises above these too, anger and desire, and in deed loves the creation for the sake of God, the God and Maker of all, he will live in the way of knowledge, having acquired an effortless state of self-control according to his likeness to the Savior, uniting knowledge, faith, and love, being one henceforth in judgment and truly spiritual, altogether and entirely closed to thoughts arising from anger and desire; perfected according to the Lord's image by the Craftsman himself, a perfect man, now worthy to be called a brother by the Lord; this man is at once friend and son. So the two and the three are gathered into one, the man who knows.

The concord of the many, counted from the three with whom the Lord is, would also be the one church, the one man, the one race. Or was not the Lord with the one, the Jew, when he gave the law; but when he was already prophesying and sending Jeremiah to Babylon, and also calling those from the Gentiles through prophecy, he gathered the two peoples; and the third was the one being created from the two into one new man, in whom he walks and dwells, in the church itself? The law and the prophets, together with the gospel, are gathered in the name of Christ into one knowledge. So those who do not marry out of hatred, or who use the flesh indifferently out of desire, are not in the number of those saved with whom the Lord is.

These things having been shown thus, come, let us now set out the Scriptures that oppose these sophists of the heresies, making known the rule of self-control kept according to reason. The one who understands will choose the Scripture that properly opposes each of the heresies and use it at the right time for the destruction of those who teach contrary to the commandments. From the beginning, then, the law, as we said before, “You shall not covet your neighbor's wife,” proclaimed beforehand the Lord's closely related saying in the new covenant, the same voice speaking in person: “You have heard the law commanding, ‘You shall not commit adultery’; but I say, ‘You shall not desire.’” For that the law wished husbands to use their wives with self-restraint and only for the begetting of children is clear from its forbidding an unmarried man to have intercourse at once with a captive woman; but if he once desired her, it permitted her to mourn for thirty days with her hair shorn; and if not even so the desire withered, then to beget children with her, the impulse that had mastered him having been tested by the set time and turned into reasonable appetite.

Hence you could not show that any of the elders in Scripture approached a pregnant woman; but you would find that wives were known again by their husbands later, after the pregnancy and after the nursing of the child. For example, you will find Moses' father keeping this aim, leaving an interval of three years after Aaron's birth before begetting Moses. And the tribe of Levi, keeping this law of nature from God, entered the promised land fewer in number than the others; for a race does not easily grow to great numbers when the men who have accepted marriage according to the laws sow their seed, but wait not only through the pregnancy but also through the nursing.

Fittingly, then, Moses too, leading the Jews on little by little to self-control, commanded them to abstain from sexual pleasure for three days in a row before hearing the divine words. “We, then, are temples of God; as the prophet said, ‘I will dwell in them and walk among them, and I will be their God and they will be my people,’” if we live according to the commandments, whether each of us or the whole church together. “Therefore 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, says the Lord Almighty.” He commands us prophetically to be separate not from the married, as they say, but from the Gentiles who still live in sexual immorality, and further from the heresies mentioned before, as unclean and godless.

That is why Paul too, aiming at people like those mentioned, says: “Having, then, these promises, beloved, let us cleanse our hearts from every defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. For I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy; for I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ.” The church, having the Bridegroom, marries no other; but each of us has the right to marry, according to the law, whomever he wishes, I mean the first marriage. “But I fear lest, as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts may be corrupted from the simplicity that is toward Christ,” the apostle said, very cautiously and as a teacher.

That is why the admirable Peter says: “Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from fleshly desires, which wage war against the soul, keeping your conduct good among the Gentiles; for thus is the will of God, that by doing good you should silence the doings of foolish men, as free people, and not having your freedom as a cover for evil, but as slaves of God.” Likewise Paul too writes in the letter to the Romans: “We who died to sin, how shall we still live in it? Because our old man was crucified with him, so that the body of sin might be done away,” as far as “nor present your members as weapons of unrighteousness to sin.”

Having reached this point, I think I should not leave unremarked that the apostle proclaims the same God through the law, the prophets, and the gospel. For in the letter to the Romans he attributes to the law “You shall not covet,” which is written in the gospel, knowing that the Father proclaimed through the law and the prophets and the one proclaimed as good news through himself are one. For he says: “What shall we say? Is the law sin? By no means. But I would not have known sin except through the law; for I would not have known desire if the law had not said, ‘You shall not covet.’” And even if those of the heterodox who oppose the Creator suppose that Paul said what follows as aimed at the Creator, “For I know that good does not dwell in me, that is, in my flesh,” let them read what precedes and what follows. For he said before, “but the sin that dwells in me,” because of which it was consistent to say that “good does not dwell in my flesh.”

Consistently he added: “But if I do what I do not wish, it is no longer I who do it, but the sin that dwells in me,” which, “waging war against the law of God and of my mind,” he says, “takes me captive in the law of sin that is in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from the body of this death?” And again (for he never tires of helping) he does not hesitate to add: “For the law of the Spirit has set me free from the law of sin and death,” since through the Son “God condemned sin in the flesh, so that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” Besides this, making clearer what he had said, he cries out: “The body is dead because of sin,” showing that it is not yet a temple, but still a tomb of the soul; for when it is sanctified to God, “the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, who will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.”

Again, then, rebuking the lovers of pleasure, he adds: “For the mind of the flesh is death, because those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh; and the mind of the flesh is enmity toward God, for it does not submit to the law of God. And those who are in the flesh cannot please God,” not as some teach, but as we have said before. Then, in contrast to these, he says to the church: “But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not his. But if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of righteousness. So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.” And against the noble birth and freedom introduced so contemptibly by the heterodox who boast in licentiousness, he adds: “For you did not receive a spirit of slavery again to fear, but you received a spirit of adoption, in which we cry, ‘Abba, Father’”; that is, we received it for this, that we might know the one to whom we pray, the true Father, the only Father of what exists, who trains us for salvation as a father and … fear.

A married couple giving themselves to prayer for a time by mutual consent is a lesson in self-control. For he added “by consent” so that no one might dissolve the marriage, and “for a time” so that the married man, practicing self-control by constraint, might not slip into sin, sparing his own wife but falling into desire for another. For this reason he also said that the man who thinks he is behaving improperly in keeping his daughter a virgin does well to give her in marriage. And the purpose of each, both of the one who has made himself a eunuch and of the one who has joined himself in marriage for the begetting of children, ought to remain unyielding toward the worse. For if he is able to raise the level of his life, he will gain greater worth before God, having exercised self-control purely and with reason; but if he goes beyond the rule he chose, aiming at greater glory, he may then fall short of his hope. For as the eunuchate, so marriage too has its own offices and services for the Lord that differ: I mean caring for children and wife. For the intimacy of the union becomes, it seems, an occasion for the one perfect in marriage, who has taken on the care of everything in the common household. For example, he says that bishops should be appointed who have practiced presiding over their own household and so over the whole church. Let each, then, fulfill his ministry in the work in which he was called, so that he may become free in Christ, receiving the proper reward of his ministry.

Again, discussing the law and using allegory, he says: “For the married woman is bound by law to her living husband,” and so on. And again: “A wife is bound as long as her husband lives; but if he dies, she is free to be married, only in the Lord. But she is happier if she remains as she is, in my judgment.” In the first passage he says, “You were put to death to the law,” not to marriage, “so that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead,” as bride and church; and she must be pure both from inner thoughts contrary to the truth and from those who tempt from outside, that is, those who follow the heresies and persuade her to commit fornication away from her one husband, the Almighty God; so that we may not, as the serpent deceived Eve, who is called Life, transgress the commandments through the greedy cunning of the heresies. The second passage establishes monogamy. For we must not suppose, as some have explained it, that the binding of a woman to a man signifies the entanglement of flesh with corruption; for he accuses the invention of godless men who plainly attribute the discovery of marriage to the devil, by which the lawgiver is in danger of being blasphemed.

I think it is Tatian the Syrian who dares to teach such things. He writes, at any rate, word for word in his work On Perfection according to the Savior: “Agreement fits prayer, but fellowship in corruption breaks off intercession. By the permission, at any rate, he forbids very shamingly; for in permitting them to come together again because of Satan and lack of self-control, he declared that the one who would comply was going to serve two masters: God through agreement, and through disagreement lack of self-control, sexual immorality, and the devil.” He says this in explaining the apostle; but he sophistically twists the truth, constructing a lie by means of a truth. For we too confess that lack of self-control and sexual immorality are devilish passions; but agreement mediates self-restrained marriage, leading with self-control to prayer and, with reverence, joining in marriage for the begetting of children. Indeed Scripture has called the time for begetting children “knowledge,” when it says: “And Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore a son, and called his name Seth: ‘For God has raised up for me another seed in place of Abel.’” Do you see whom those blaspheme who loathe the self-restrained sowing of seed and attribute birth to the devil? For the one who used the article before it did not say “a god” simply, but showed that he meant the Almighty.

And the apostle's addition, “and come together again because of Satan,” cuts off beforehand any turning aside to other desires. For temporary agreement does not entirely repel the desires of nature, though it restrains them; because of them he brings back the union of marriage, not for lack of self-control, sexual immorality, and the devil's work, but so that one may not fall into lack of self-control, sexual immorality, and the devil. Tatian also separates the old husband and the new, but not as we say. We too agree with him in calling the law the old husband and the gospel the new, but not as he wishes, abolishing the law as belonging to another God; rather, the same Husband and Lord, making the old new, no longer allows polygamy (for God required it then, when there had to be increase and multiplying), but introduces monogamy for the begetting of children and the care of the household, for which the wife was given as a helper. And if the apostle, by concession, allows someone a second marriage because of lack of self-control and burning, it is because this person too does not sin according to the covenant (for it has not been forbidden by the law), but does not fulfill the heightened perfection of the gospel way of life. But the one who remains single and keeps undefiled the union dissolved by death, gladly obeying the divine arrangement, gains heavenly glory for himself; by it he has become free from distraction for the Lord's service. Nor indeed does divine providence through the Lord now command the one rising from the marriage bed to be washed, as it did of old. For the Lord does not keep believers from begetting children by necessity, having washed them completely for their intercourse by one baptism, he who has also summed up Moses' many washings in one baptism.

From of old, then, the law, prophesying our regeneration through fleshly birth, applied baptism to the generative discharge of seed, not abhorring human birth; for what appears as a man born, this is what the discharge of seed is capable of. So it is not the many acts of intercourse that are fruitful, but the womb's reception that testifies to birth, when the seed is formed into an embryo in nature's workshop. And how is marriage merely old and an invention of the law, while marriage according to the Lord is different, when the same God is kept by us? For a man could never rightly dissolve what God has joined. Much more will the Son keep what the Father commanded. And if the same one is lawgiver and evangelist, he never fights with himself. For the law lives, being spiritual and understood in the way of knowledge. “And we were put to death to the law through the body of Christ, so that we might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead,” who was prophesied by the law, “so that we might bear fruit for God.”

“So the law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good.” We were put to death, then, to the law, that is, to the sin made known by the law, which the law shows but does not beget, exposing the underlying sin by commanding what must be done and forbidding what must not, “so that sin might be shown to be sin.” And if marriage according to the law is sin, I do not know how anyone will say he has known God while saying that God's command is sin; but since the law is holy, marriage is holy. The apostle, then, refers this mystery to Christ and the church. As what is born of the flesh is flesh, so what is born of the Spirit is spirit, not only in birth but also in learning. So the children are holy, the good works pleasing to God, when the Lord's words are wedded to the soul. Sexual immorality and marriage, at any rate, are distinct, since the devil stands far from God. “And you too were put to death to the law through the body of Christ, so that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead”; for it is understood as well that you have become directly obedient, since, according to the truth of the law too, we obey the same Lord who commanded from afar.

And does not the Spirit fittingly say plainly about such people that “in later times some will depart from the faith, paying attention to deceiving spirits and teachings of demons, through the hypocrisy of liars seared in their conscience, forbidding to marry, commanding to abstain from foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. For every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving; for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.” One must not, then, be forbidden by constraint to marry, nor indeed to eat meat or drink wine. For it is written: “It is good not to eat meat or drink wine,” if one eats with offense; and “it is good to remain as I am.” But let both the one who uses them, with thanksgiving, and again the one who does not use them, also with thanksgiving,

live according to reason with self-controlled enjoyment. And in general all the apostle's letters, teaching self-restraint and self-control, and containing countless commandments about marriage, the begetting of children, and household management, nowhere rejected self-restrained marriage; but, preserving the continuity of the law with the gospel, they accept both: the one who uses marriage with self-restraint and thanksgiving to God, and the one who lives in celibacy as the Lord wills, each as he was called, having chosen without stumbling and perfectly. “And the land of Jacob was praised above all the earth,” says the prophet, glorifying the vessel of his spirit. But someone runs down birth, calling it corruptible and perishing, and forces the text, saying that the Savior spoke about the begetting of children when he said not to store up treasure on earth, “where moth and rust destroy”; and he is not ashamed to add the prophet's words to these: “All of you will grow old like a garment, and a moth will devour you.” But neither do we contradict Scripture, that our bodies are corruptible and by nature fluid; and perhaps he was prophesying corruption to those he addressed as sinners. The Savior did not speak about the begetting of children, but was urging to sharing and fellowship those who wished only to acquire an abundance of wealth, but not to help those in need.

That is why he says: “Work not for the food that perishes, but for that which endures to eternal life.” Likewise they bring forward this saying too: “The sons of that age neither marry nor are given in marriage.” But if one reconsiders this question about the resurrection of the dead and the questioners themselves, he will find that the Lord was not rejecting marriage but curing the expectation of fleshly desire in the resurrection. And “the sons of this age” he said not in contrast to the sons of some other age, but equivalently to “those born in this age, being sons by birth, beget and are begotten,” since no one will pass into this life without birth; but this birth, receiving a like corruption, no longer awaits the one who has once departed this life. “One is your Father in heaven”; but he is also Father of all by creation. “So call no one on earth your father,” he says, as if to say: do not consider the one who sowed you by fleshly sowing the cause of your being, but a joint cause of birth, or rather a servant of birth.

So he wishes us, having turned back, to become again like children, having come to know the true Father, reborn through water, this being a different sowing from that in creation. “Yes,” it says, “the unmarried man cares for the things of the Lord, but the married man how he may please his wife.” What then? Is it not lawful for those who please their wives according to God to give thanks to God too? Is it not permitted to the married man, together with his wife, to care for the things of the Lord? But as the unmarried woman cares for the things of the Lord, “that she may be holy in body and spirit,” so too the married woman cares in the Lord for the things of her husband and the things of the Lord, that she may be holy in body and spirit; for both are holy in the Lord, the one as wife, the other as virgin. And to shame and restrain those prone to a second marriage, the apostle fittingly speaks in a high tone, and at once says: “Every sin is outside the body; but the one who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body.”

But if anyone dares to call marriage sexual immorality, he blasphemes, running back again to the law and the Lord. For as greed is called sexual immorality, being opposed to contentment, and as idolatry is a distribution from the one God to many gods, so sexual immorality is a falling away from the one marriage to many. For, as we have said, both sexual immorality and adultery are taken in three senses by the apostle. About these the prophet says: “You were sold for your sins”; and again: “You were defiled in a foreign land,” considering defiled the union joined with a foreign body and not with the one given in marriage for the begetting of children. That is why the apostle too says: “I wish, then, younger women to marry, bear children, manage their households, give the adversary no occasion for reproach; for some have already turned aside after Satan.”

Indeed he fully accepts “the husband of one wife,” whether he is a presbyter, a deacon, or a layman, if he uses marriage blamelessly; “and she will be saved through childbearing.” Again, the Savior, calling the Jews “an evil and adulterous generation,” teaches that they had not known the law as the law intends, but, following the tradition of the elders and the commandments of men, committed adultery against the law, not having received it as husband and lord of their virginity. Perhaps he also knew them to be enslaved to strange desires, because of which, continually enslaved to sins, they were sold to foreigners; since among the Jews wives were not declared common, but adultery too was forbidden. And the man who said, “I have married a wife and cannot come to the supper,” was a divine example to convict those who turn away from the divine commandment for the sake of pleasures; since on this reasoning neither the righteous before the coming nor those married after the coming, even if they were apostles, will be saved. And if they bring forward again what the prophet says, “I have grown old among all my enemies,” let them understand the enemies as sins; and one sin is not marriage but sexual immorality; otherwise let them call birth a sin, and the Creator of birth too.

Julius Cassianus, the founder of Docetism, attempts such arguments. In his work On Self-Control, or On Eunuchhood, he says word for word: “And let no one say that, because we have such parts, the female shaped in this way and the male in that, the one for receiving and the other for sowing, intercourse has been permitted by God. For if this arrangement were from the God toward whom we hasten, he would not have blessed eunuchs, nor would the prophet have said that they are ‘not a fruitless tree,’ transferring the image from the tree to the man who by choice makes himself a eunuch of such a thought.”

And, contending further for his godless opinion, he adds: “And how could someone not reasonably blame the Savior, if he refashioned us and freed us from error and from the fellowship of the parts, the appendages, and the genitals?” In this he teaches things similar to Tatian; but he came out of the school of Valentinus. That is why Cassianus says: “When Salome asked when what she had asked about would be known, the Lord said: ‘When you tread on the garment of shame, and when the two become one, and the male with the female neither male nor female.’”

In the first place, then, we do not have this saying in the four Gospels handed down to us, but in the one according to the Egyptians. Then he seems to me not to know that by “male” it hints at anger, the impulse, and by “female” at desire; and when they have acted, repentance and shame follow. When, then, someone does not gratify either anger or desire, which, increased by habit and bad upbringing, overshadow and cover reason, but, stripping off the mist that comes from them and being put to shame by repentance, unites spirit and soul in obedience to the Word, then, as Paul too says, “There is among you neither male nor female.” For the soul, departing from this form by which male and female are distinguished, is transferred into unity, being neither. But this noble man thinks, rather in Plato's way, that the soul, being divine and made female by desire above, comes down here into birth and decay.

He forces Paul, for example, to say that birth arose from deception, in these words: “But I fear lest, as the serpent deceived Eve, your thoughts may be corrupted from the simplicity that is toward Christ.” But the Lord admittedly came to those who had gone astray; gone astray, however, not from above into birth here (for birth is created, and the creation of the Almighty, who would never bring a soul down from better things to worse), but the Savior came to us who had gone astray in our thoughts, which were corrupted by disobedience to the commandments, because we loved pleasure; perhaps the first-formed man anticipated the time and desired the grace of marriage before the hour, and sinned; since “everyone who looks at a woman to desire her has already committed adultery with her,” not having waited for the time of the will.

So the same Lord was judging then too the desire that anticipated marriage. When, then, the apostle says, “Put on the new man, created according to God,” he says it to us who were formed by the will of the Almighty as we were formed; and he speaks of old and new not with regard to birth and rebirth, but with regard to the life of disobedience and the life of obedience. Cassianus thinks the “garments of skin” are bodies; we will show later that he and those who teach as he does are in error about these, when we undertake the explanation of man's origin, following what must be said first. Further, he says: “Those ruled by earthly things both beget and are begotten, ‘but our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also await a Savior.’” We too know that this is well said, since we ought to live as strangers and sojourners: those who marry as though not marrying, those who acquire as though not acquiring, those who beget children as begetting mortals, as those who will leave their possessions, as those who will live even without a wife if need be, not using creation with passion, but with all thanksgiving and magnanimity.

Again, when he says, “It is good for a man not to touch a woman; but because of sexual immorality let each have his own wife,” he says again as if explaining: “so that Satan may not tempt you.” For he says “because of your lack of self-control” not to those who use marriage with self-control for the begetting of children alone, but to those who desire to go beyond the begetting of children, so that the adversary may not blow hard and swell their appetite toward other pleasures. And perhaps, since the adversary opposes those who live justly out of jealousy and contends against them, wishing to bring them under his own rank, he wishes to give them occasions through laborious self-control.

Fittingly, then, he says, “It is better to marry than to burn,” so that the husband may render to the wife what is due and the wife to the husband, and they may not deprive each other of the help given for birth by the divine arrangement. “And whoever does not hate,” they say, “father or mother or wife or children cannot be my disciple.” He does not command hatred of one's family; for he says, “Honor father and mother, that it may be well with you.” But he says: do not be led away by irrational impulses, and do not attach yourself to civic customs; for a house consists of family, and cities of houses, as Paul too said that those occupied with marriage please the world. Again the Lord says: “Let the one who has married not put away, and let the one who has not married not marry”; the one who has professed, by a purpose of celibacy, not to marry, let him remain unmarried.

To both, at any rate, the same Lord gives suitable promises through the prophet Isaiah, speaking thus: “Let not the eunuch say, ‘I am a dry tree.’ Thus says the Lord to the eunuchs: If you keep my Sabbaths and do all that I command, I will give you a place better than sons and daughters.” For celibacy alone does not justify, nor indeed the eunuch's Sabbath, unless he does the commandments. And to the married he adds, saying: “My chosen ones will not toil in vain, nor bear children for a curse, because they are a seed blessed by the Lord.” For there is a reward laid up for the one who has begotten children according to reason, reared them, and educated them in the Lord, as for the one who has begotten through true instruction, as also for the chosen seed. But others take the begetting of children as a curse and do not understand that Scripture speaks against those very people. For those truly chosen by the Lord neither teach nor beget things that lead to a curse, as the heresies do.

The eunuch, then, is said to be not the one whose parts have been forcibly treated, nor indeed the unmarried man, but the one who does not beget truth. This man was formerly a dry tree; but having obeyed the Word, and kept the Sabbaths by abstaining from sins, and done the commandments, he will be more honored than those educated by word alone without right conduct. “Little children,” says the Teacher, “yet a little while I am with you.” That is why Paul too, writing to the Galatians, says: “My little children, for whom I am again in labor until Christ is formed in you.” And again, writing to the Corinthians, he says: “For though you have ten thousand tutors in Christ, you do not have many fathers; for in Christ I begot you through the gospel.” That is why “a eunuch will not enter the assembly of God,” the one who is barren and fruitless both in conduct and in word; but those who have made themselves eunuchs from all sin for the sake of the kingdom of heaven, these are blessed, who fast from the world.

“Cursed be the day on which I was born, and let it not be desired,” says Jeremiah, not calling birth simply cursed, but despairing at the sins and disobedience of the people. He adds, at any rate: “For why was I born to see toils and troubles, and my days were spent in shame?” Indeed all who preached the truth were persecuted and in danger because of the disobedience of their hearers. “For why did my mother's womb not become my tomb, so that I might not see the toil of Jacob and the labor of the race of Israel?” says Ezra the prophet. “No one is clean from filth,” says Job, “not even if his life is one day.” Let them tell us where the newborn child committed sexual immorality, or how the one who has done nothing has fallen under the curse of Adam. It remains for them, it seems, to say consistently that birth is evil, not only that of the body, but also that of the soul, for the sake of which the body exists. And when David says, “In sins I was conceived, and in lawless deeds my mother bore me,” he speaks prophetically of Eve as mother; but Eve became “the mother of the living”; and if he was conceived in sin, yet he himself was not in sin, nor was he himself sin.

And that everyone who turns from sin to faith turns to life from the sinful habit as from a mother, one of the twelve prophets will bear me witness, saying: “Shall I give my firstborn for ungodliness, the fruit of my womb for the sin of my soul?” He does not accuse the one who said, “Increase and multiply,” but calls the first impulses from birth, by which we do not know God, ungodliness. And if someone calls birth evil on this account, let him call it good on the other, in that in it we come to know the truth. “Awake to righteousness and do not sin; for some have no knowledge of God,” clearly those who sin. Since “our wrestling is not against blood and flesh but against spiritual things,” and “the world rulers of darkness” are able to tempt, therefore pardons are given. That is why Paul too says, “I pummel my body and lead it into slavery,” because “everyone who competes exercises self-control in all things” (meaning he exercises self-control with regard to all things, not abstaining from all, but using self-controlledly those he has judged fit); “they to receive a perishable crown, but we an imperishable,” victorious in the wrestling, not crowned without a struggle. Some already prefer the widow to the virgin in regard to self-control, since she has scorned a pleasure she has experienced.

If birth is evil, let the blasphemers say that the Lord who shared in birth was in evil, and the virgin who bore him in evil. Alas for the evils! They blaspheme the will of God and the mystery of creation by slandering birth. This is the reason for Cassianus' Docetism, and for Marcion's, and indeed for Valentinus's psychic body; because they say: “Man became like the beasts when he came to sexual union.” But it is when, being in heat, a man truly wishes to mount another's bed that such a one really becomes a beast: “They became horses mad for females; each neighed after his neighbor's wife.” And if the serpent, having taken the practice of intercourse from the irrational animals, persuaded Adam to consent to union with Eve, as though the first-formed did not use this by nature, as some think, then creation is blasphemed again, as having made men weaker than the nature of the irrational animals, whom God's first-formed followed.

But if nature led them, as it leads the irrational animals, to the begetting of children, and they were moved sooner than was fitting, being still young and led astray by deceit, then God's judgment was just on those who did not wait for his will; yet birth is holy, through which the world was established, through which substances, natures, angels, powers, souls, commandments, law, gospel, and the knowledge of God exist. “And all flesh is grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass; the grass withers and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains,” which anointed the soul and united it to the Spirit. And how could the arrangement of the church among us have been accomplished without the body? For the head of the church himself came in the flesh, but without comeliness and without form, teaching us to look to the formless and incorporeal nature of the divine cause. “For a tree of life,” says the prophet, “arises in good desire,” teaching that desires in the living Lord are fair and pure.

Now they want the intercourse of husband with wife in marriage, called “knowledge,” to be a sin; for they say it is indicated by the eating of the tree of good and evil, the word “knew” signifying the transgression of the commandment. But if so, the knowledge of the truth is also the eating of the tree of life. Self-restrained marriage, then, may share in that tree too. We have said before that marriage can be used well and badly; and this is the tree of knowledge, if we do not transgress in marriage. What then? Did not the Savior heal the body of its passions as well as the soul? He would not, if the flesh were hostile to the soul, have fortified the enemy against it by restoring it to health. “This I say, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does corruption inherit incorruption”; for sin, being corruption, cannot have fellowship with incorruption, which is righteousness. “Are you so foolish?” he says. “Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?”

Some, then, have strained the justice and harmony of salvation, which is dignified and firm, taking self-control blasphemously, as we have shown, with all godlessness, when it is possible to choose celibacy according to the sound rule with godliness, giving thanks for the grace given, not hating creation or despising the married. For the world is created, and celibacy is created; and let both give thanks in the state in which they have been placed, if they also know for what they have been placed. Others, throwing off the reins, have run riot, truly becoming horses mad for females and neighing after their neighbors' wives, pouring themselves out without restraint and persuading their neighbors to love pleasure, wretchedly following those Scriptures: “Cast your lot among us; let us all get one purse, and let there be one money bag for us.”

Because of these the same prophet counsels us: “Do not walk in the way with them; turn your foot from their paths; for not unjustly are nets spread for birds; for they, sharing in blood, store up evils for themselves”; that is, claiming uncleanness for themselves and teaching their neighbors the same, “warriors, striking with their tails,” according to the prophet, which the Greeks call “kerkoi.” Those the prophecy hints at would be the sensual, the intemperate, those who are warriors with their tails, children of darkness and wrath, murderous, killers both of themselves and of their neighbors. “Clean out the old leaven, so that you may be a new lump,” the apostle cries to us. And again, grieved at certain such people, he orders us not to associate with anyone “named a brother, if he is sexually immoral, or greedy, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a robber; not even to eat with such a one.” “For through the law I died to the law,” he says, “that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live,” as I lived according to the desires, “but Christ lives in me,” purely and blessedly, through obedience to the commandments; so that then I lived in the flesh fleshly, “but the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God.”

“Do not go into the way of the Gentiles, and do not enter a city of the Samaritans,” the Lord says, turning us away from the opposite way of life, since “the end of lawless men is evil,” and “these are the ways of all who accomplish lawless things.” “Woe to that man,” says the Lord; “it would have been good for him not to have been born, rather than to cause one of my elect to stumble; it would have been better for him to have a millstone put around him and be drowned in the sea, rather than to pervert one of my elect.” “For the name of God is blasphemed because of them.” That is why the apostle nobly says, “I wrote to you in the letter not to associate with the sexually immoral,” as far as “but the body is not for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.” And to show that he does not call marriage sexual immorality, he adds: “Or do you not know that the one who joins himself to a prostitute is one body with her?” Or will anyone call a virgin a prostitute before she marries? “And do not deprive one another,” he says, “except by agreement for a time,” by the word “deprive” showing the debt of marriage, the begetting of children, which he made clear earlier, saying: “Let the husband render to the wife what is due, and likewise the wife to the husband,”

after which payment she is a helper in the management of the home and in faith in Christ; and still more clearly, saying: “To the married I command, not I but the Lord, that a wife should not be separated from her husband (but if she is separated, let her remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband), and that a husband should not put away his wife. To the rest I say, not the Lord: If any brother,” as far as “but now they are holy.” What do those who run down the law and marriage, as though it were permitted only under the law and not also under the new covenant, say to this? What can those who loathe seed and birth say to these laws? For he also lays down that the bishop who manages his own house well should preside over the church; and the union with one wife establishes a house of the Lord.

“To the pure, then, all things are pure,” he says, “but to the defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure; but both their mind and their conscience are defiled.” And about pleasure contrary to the rule he says: “Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor the effeminate, nor men who lie with men, nor the greedy, nor thieves, not drunkards, not revilers, not robbers will inherit the kingdom of God.” And we who were in these things have been washed; but they, washing into this licentiousness, baptize from self-restraint into sexual immorality, teaching that pleasures and passions should be gratified, teaching people to become intemperate instead of self-restrained, and devoting their hope to the shamelessness of their parts; making their disciples disinherited from the kingdom of God, not enrolled in it; having chosen, under the name of knowledge falsely so called, the journey into the outer darkness. “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is well spoken of, if there is any virtue and if there is any praise, think on these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, do; and the God of peace will be with you.”

And Peter in his letter says similar things: “so that your faith and hope may be in God, having purified your souls by obedience to the truth, as children of obedience, not conforming to the desires you formerly had in your ignorance; but as the one who called you is holy, be holy yourselves too in all your conduct, since it is written, ‘You shall be holy, because I am holy.’” But the controversy that became necessary against the hypocrites of knowledge falsely so called has led us beyond what was needed and has stretched the discussion to great length. So the third Miscellany of our notes on knowledge according to the true philosophy reaches its end here.

It follows, I think, to treat of martyrdom and of who is perfect, in which will be included the consequences as the discussion requires; and how both slave and free must equally philosophize, whether man or woman by sex. Then, having completed what follows about faith and about seeking, we will set out the symbolic form, so that, having briefly concluded the ethical account, we may present in summary the benefit that was passed on to the Greeks from barbarian philosophy. After this outline, the exposition of the Scriptures in summary, against the Greeks and against the Jews, will be handed down, and whatever we could not include in the previous Miscellanies, though we proposed at the opening of the preface to complete it in one notebook, having been necessarily subject to the multitude of subjects.

After these, later, when the outline of our subjects has been completed as far as possible, we must relate what the Greeks and the other barbarians, as far as their opinions have reached us, taught in natural philosophy about first principles, and take on the chief things devised by the philosophers. Following these it would be fitting, after the survey of theology, to treat what has been handed down about prophecy, so that, showing that the Scriptures we have believed are authoritative through the Almighty's own authority, we may be able to proceed through them in order, and from there show to all the heresies one God and Lord Almighty, genuinely proclaimed through the law and the prophets, and also through the blessed gospel. Many refutations of the heterodox await us, as we try to dissolve in writing what they put forward and to persuade them even against their will, convicting them from the Scriptures themselves.

When, then, our whole purpose has been completed in the notes by which, if the Spirit wills, we serve the pressing need (for great is the necessity of what must be said beforehand about the truth), then indeed we will go on to the truly knowing natural philosophy, having been initiated into the lesser mysteries before the greater, so that nothing may stand in the way of the truly divine revelation of sacred things, what must be related and handed down first having been purified and sketched beforehand. The natural philosophy, then, or rather the highest vision, of the knowing tradition according to the rule of truth depends on the account of the origin of the world, ascending from there to the theological form. Fittingly, then, we will begin the tradition from the creation that was prophesied, setting out in part also the views of the heterodox and trying, as far as we can, to refute them. But this will be written, if God wills and as he inspires; now we must go on to the subject before us and complete the ethical account.

Let our notes, as we have often said, be spread out in varied fashion, as the name itself says, because of those who read them rashly and without experience, passing continually from one thing to another, and indicating one thing by the sequence of the words while showing another. “For those who seek gold,” says Heraclitus, “dig much earth and find little”; but those who are truly of the golden race, mining what is akin, will find much in little. For the writing will find the one who will understand. The Miscellanies of our notes, then, help the one able to seek with reason both to recollect and to see the truth.

We too must work out and find other things in addition to these; since for those traveling a road they do not know it is enough to point out the way that leads there, but from then on they must walk and discover the rest for themselves; as they say the Pythia answered a slave who once consulted her about what he might do to please his master, “You will find it if you seek.” It is truly difficult, it seems, to find a hidden good, since “sweat is set before virtue, and long and steep is the path to it, and rough at first; but when one reaches the top, then it is easy, though it was hard.” For the Lord's way is truly narrow and hard, and the kingdom of God belongs to the violent. That is why it says, “Seek and you will find,” holding to the truly royal road and not running off it.

Fittingly, then, the doctrines contained in this treatise have great fruitfulness in little seed, like “every herb of the field,” says Scripture. In this the Miscellanies of our notes have a fitting title, being culled, quite simply, like that ancient offering of which Sophocles writes: “There was sheep's wool, and from the vines libation and the grape well stored, and in it mixed fruits of every kind with barley grains, and the fat of the olive, and the most intricate wax-molded work of the tawny bee.”

For example, our Miscellanies, like the farmer of Timocles the comic poet, bring in figs, olive oil, dried figs, honey, as if from a field that bears everything. Because of this abundance of fruit he adds: “You speak of a harvest wreath, not of farming”; for the Athenians used to exclaim: “The harvest wreath brings figs and rich loaves, and honey in a cup, and oil to rub oneself with.” One must often, then, as in winnowing baskets, shake and toss the mixture of seeds to pick out the wheat.

Most people have a disposition like the state of winter, unsettled and unreasoning. Unbelief has done many good things, and faith many bad. And Epicharmus says, “Remember to disbelieve; these are the joints of the mind.” For example, to disbelieve the truth brings death, as believing it brings life; conversely, to believe falsehood and disbelieve the truth drags one to destruction. The same account holds for self-control and its lack. To abstain from doing good is the work of vice, but to abstain from injustice is the beginning of salvation. For this reason the Sabbath seems to me to hint at self-control through abstinence from evils, and at what it is in which man differs from beasts. And the angels of God are wiser than man: “You made him a little lower than the angels,” it says; for they understand the Scripture not of the Lord (though he too bore flesh), but of the perfect and knowing man, made lower than the angels by time and by his clothing. So I do not call wisdom something other than knowledge, since life does not differ: for living is common to mortal nature, that is, to man, and to what has been thought worthy of immortality, while they differ in the state of contemplation and self-control.

For this reason, it seems to me, Pythagoras too said that God alone is wise (since the apostle too writes in the letter to the Romans: “made known to all the nations for the obedience of faith, to the only wise God through Jesus Christ”), and called himself a philosopher because of his friendship with God. God spoke with Moses, at any rate, it says, “as a friend with a friend.” The truth, then, is plain to God; for he begets the truth, while the one who knows loves the truth. “Go to the ant, you sluggard, and become the bee's disciple,” says Solomon. For if each thing has one work proper to its nature, of the ox likewise, the horse, and the dog, what would we say is the proper work of man? He is like, I think, a centaur, a Thessalian fiction, composed of rational and irrational, of soul and body. But the body works the earth and hastens to the earth, while the soul is stretched toward God; the soul, at any rate, trained by true philosophy, hastens to its kindred above, turning away from the desires of the body, and besides these from toil and fear; yet we have shown that both endurance and fear are on the side of the good. For if “through the law comes knowledge of sin,” as those who run down the law say, and “until the law sin was in the world,” we answer them in turn, “but apart from the law sin is dead.” For when you take away the cause of fear, sin, you take away fear, and much more still punishment, when what by nature desires is absent; for “the law is not laid down for the righteous,” Scripture says.

Well, then, does Heraclitus say, “They would not have known the name of justice if these things did not exist,” and Socrates, that law would not have come into being for the sake of the good. But the accusers did not know this either, as the apostle says, that “the one who loves his neighbor does no evil. For ‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal,’ and any other commandment, is summed up in this one word: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” In this way, I suppose, “You shall love the Lord your God,” he says, “with all your heart, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” If, then, the one who loves his neighbor does no evil, and every commandment is summed up in this, in loving the neighbor, then the commandments that hang fear over us produce love, not hatred.

So the fear that the law produces is not a passion. So “the law is holy” and truly “spiritual,” according to the apostle. We must, it seems, inquire closely into the nature of the body and the substance of the soul, understand the end of each, and not consider death an evil. “For when you were slaves of sin,” says the apostle, “you were free with regard to righteousness. What fruit, then, did you have then? Things of which you are now ashamed; for the end of those things is death. But now, having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you have your fruit for sanctification, and the end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

It has perhaps been shown, then, that death is the fellowship of the soul in the body while it is sinful, and life is separation from sin. Many are the stakes and ditches of desire in our path, and the pits of anger and wrath, which one must leap over, and must avoid the whole construction of plots, if he is to see the knowledge of God no longer through a mirror. “For far-seeing Zeus takes away half a man's virtue, when the day of slavery seizes him.” Scripture knows as slaves those under sin and sold to sins, the lovers of pleasure and of the body, and as beasts rather than men, those who have become like cattle, “horses mad for females, neighing after their neighbors' wives.” The licentious man is an insolent donkey, the greedy a wild wolf, and the deceiver a serpent. The separation of the soul from the body, then, practiced by the philosopher throughout his life, produces a knowing readiness to bear easily the natural death, which is the loosing of the soul's bonds to the body. “For the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world,” he says; and I live now, while in the flesh, as a citizen of heaven.

Fittingly, then, the one who knows, when called, obeys readily and gives up his poor body to the one who demands it, having stripped off its passions beforehand; not insulting the tempter, but, I think, instructing and convicting him, from “what honor and what height of bliss,” as Empedocles says, he has come here to live among mortals. This man truly bears witness to himself that he is faithful and genuine toward God; to the tempter, that he envied in vain the one faithful through love; and to the Lord, of the inspired persuasion toward his teaching, from which he will not depart for fear of death. Indeed, he also confirms by his deed the truth of the preaching, showing that the God to whom he hastens is powerful. You would marvel at his love, which he clearly shows, joyfully united to what is akin, and shaming unbelievers with his precious blood.

He, then, will not avoid denying Christ out of fear, because of the commandment, so as to become a martyr out of fear; nor will he sell his faith in the hope of prepared gifts; but out of love for the Lord he will most gladly be released from this life, perhaps even feeling grateful to the one who provided the occasion of his departure and to the one who devised the plot, having received a reasonable occasion, which he did not provide himself, to show what he is: to the one by patience, to the Lord by love, by which he was shown to the Lord, who knew even before his birth the choice of the one who would bear witness. Taking courage, then, he goes to the Lord as to a friend, for whom he willingly gave up his body, and also his soul, as the judges supposed, hearing from our Savior, in the poet's words, “Dear brother,” because of the likeness of his life. So we call martyrdom perfection, not because the man has received the end of his life like the rest, but because he has shown the perfect work of love. And the ancients among the Greeks praise the end of those who die in war, not advising dying violently, but because the one who dies in war departs without fear of death, cut off from the body, and not having grown weary in soul beforehand nor softened, as people suffer in diseases; for these depart effeminate and longing to live.

For this reason they do not release the soul pure, but carrying its desires with it like lead weights, unless some of them have become distinguished in virtue. And there are some who die in war with their desires, differing in nothing from those who wasted away with disease. If, then, confession to God is martyrdom, every soul that has lived purely with the knowledge of God, that has obeyed the commandments, is a martyr both by life and by word, however it is released from the body, pouring out its faith like blood throughout its whole life and at its departure too. For example, the Lord says in the Gospel: “Whoever leaves father or mother or brothers,” and so on, “for the sake of the gospel and my name,” blessed is he; indicating not simple martyrdom, but that of the one who knows, as having lived according to the rule of the gospel through love for the Lord. For knowledge of the name and understanding of the gospel signify knowledge, not the bare name: to leave one's worldly family, and to leave property and all possessions, by living free from passion. Mother is allegorized as country and nurse; fathers as the laws of the city. These the magnanimous righteous man must scorn with thanksgiving, for the sake of becoming a friend of God and obtaining the right-hand places of the sanctuary, as the apostles did.

Then Heraclitus says, “Gods and men honor those slain by Ares”; and Plato writes in the fifth book of the Republic: “Of those who die on campaign, whoever dies having distinguished himself, shall we not say first that he is of the golden race? Most certainly.” And the golden race is among the gods who are in heaven and the fixed sphere, who have most of all the governance of providence over men. But some of the heretics, having misunderstood the Lord, cling to life impiously and cowardly, saying that true martyrdom is the knowledge of the truly existing God, which we too confess, but that the one who confesses by death is his own murderer and slayer; and they bring forward other such sophisms of cowardice. To them we will speak when the occasion requires; for they differ from us on first principles.

We too blame those who have leapt upon death; for there are some, not ours but sharing only the name, who hasten to give themselves up out of hatred for the Creator, the wretches, longing for death. These, we say, depart from life without martyrdom, even if they are publicly punished. For they do not preserve the character of faithful martyrdom, not having known the true God, but give themselves up to an empty death, like the gymnosophists of the Indians to a vain fire. And since these falsely named ones slander the body, let them learn that the harmony of the body too contributes to the mind's good disposition.

That is why Plato, whom they most call on as witness when they condemn birth, said in the third book of the Republic that one must care for the body for the sake of the soul's harmony, through which one can live and live rightly, proclaiming the preaching of the truth. For by the way of life and health we learn knowledge. And for one who cannot reach the height at all without being in necessary things and doing through them everything that contributes to knowledge, how is living well not to be chosen? In living, at any rate, living well is achieved; and the one who has practiced the good life through the body is sent on to a state of eternity.

It is worth wondering at the Stoics too, who say that the soul is in no way affected by the body, neither toward vice by disease nor toward virtue by health, but they say both are indifferent. Yet Job, by excess of self-control and preeminence of faith, having become poor from rich, dishonored from glorious, ugly from beautiful, and sick from healthy, has been recorded as a good example for us, shaming the tempter, blessing the one who formed him, bearing the latter things as the former, teaching very well that the one who knows can use all circumstances well. And that the ancient righteous deeds are set out as images for our corrections the apostle shows when he says: “so that my bonds became manifest in Christ in the whole praetorium and to all the rest; and most of the brothers, trusting in the Lord because of my bonds, dare more boldly to speak the word of God without fear”; since martyrdoms too are gloriously sanctified examples of conversion. “For whatever was written,” he says, “was written for our instruction, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope” of encouragement.

When pain is present, the soul seems somehow to turn away from it and to count release from the present suffering precious. At that time, indeed, it neglects studies too, when the other virtues are also neglected. We do not, of course, say that virtue itself suffers (for virtue is not sick); but the one who shares in both, virtue and sickness, is distressed by what presses on him; and unless he is magnanimous, the one who has not yet acquired the state of self-control is beside himself, and not enduring is found to be equal to fleeing.

The same account holds for poverty too, since it too forces the soul away from necessary things, I mean contemplation and pure sinlessness, compelling one who has not wholly devoted himself to God through love to spend his time on providing means; just as, conversely, health and abundance of necessities keep free and unhindered the soul that knows how to use well what is present. “For such people,” says the apostle, “will have affliction in the flesh, and I would spare you. For I want you to be free from anxiety, for what is seemly and devoted to the Lord without distraction.”

These things, then, must be held to not for their own sake but for the body's; and the care of the body comes about for the sake of the soul, to which it refers. For in it the one who lives in the way of knowledge must learn what is fitting; since that pleasure is not the good is agreed from the fact that some pleasures are bad. On this account the good would appear bad and the bad good. Then, if we choose some pleasures and flee others, not every pleasure is good. Likewise the same account holds for pains, some of which we endure and others we flee; and choice and avoidance come about by knowledge; so that knowledge is the good, not pleasure, for the sake of which we will sometimes choose a certain kind of pleasure.

For example, the martyr chooses, through present pain, the pleasure that comes through hope. And if pain is understood in thirst and pleasure in drinking, the pain that existed before becomes productive of the pleasure; but evil could not be productive of good; so neither is evil. Simonides, then, as also Aristotle, writes: “Health is best for a man, second to be born beautiful in form, third to be rich without guile.” And Theognis of Megara: “To flee poverty, Cyrnus, one should throw oneself into the deep sea and down from lofty rocks.” Conversely Antiphanes the comic poet says that wealth, … taking those who see more than others, makes them blind.

For example, wealth is proclaimed by the poets as blind from birth: “And she bore him a son who never saw the light,” says Euphorion of Chalcis. “Wealth was a bad training in manliness for men, and excessive luxury,” Euripides has written in the Alexander. It has been said: “Poverty has obtained wisdom because of kinship.” “Love of money would take not only Sparta but every city.” So not only is “white silver or gold currency, but virtue too for mortals,” as Sophocles says.

Our holy Savior applied poverty, wealth, and the like both to spiritual and to sensible things. For in saying, “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake,” he clearly teaches us to seek the martyr in every circumstance. The one who is poor for righteousness' sake bears witness that righteousness, which he loved, is good; and if he hungers and thirsts for righteousness' sake, he bears witness that righteousness is the best.

Likewise the one who weeps and mourns for righteousness' sake bears witness to the best law, that it is good. As, then, he calls blessed those who are persecuted, so also those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, he who accepts the genuine longing that not even hunger could break off. And even if they hunger for righteousness itself, they are blessed. Blessed too are the poor, whether in spirit or in substance, clearly for righteousness' sake. Does he not, then, bless not simply the poor, but those who have wished to become poor for righteousness' sake, who have looked down on the honors here in order to gain the good? Likewise too those who have become beautiful in character and body through purity, and the well-born and glorious, who through righteousness have come to adoption and so have received “authority to become children of God” and “to walk on snakes and scorpions,” and to master demons and the army of the adversary.

And in general the Lord's discipline draws the soul away from the body with thanksgiving, if indeed it separates itself by transference. For “the one who finds his soul will lose it, and the one who loses it will find it,” if only we join what is perishable in us to the incorruption of God. And the will of God is the knowledge of God, which is fellowship with incorruption. The one, then, who recognizes his soul as sinful, according to the account of repentance, will lose it from the sin from which it has been torn away; and having lost it, he will find it, according to obedience, having come to life again by faith and died to sin. This, then, is to find one's soul: to know oneself.

The Stoics say that the turning to divine things comes from a change, the soul changing into wisdom; and Plato, from the soul receiving a turning around toward better things and a conversion from a kind of nighttime day. Indeed, the philosophers too allow the good man a reasonable departure from life, if anything should so deprive him of acting that no hope of action is left to him. But the judge who tries to force someone to deny the One he loves seems to me to show who is a friend of God and who is not. Here no comparison even remains of what one would rather choose, a human threat or the love of God. And somehow abstaining from evil deeds is found to be a lessening and extinguishing of vices, their activity being destroyed through inaction. And this is: “Sell your possessions and give to the poor, and come, follow me”; that is, follow what the Lord says.

Some say that by “possessions” he meant the things foreign in the soul, and they cannot say how these are distributed to the poor. But God distributes all things to all according to worth, since his arrangement is just. “Despising, then,” he says, “the possessions that God distributes, by your greatness of soul, follow what I say,” hastening to the ascent of the Spirit, justified not only by abstaining from evils but also perfected by the Lord's beneficence. For example, he convicted the one who boasted of having perfectly fulfilled the commandments of the law of not having loved his neighbor; and love, which is lord of the Sabbath by a knowing ascent, promises beneficence. And I think one should come to the saving Word neither through fear of punishment nor through some promise of a gift, but for the sake of the good itself.

Such people stand on the right of the sanctuary; but those who think to exchange the things of incorruption by giving perishable things are called hired servants in the parable of the two brothers. And does not “according to likeness and image” emerge here, so that some live as citizens according to likeness to the Savior, while those standing on the left live according to their image? … There are, then, three things from the truth, one root underlying both, but the choice not equal, or rather the difference in choice not equal. It differs, I think, to choose by imitation from one who chooses by knowledge, as what has been heated differs from fire and what has been lit from light. Israel, then, is the light of the likeness according to Scripture, while the other is the image. And what does the Lord mean by the parable of Lazarus, showing the image of a rich man and a poor man? And what by “No one can serve two masters, God and mammon,” the Lord so naming love of money?

For example, the lovers of property who were invited to the supper do not come, not because they possess, but because they possess with passion. “The foxes, then, have holes.” He called the malicious men who busy themselves with the wealth that is mined and dug from the earth earthborn foxes. Likewise too of Herod: “Go, tell that fox, ‘Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I am perfected.’” For he called “birds of the sky” those distinguished from the other birds by heaven, truly pure, able to fly to the knowledge of the heavenly Word. For not only wealth, glory, and marriage, but poverty too brings countless cares to one who does not bear it well; and perhaps he hinted at these cares in the parable of the fourfold sowing, saying that the seed of the Word that fell among thorns and hedges was choked by them and could not bear fruit.

We must learn, then, how to use each thing that befalls us, so as to be trained, through a good life of knowledge, into the state of eternal life. “For I saw the ungodly exalted and lifted up like the cedars of Lebanon,” says Scripture, “and I passed by, and behold, he was not; and I sought him, and his place was not found. Keep innocence and look on uprightness, for there is a remnant for the peaceful man.” This would be the one who believes without hypocrisy with his whole heart and is calm in his whole soul. For the other people “honors with their lips, but their heart is far from the Lord.” “With their mouth they bless, but with their heart they curse.” “They loved him with their mouth, and with their tongue they lied to him; but their heart was not upright with him, nor were they faithful in his covenant.”

That is why “let the deceitful lips become mute, which speak lawlessness against the righteous.” And again: “May the Lord destroy all deceitful lips and the boastful tongue, those who said, ‘We will magnify our tongue, our lips are our own; who is lord over us?’ Because of the misery of the poor and the groaning of the needy, now I will arise, says the Lord; I will set him in safety; I will speak boldly in it.” For Christ belongs to the humble, not to those who exalt themselves over his flock. “Do not, then, store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and thieves break in and steal,” the Lord says, perhaps reproaching the lovers of possessions, perhaps also those who are simply full of cares and anxieties, and also the lovers of the body; for loves, diseases, and evil thoughts break through the reasoning and the whole man; but our true treasure is where the mind's kinship is. Further, he teaches the sharing nature of righteousness, showing that we must give back to the habit of our old way of life what it acquired for us, and run back to God asking for mercy. This is truly “a purse that does not grow old,” provision for eternal life, “an unfailing treasure in heaven.” “For I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,” says the Lord.

He says these things also to those who wish to become poor for righteousness' sake. For they have heard through the commandment that “the broad and spacious way leads to destruction, and many are those who go through it”; he speaks of nothing else but profligacy, love of women, love of glory, love of power, and similar passions. “Fool,” for so he said, “this night they demand your soul from you; and the things you have prepared for it, whose will they be?” And the words of the commandment run thus: “Guard yourselves, then, from all greed, for a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” “For what does a man profit if he gains the whole world but loses his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?” “Therefore I say: do not be anxious for your soul, what you will eat, nor for your body, what you will put on; for the soul is more than food and the body than clothing.” And again: “For your Father knows that you need all these things; but seek first the kingdom of heaven and righteousness,” for these are great, while the small things that concern life, “these will be added to you.”

Does he not plainly exhort us to pursue the life of knowledge and urge us to seek the truth in deed and word? So Christ, who trains the soul, reckons a man rich not by his gift but by his choice. Zacchaeus, then, or, as some say, Matthias, chief tax collector, having heard that the Lord thought fit to come to him, said: “Behold, Lord, half of my possessions I give as alms; and if I have wrongfully taken anything from anyone, I repay it fourfold.” Of whom the Savior too said: “The Son of Man, having come today, has found what was lost.” Again, seeing the rich man putting into the treasury in proportion to his property, and the widow two copper coins, he said that the widow had put in more than all; for he gave from his abundance, but she from her want.

And that he referred everything to the training of the soul, he says: “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.” The meek are those who have ended the implacable war in the soul, of anger, desire, and the forms subordinate to them. And he praises those meek by choice, not by necessity. For with the Lord there are rewards and many dwelling places, in proportion to lives. “For whoever receives a prophet in the name of a prophet,” he says, “will receive a prophet's reward; and whoever receives a righteous man in the name of a righteous man will receive a righteous man's reward; and whoever receives one of these little disciples will not lose his reward.” And again he has indicated the differences according to worth, the noble rewards of virtue, through the hours of unequal number, and also, through the equal wage given to each of the workers (that is, salvation, which the denarius hints at), the equal justice to those who worked for unequal hours.

They will work, then, according to the dwelling places proportionate to the honors of which they have been thought worthy, fellow workers in the unspeakable arrangement and service. “Those who are judged to have been outstanding in living holily,” says Plato, “are those who are freed and released from these places in the earth as from prisons, and arrive above at the pure dwelling.” And he says the same thing more clearly thus: “Of these, those sufficiently purified by philosophy live without bodies altogether for all time,” though he gives some of them airy forms and others fiery ones. He adds further: “And they come to dwellings still more beautiful than these, which it is not easy to describe, nor is there enough time at present.” Fittingly, then, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” For those who have repented of their former evil lives will come to the calling; for this is being comforted (paraklēthēnai). And there are two ways of the one who repents: the more common is fear over what has been done; the more particular is the soul's shame toward itself from conscience, whether here or elsewhere, since no place is idle of God's beneficence.

Again he says: “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.” Mercy is not, as some philosophers have supposed, grief at others' misfortunes, but rather something fine, as the prophets say: “For I desire mercy and not sacrifice.” And by the merciful he means not only those who do mercy, but also those who wish to show mercy even if they cannot, to whom action is present in their choice. For sometimes we wish to do mercy by giving money or by bodily effort, such as helping someone in need, serving someone sick, or standing by someone in distress; and we are not able, whether because of poverty, disease, or old age (for this too is a natural disease), to carry out the choice toward which we are moved, being unable to bring what we have willed to completion. Those who have willed, then, will share the same honor with those who were able, since their choice is equal, even if others surpass them in abundance.

Since two ways are found of those leading to the perfection of salvation, works and knowledge, he called blessed “the pure in heart, for they will see God.” And if we truly consider the truth, knowledge, as the purification of the ruling part of the soul, is also a good activity. Of good things, some are good in themselves, others by sharing in good things, as we say of good actions. But without the intermediate things, which hold the place of matter, neither good nor bad actions come about, such as, I mean, life and health and the other necessities or circumstances. He wishes, then, those who come to the knowledge of God to be pure as regards bodily desires and holy in their thoughts, so that the ruling part may have nothing spurious obstructing its power.

When, then, the one who shares in the holy quality in the way of knowledge spends his time in contemplation, conversing purely with the divine, he comes more nearly into a state of passionless identity, so that he no longer has knowledge and possesses understanding, but is knowledge and understanding. “Blessed, then, are the peacemakers.” Those who have tamed and subdued the law that wars against the mind's intention, the threats of anger and the baits of desire and the other passions that make war on reason, who have lived with knowledge of good works and of true reason, will be restored to the most beloved adoption. Perfect peacemaking would be that which, in everything that happens, keeps the peaceful disposition unchanging, calling the government of the world holy and good, established in the knowledge of divine and human things, by which it reckons the oppositions in the world the most beautiful harmony of creation. And they also make peace for those here at war with the stratagems of sin, teaching them to go over to faith and peace.

The sum of all virtue, I think, the Lord teaches us: that we must, in the way of knowledge, despise death through love for God. “Blessed,” he says, “are those persecuted for righteousness' sake, for they will be called sons of God”; or, as some of those who paraphrase the Gospels have it, “Blessed are those persecuted for righteousness, for they will be perfect.” And “Blessed are those persecuted for my sake, for they will have a place where they will not be persecuted.” And “Blessed are you when men hate you, when they exclude you, when they cast out your name as evil, for the sake of the Son of Man”; that is, if we do not abhor our persecutors and we endure their punishments, not hating them, thinking that we have been tried later than we expected, but knowing this too, that any temptation whatever is an occasion for martyrdom.

Then the one who has lied and shown himself faithless and gone over to the devil's army, in what evil, do we think, is he? He lies to the Lord, or rather he has cheated his own hope, the one who does not believe God; and the one who does not do what he commanded does not believe. What then? Does not the one who denies the Lord deny himself? For he does not deprive the Master of his lordship, but deprives himself of his relationship to him. The one, then, who denies the Savior denies life, because “the light was life.” He does not call these people of little faith, but faithless and hypocrites, having the name inscribed on them but denying that they are faithful. And the faithful one is called both servant and friend. So if anyone loves himself, he loves the Lord and confesses salvation.

so that he may save his soul. And yet, even if you die for your neighbor out of love, and consider the Savior our neighbor (for God, who saves, is said to draw near to the one being saved), you will die having chosen death for the sake of life, suffering for your own sake rather than his. Is not this why he is called brother? Because the one who suffers out of love for God has suffered for his own salvation, and again the one who dies for his own salvation endures for love of the Lord. For he himself, being life, wished to suffer for those for whom he suffered, so that we might live by his suffering. “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’” he says, “and do not do what I say?” For the people who love with their lips but have their heart far from the Lord is another, persuaded by another, and has willingly sold himself to him. But those who carry out the Savior's commandments bear witness in every action, doing what he wills, naming the Lord consistently, and bearing witness by deed to the one to whom they trust they belong, “those who have crucified the flesh with its desires and passions.” “If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit,” he says. “The one who sows to his own flesh will reap corruption from the flesh; but the one who sows to the Spirit will reap eternal life from the Spirit.”

To wretched men, martyrdom by blood for the Lord seems the most violent death, since they do not know that such a gate of death is the beginning of the truly existing life. And they do not wish to understand either the honors after death of those who have lived holily or the punishments of those who have lived unjustly and licentiously; I do not mean from our Scriptures only (for almost all the commandments indicate these things), but they will not even listen to their own writers. For Theano the Pythagorean writes: “Life would indeed be a feast for the wicked, who having done evil then die, if the soul were not immortal; death would be a windfall.” And Plato in the Phaedo: “For if death were a release from everything, it would be a windfall,” and so on.

It is not possible, then, to think, as in Aeschylus's Telephus, that “a single path leads to Hades”; the ways that lead there are many, sins that wander in many directions. Aristophanes, it seems, mocking such unbelievers, says: “Come, you men of dim life, like the generation of leaves, feeble, figures of wax, shadowy tribes, powerless, wingless, creatures of a day.” And Epicharmus: “This is the nature of men: puffed-up wineskins.” But to us the Savior has said: “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” That is why the apostle explains that “the mind of the flesh is enmity toward God, for it does not submit to the law of God, nor can it; and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.” And explaining further, so that no one, like Marcion, should ungratefully take creation as evil, he adds: “But if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of righteousness.” And again: “For if you live according to the flesh, you will die.” “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us, if indeed we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him, as fellow heirs of Christ.”

“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to purpose. Because those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, so that he might be the firstborn among many brothers; and those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified.” You see martyrdom taught for love's sake. And even if you wish to bear witness for the reward of good things, you will hear again: “For in hope we were saved; but hope that is seen is not hope; for who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with endurance.” “But even if you suffer for righteousness' sake, you are blessed,” says Peter. “Do not fear what they fear, nor be troubled; but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you for an account of the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and fear, having a good conscience, so that when you are slandered, those who revile your good conduct in Christ may be put to shame. For it is better to suffer for doing good, if God's will should will it, than for doing evil.”

And if someone says mockingly, “And how is it possible for weak flesh to resist the powers and the spirits of the authorities?” let him know this, that trusting in the Almighty and the Lord we wage war against the rulers of darkness and against death. “While you are still speaking,” he says, “he will say, ‘Here I am.’” See the invincible helper who shields us. “Do not be surprised, then,” says Peter, “at the fiery trial that comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you; but insofar as you share in Christ's sufferings, rejoice, so that at the revelation of his glory you may also rejoice with gladness. If you are reproached in the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you.” As it is written: “For your sake we are being killed all day long; we were regarded as sheep for slaughter. But in all these things we are more than conquerors through the one who loved us.”

“What you need to learn from my mind, you would not learn, neither by burning me nor by driving terrible saws from the top of my head to the ends of my feet, not even if you put all bonds on me,” says a woman in the tragedy, being fearlessly manly. And Antigone, despising Creon's proclamation, says boldly: “For it was not Zeus who proclaimed these things to me.” But God proclaims to us, and we must obey him. “For with the heart one believes for righteousness, and with the mouth one confesses for salvation. For the Scripture says, ‘Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.’” Fittingly, then, Simonides writes: “There is a saying that Virtue dwells on rocks hard to climb, and a holy chorus of swift nymphs attends her; she is not visible to the eyes of all mortals, but only to him in whom heart-biting sweat comes from within, and who reaches the summit by manliness.”

And Pindar: “The cares of the young, whirled about with toils, find glory; and in time deeds shine out, lifted to the sky.” Aeschylus too, taking up this thought, says: “To the one who toils, glory, the offspring of toil, is owed by the gods.” For “greater deaths obtain greater portions,” according to Heraclitus. “And who is a slave, if he takes no thought of dying?” “For God did not give us a spirit of slavery again to fear, but of power, love, and self-control. Do not, then, be ashamed of the testimony (martyrion) of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner,” he writes to Timothy. Such a one would be the one who “holds fast to the good,” according to the apostle, “abhorring evil, having love without hypocrisy”; “for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.” And if the God of hope is the one to whom we bear witness, as indeed he is, we confess our hope, hastening toward the hope. “And those full of goodness,” it says, “filled with all knowledge.”

The philosophers of the Indians say to Alexander of Macedon: “You will move our bodies from place to place, but you will not force our souls to do what we do not wish. Fire is the greatest punishment for men; we despise it.” And from this Heraclitus chose “one glory instead of all things,” and confesses that he leaves the many to be glutted like cattle. “For because of the body are the many toils; for its sake we have discovered the roofed house, and to dig white silver and sow the earth,” and all the other things we know by name.

For the many, then, this vain toil is to be chosen; but for us the apostle says: “We know this, that our old man was crucified with him, so that the body of sin might be done away, that we might no longer be slaves to sin.” Does not the apostle plainly add the following, showing the disgrace of faith among the many? “For I think God has exhibited us apostles last, as men condemned to death, because we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels and to men. To this very hour we hunger and thirst, are naked and beaten and homeless; persecuted, we endure; slandered, we entreat. We have become like the refuse of the world.”

Such too are Plato's words in the Republic: that even if the just man is racked and has his eyes dug out, he will be happy. So the one who knows will never have his end lying in fortune; but being happy and blessed and a royal friend of God will rest with him. And even if someone surrounds him with dishonor, exile, confiscation, and above all death, he will never be torn away from his freedom and his most sovereign love for God, which “bears all things and endures all things.” Love is persuaded that divine providence governs all things well.

“I urge you, then, be imitators of me,” he says. The first step of salvation, then, is instruction with fear, through which we abstain from injustice; the second is hope, through which we desire the best things; and love perfects, as is fitting, now training in the way of knowledge. The Greeks, I do not know how, having handed what happens over to irrational necessity, confess that they obey it unwillingly. Euripides, at any rate, says: “Accept from me, woman, what I advise. No mortal was ever born who does not toil; he buries children and begets other new ones, and dies himself. And mortals are grieved at this.” Then he adds: “We must bear what must by nature be passed through; nothing necessary is terrible for mortals.”

Set before those who hasten to perfection is rational knowledge, whose foundation is the holy triad, faith, hope, love; “but the greatest of these is love.” Indeed, “all things are lawful, but not all things are profitable; all things are lawful, but not all things build up,” says the apostle. “And let no one seek his own good only, but also that of the other,” so as to be able both to do and to teach, building up and building upon. For that “the earth is the Lord's and its fullness” is agreed; but the conscience of the weak is supported. “Conscience, I say, not your own, but the other's. For why is my freedom judged by another's conscience? If I partake with thanksgiving, why am I blasphemed for what I give thanks for? So whether you eat or drink or do anything, do all to the glory of God.” “For walking in the flesh we do not wage war according to the flesh; for the weapons of our warfare are not fleshly, but powerful before God for the pulling down of strongholds, pulling down reasonings and every height raised up against the knowledge of the Lord.”

Armed with these weapons, the one who knows says: “O Lord, give me the occasion and receive the proof; let this terror come; I despise dangers because of my love for you.” “Since virtue alone among human things does not take its rewards from outside, but has itself as the prize of its toils.” “Put on, then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience; and above all these, love, which is the bond of perfection. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which you were called in one body; and be thankful,” you who are still in the body, as the righteous of old, reaping freedom from passion and calm of soul.

For not only did the … and the Macedonians and Spartans endure when racked, as Eratosthenes says in his work On Good and Evil Things; but also Zeno of Elea, forced to reveal some secret, held out against the tortures, confessing nothing, and even at his death bit off his tongue and spat it at the tyrant, whom some call Nearchus and others Demylus. Theodotus the Pythagorean did likewise, and Praylus, the pupil of Lacydes, as Timotheus of Pergamum says in his work On the Courage of Philosophers, and Achaicus in his Ethics. And Postumus the Roman, captured by Peucetion, not only did not reveal any of the secrets, but also, placing his hand on the fire, melted it like bronze with a completely unmoved composure. For I pass over the words of Anaxarchus, who cried out, “Pound the bag of Anaxarchus; for you do not pound Anaxarchus,” when he was being pounded with iron pestles by the tyrant.

Neither, then, the hope of happiness nor love toward God is vexed at what befalls, but remains free; even if it falls among the most savage beasts, or into the all-devouring fire, or is killed by tyrants' tortures, hanging on the divine friendship, it moves about above unenslaved, having handed over the body to those who can lay hold of that alone. The Getae, a barbarian nation not without a taste of philosophy, choose each year an envoy to the hero Zamolxis. And Zamolxis was one of Pythagoras's pupils.

The one judged most approved is slain, while those who practiced philosophy but were not chosen are grieved, as though rejected from a happy service. The whole church, then, is full of those, men and likewise self-restrained women, who have practiced throughout their life the life-giving death for Christ. For the one who lives as we do may philosophize even without letters, whether barbarian or Greek, slave or old man, child or woman. For self-restraint is common to all human beings who choose it; and we have agreed that the same nature in each race has the same virtue.

The woman, then, does not appear to have one nature with respect to humanity and the man another, but the same, and so the same virtue too. If the virtue of a man is self-restraint, of course, and justice, and whatever are thought to follow from these, is it fitting for a man alone to be virtuous, and for a woman to be licentious and unjust? It is unseemly even to say so. Self-restraint, then, and justice and all other virtue must be cultivated alike by woman and by man, by free and slave, since it happens that the same nature has one and the same virtue. We do not say that the nature of the female is the same as that of the male insofar as she is female; for there must surely be some difference belonging to each of them, by which one is female and the other male. Pregnancy and childbirth, at any rate, we say belong to the woman insofar as she is female, not insofar as she is human; if there were no difference between man and woman, each would do and experience the same things.

Insofar, then, as she is the same, in soul, she will attain the same virtue; insofar as she differs, in the particularity of the body, she is for childbearing and housekeeping. “For I want you to know,” says the apostle, “that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is the man. For man is not from woman, but woman from man. Nevertheless in the Lord neither is woman without man nor man without woman.” For as we say that the man must be self-restrained and superior to pleasures, so we would think it right that the woman too be self-restrained and practiced in fighting against pleasures. “I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh,” the apostolic commandment counsels. “For the flesh desires against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh.” These, then, are opposed not as evil to good, but as fighting beneficially. He adds, at any rate:

“so that you may not do whatever you wish. Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are sexual immorality, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, heresies, envyings, drunkenness, carousing, and the like; of which I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, self-control, goodness, faith, gentleness.” By flesh, I think, he meant sinners, as by spirit the righteous. Indeed, courage must be taken up for boldness and endurance, so as to turn the other cheek to the one who strikes, and to give up the tunic too to the one who takes the cloak, mastering anger strongly. For we do not train women, like some Amazons, in the courage of war, since we wish even men to be peaceful.

I hear that the Sarmatian women too make war no less than men, and the Sacian women too, who shoot backward while pretending to flee, equally with the men. I know too that the women near Iberia do men's work and labor, and even when they are about to give birth they neglect nothing of what must be done; often, in the very contest of labor, the woman gives birth, takes up the baby, and carries it home. Indeed female dogs, no less than male, guard the house, hunt, and watch the flocks: “Gorgo, the Cretan hound, ran on the track of the deer.” Women, then, must philosophize like men, even if men are better and hold the first place in all things, unless they have become effeminate.

Education and virtue, then, are necessary for the whole human race, if they hasten toward happiness. And Euripides, not in vain, writes variously: at one time, “Every wife is worse than her husband, even if the worst man marries a woman of good repute”; at another, “Every self-restrained wife is her husband's slave, but the one who is not self-restrained, in her folly, surpasses her partner.” “For nothing is stronger and better than when a man and a woman keep house with like minds.” The head, then, is the ruling part. And if the Lord is the head of the man, and the man is the head of the woman, the man is lord of the woman, being the image and glory of God.

That is why he writes in the letter to the Ephesians: “Submitting to one another in the fear of God; wives to their own husbands as to the Lord, because the husband is head of the wife, as Christ too is head of the church, himself the Savior of the body. But as the church is subject to Christ, so also wives to their own husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ also loved the church. So husbands also ought to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself; for no one ever hated his own flesh.”

And in the letter to the Colossians he says: “Wives, be subject to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them. Children, obey your parents in everything, for this is pleasing to the Lord. Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged. Slaves, obey in everything your masters according to the flesh, not with eye-service as people-pleasers, but in singleness of heart, fearing the Lord. And whatever you do, work at it from the soul, as serving the Lord and not men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance; for you serve the Lord Christ. For the wrongdoer will receive back the wrong he has done, and there is no partiality. Masters, grant your slaves what is just and fair, knowing that you too have a Lord in heaven,” where there is neither Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free, but Christ is all and in all.

The earthly church is an image of the heavenly, which is why we pray that God's will may be done on earth as in heaven. “Having put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, bearing with one another and forgiving each other, if anyone has a complaint against another; as Christ forgave us, so also we. And above all these, love, which is the bond of perfection. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which you were called in one body; and be thankful.” For nothing prevents citing the same Scripture often to shame Marcion, in case he should be persuaded and change, learning that the believer must be thankful to God the Creator, who called us and proclaimed the gospel to us in the body.

From these things the unity that comes from faith and who is the perfect one have been clearly shown to us; so that even if some are unwilling and oppose it in most things, even if punishments are threatened by the husband or by the master, the household slave and the wife will philosophize. Indeed the free man too, even if death is threatened by a tyrant, even if he is dragged into court and into the utmost dangers and is in danger of losing all his property, will not abstain from godliness in any way. Nor will the wife ever give up, living with a bad husband, nor the son if he has a bad father, nor the slave a wicked master, holding nobly to virtue. But as it is good for a man to die for virtue, for freedom, and for himself, so also for a woman; for this belongs not to the nature of males but to that of the good.

Faithfully, then, both the old man, the young man, and the slave, obeying the commandments, will live and, if need be, die, which would be to be made alive through death. We know, at any rate, that children, slaves, and wives have often become excellent against the will of fathers, masters, and husbands. So those who are going to live godly lives must not be less eager when some seem to hinder them; rather, I think, it is much more fitting to hasten and contend especially, so as not to be overcome and fall away from the best and most necessary resolutions. For I do not think it admits comparison, whether it is better to become a devotee of the Almighty or to choose the darkness of demons. For what we do for the sake of others we would do each time trying to look to those for whose sake it seems to be done, considering what pleases them the measure; but what is done for our own sake more than for others', we would do with equal eagerness, whether it seems to please some or not.

If, then, some indifferent things have obtained such honor that they seem choiceworthy even against some people's will, much more must virtue be considered worth fighting for, looking to nothing else than what can be done well, whether it seems otherwise to some or not. Well, then, did Epicurus write to Menoeceus: “Let no one delay philosophizing while young, nor grow weary of philosophizing when old. For no one is too early or too late for the health of the soul. The one who says that the time for philosophizing has not yet come or has passed is like one who says that the time for happiness has not yet come or is no longer. So both young and old must philosophize: the one so that, growing old, he may be young in good things by gratitude for what has been; the other so that he may be at once young and old by fearlessness of what is to come.”

About martyrdom the Lord has spoken plainly; and let us put together what is written in different places. “And I say to you, everyone who confesses in me before men, the Son of Man will also confess in him before the angels of God; but whoever denies me before men, I will deny him before the angels.” “For whoever is ashamed of me or of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him, when he comes in the glory of his Father with his angels.” “Everyone, then, who confesses in me before men, I too will confess in him before my Father in heaven.” “And when they bring you into the synagogues and before the rulers and authorities, do not be anxious beforehand how to defend yourselves or what to say; for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you must say.”

Heracleon, the most esteemed of the school of Valentinus, explaining this passage, says word for word: “Confession is of two kinds: one in faith and conduct, the other in voice. Confession in voice takes place also before the authorities, which alone,” he says, “most people wrongly consider to be confession; but hypocrites too can make this confession. But this saying will not be found to have been spoken universally; for not all who are saved made confession by voice and departed, among whom are Matthew, Philip, Thomas, Levi, and many others. And confession by voice is not universal but partial. The universal one is the one he now speaks of, in works and actions corresponding to faith in him. And the partial one before the authorities follows this confession, if it is necessary and reason requires. For this man will confess with his voice too, having rightly confessed before in his disposition.

And he said well of those who confess, ‘in me,’ but of those who deny he added ‘me.’ For these, even if they confess him with their voice, deny him, not confessing him by their action. Only those confess in him who live in the confession and action that accord with him, in whom he too confesses, having laid hold of them and being held by them. That is why they can never deny him; but those deny him who are not in him. For he did not say, ‘whoever denies in me,’ but ‘me’; for no one who is in him ever denies him. And ‘before men’ means both the saved and the Gentiles alike: before some by conduct, before others also by voice. That is why they can never deny him; but those deny him who are not in him.”

So far Heracleon. In other respects he seems to agree with us on this passage; but he did not notice this: that even if some did not confess Christ before men by action and life, yet by confessing with the voice in courts, and not denying him even when tortured to death, they show that they believed from the disposition. And a disposition that is confessed, especially one not turned aside even by death, makes a cutting off at once of all the passions that were begotten through bodily desire. For there is, so to speak, at the end of life a sudden repentance in action, and a true confession toward Christ, the voice bearing witness to it. And if the Spirit of the Father bears witness in us, how are they still hypocrites, those whom he said bear witness with the voice alone? And it will be given to some, if it is profitable, to make a defense, so that through both the witness and the defense all may be helped: those in the church strengthened, those from the Gentiles who have inquired into salvation marveling and led to faith, and the rest held by amazement.

So confessing is necessary in every case, for it rests with us; but making a defense is not in every case, for this does not rest with us. “And the one who endures to the end will be saved.” For who of the right-minded would not choose to reign in God rather than to serve? Some, then, “confess that they know God,” according to the apostle, “but deny him by their works, being abominable and disobedient and unfit for any good work.” But others, even if they confess only this, have accomplished one good work at the end. Martyrdom, then, seems to be a purification of sins with glory. The Shepherd, for example, says: “You will escape the working of the wild beast, if your heart becomes pure and blameless.” And the Lord himself says: “Satan has demanded to sift you; but I have interceded.”

The Lord, then, first drank the cup for the purification of the men who plotted against him and of the unbelievers; imitating him, the apostles, as truly knowing and perfect, suffered for the churches they founded. So also those who, knowing, walk in the apostolic footsteps must be sinless and, through love for the Lord, love their neighbor too, so that, if circumstances call, they may drink the cup for the church, enduring afflictions without offense. And those who bear witness by deed throughout life and by word in court, whether awaiting hope or fearing, are better than those who confess salvation with the mouth only. But if someone rises further, to love, he is truly blessed and a genuine martyr, having confessed perfectly both to the commandments and to God through the Lord, whom, having loved, he recognized as brother, giving himself wholly for love of God, as though gratefully and lovingly returning a deposit, the man that was demanded.

When, again, he says, “When they persecute you in this city, flee to the other,” he does not advise flight as though being persecuted were evil, nor does he order us to avoid death through flight as though we feared it; but he wishes us to be the cause or joint cause of no evil to anyone, either to ourselves or to the persecutor and the killer. For in a way he commands us to keep clear of him; and the one who disobeys is rash and reckless.

And if the one who kills a man of God sins against God, the one who presents himself to the court becomes guilty of the one who kills him; and such would be the one who does not avoid persecution, but by boldness offers himself to be caught. He, as far as it rests with him, becomes a fellow worker in the persecutor's wickedness; and if he also provokes him, he is wholly the cause, calling out the beast. Likewise, if he gives any cause for conflict, loss, enmity, or lawsuit, he has created an occasion for persecution. That is why we have been commanded to hold on to nothing in this life, but also to give the tunic to the one who takes the cloak, not only so that we may remain free from passion, but so that we may not, by laying claim, make those who sue us savage against us and through us stir them to blasphemy of the Name.

“Yes,” they say, “if God cares for you, why are you persecuted and killed? Or does he himself hand you over to this?” But we do not suppose that the Lord wished us to fall into these circumstances, but that he foretold prophetically what was going to happen: that we would be persecuted for his name, killed, impaled. So he did not wish us to be persecuted, but made known beforehand what we will suffer, training us for endurance by foretelling what would happen, to which he promised the inheritance. And yet we are not punished alone, but with many. “But those,” they say, “being criminals, justly undergo punishment.”

Unwillingly, then, they bear witness to our righteousness, we who are unjustly punished for righteousness. But the injustice of the judge does not touch providence either; for the judge must be master of his own judgment, not pulled by strings like lifeless instruments, perhaps taking only occasions from the external cause. He is tested, at any rate, in how he judges, as we are in the choice of what is to be chosen and in endurance. And even if we do no wrong, the judge looks on us as wrongdoers; for he does not know our affairs nor wish to learn them, but is carried away by an empty prejudice; that is why he too is judged. They persecute us, then, not having found us unjust, but supposing that by the mere fact of being Christians we wrong life, both living so ourselves and urging others to choose the same life.

“Why, then, are you not helped when persecuted?” they say. What wrong, indeed, are we done as regards ourselves, being released by death to the Lord and undergoing a change of life as a change of age? If we are right-minded, we will be grateful to those who provided the occasion of a swift departure, if we bear witness out of love. If we did not seem to the many to be bad men, and if they too knew the truth, all would rush onto the road, and there would be no election. But our faith, being the light of the world, convicts unbelief. “For Anytus and Meletus might indeed kill me, but they could not harm me in any way; for I do not think it lawful for the better to be harmed by the worse.” So each of us may say boldly: “The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what will man do to me?” “For the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and no torment will touch them.”

Basilides, in the twenty-third book of his Exegetica, says this in these very words about those punished in martyrdom: “For I say that all who fall under the so-called afflictions have either sinned in other offenses without being found out and are brought to this good by the kindness of the one who leads them about, being in fact accused of other things, so that they may not suffer as condemned for acknowledged crimes, nor be reviled as the adulterer or the murderer, but because they are … Christians; which will comfort them so that they do not even seem to suffer. And even if someone who has not sinned at all comes to suffering, which is rare, not even he will suffer anything through the plotting of some power, but he will suffer as the infant too suffers, who seems not to have sinned.”

Then, going on, he adds again: “As, then, the infant, which has not sinned before, or has not actually sinned in anything, but has in itself the capacity to sin, is benefited when it is subjected to suffering, gaining many hard things; so, even if a perfect man happens to have sinned in nothing by deed, but suffers, he has suffered this like the infant: having in himself the sinful element, but not having received an occasion for sinning, he did not sin. So not sinning is not to be reckoned to him. For as the one who wishes to commit adultery is an adulterer even if he does not succeed in committing adultery, and the one who wishes to commit murder is a murderer even if he cannot murder, so too, if I see the sinless one I speak of suffering, even if he has done nothing evil, I will call him evil because of his wish to sin. For I will say anything rather than call providence evil.”

Then, going on, he speaks even about the Lord plainly as about a man: “If, however, leaving all these arguments, you come to shame me by pointing to certain persons, saying, for instance, ‘So-and-so, then, sinned, for so-and-so suffered,’ I will say, if you allow me, that he did not sin, but was like the suffering infant; but if you press the argument more forcefully, I will say that whatever man you name is a man, but God is righteous. For no one is pure from filth,” as someone said. But Basilides' hypothesis says that the soul, having sinned beforehand in another life, undergoes punishment here: the elect honorably through martyrdom, the other purified by an appropriate punishment. And how is this true, when confessing and being punished, or not, rests with us? For in the case of one who will deny, Basilides' providence is undone.

I ask him, then, about the confessor who has been arrested: will he bear witness and be punished according to providence, or not? For if he denies, he will not be punished. And if he says from the outcome that this man did not need to be punished, he will unwillingly bear witness that the destruction of those who deny comes from providence. And how is the most glorious reward still laid up in heaven for the martyr because of his martyrdom? And if providence did not allow the sinful man to come to sinning, it becomes unjust on both counts: in not rescuing the one dragged to punishment for righteousness, and in rescuing the one who wished to do wrong; he having done what he willed, and providence having hindered the deed and unjustly protecting the sinful man.

And how is he not godless, deifying the devil and daring to call the Lord a sinful man? For the devil tempts, knowing what we are, but not knowing whether we will endure; but wishing to shake us from the faith and bring us under himself, he tempts. This alone has been permitted him, both because we must be saved by ourselves, having received starting points from the commandment, and for the shame of the tempter who fails, and for the strengthening of those in the church, and for the conscience of those who marvel at the endurance. But if martyrdom is a requital through punishment, then faith and teaching too, because of which martyrdom comes, are fellow workers of punishment; what greater absurdity could there be? But against those doctrines, whether the soul is reincarnated, and about the devil, we will speak at the proper times; now let us add this to what has been said: where is faith any longer, if martyrdom happens as requital for sins committed before? Where is love for God, persecuted and enduring for the truth? Where is praise of the one who confesses, or blame of the one who denies? And what use is right conduct any longer, putting desires to death and hating nothing created?

And if, as Basilides himself says, we take one part of what is called God's will to be having loved everything, because all things preserve a relation to the whole, another to desire nothing, and a third to hate nothing, then punishments too will be by God's will, which it is impious to think. For neither did the Lord suffer by the Father's will, nor are the persecuted persecuted by God's will; otherwise one of two things follows: either persecution will be something good because of God's will, or those who inflict and afflict are innocent. But nothing happens without the will of the Lord of the universe. It remains, then, to say briefly that such things happen because God does not prevent them; for this alone preserves both the providence and the goodness of God.

We must not think, then, that he causes the afflictions, far be it to think so; but we must be persuaded that he does not prevent those who cause them, and uses the enemies' daring deeds for good (“I will pull down the wall,” at any rate, he says, “and it will be for trampling”), such providence being an art of training, for others because of each one's own sins, but for the Lord and the apostles because of ours. For example, the divine apostle says: “For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in the passion of desire like the Gentiles who do not know the Lord; that no one transgress and wrong his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we told you before and solemnly warned you. For God did not call us to impurity but in sanctification. Therefore the one who rejects this rejects not man but God, who also gives his Holy Spirit to you.” For the sake of this sanctification of ours, then, the Lord was not prevented from suffering.

If, then, one of them should say in defense that the martyr is punished for sins before this embodiment, but will receive again the fruit of his conduct in this life, for so the government has been ordered, we will ask him whether the requital comes about by providence. For if it is not of the divine government, the arrangement of purifications is gone and their hypothesis has fallen; but if the purifications are by providence, the punishments are by providence too. And providence, even if it begins to be set in motion by the Ruler, as they say, was sown in substances together with the origin of the substances by the God of the universe. This being so, they must confess either that the punishment is not unjust (and those who condemn and persecute the martyrs act justly), or that persecutions too are worked by the will of God. No longer, then, do toil and fear, as they themselves say, come upon things as rust upon iron, but they come to the soul of its own will.

Much could be said about these things, which will be reserved for examination later, when we treat of them at the right time. Valentinus writes word for word in a homily: “From the beginning you are immortal, and you are children of eternal life, and you wished to divide death among yourselves, so that you might spend and use it up, and death might die in you and through you. For when you dissolve the world but are not yourselves dissolved, you are lords over creation and all corruption.” For he too, like Basilides, supposes a race saved by nature, and that this distinct race has come down here from above for the destruction of death, and that the origin of death is the work of the one who created the world. That is why he takes that Scripture thus: “No one will see the face of God and live,” as though he were the cause of death. He hints at this God when he writes in these very words: “As much as the image is less than the living face, so much is the world inferior to the living Aeon.”

“What, then, is the cause of the image? The majesty of the face, which provided the painter with the model, so that it might be honored through his name. For the form was not found authentically, but the name filled up what was lacking in the formation. And the invisibility of God also cooperates toward faith in what has been formed.” For he called the Demiurge, who was called God and Father, an image of the true God and a prophet, and Wisdom the painter, whose work is the image, to the glory of the invisible one; since whatever proceeds from a pair are fullnesses, but whatever from one are images. But since what appears of him is not the soul from the middle, the distinctive element comes, and this is the inbreathing of the distinctive spirit; and in general what is breathed into the soul, into the image of the spirit, and in general what is said about the Demiurge who was made according to the image, they say was prophesied in Genesis in the form of a sensible image concerning the creation of man. And they transfer the likeness to themselves, handing down that the insertion of the distinctive spirit was unknown to the Demiurge.

When, then, we treat of there being one God proclaimed through the law, the prophets, and the gospel, we will argue against this too (for the question is fundamental); but we must meet what is pressing. If the distinct race comes to destroy death, then Christ did not abolish death, unless he too is said to be of the same substance with them. But if he abolished it so that it might not touch the distinct race, these do not abolish death, these imitators of the Demiurge, who breathe the life from above into the soul from the middle, their own image, according to the choice of their doctrine, even if they say this happens through the Mother. And even if they should say they wage war against death together with Christ, let them confess the hidden doctrine, that they dare to run down the divine power of the Demiurge, correcting his creation as though they were better, trying to save the psychic image which he himself was unable to rescue from corruption. And the Lord too would be better than the Creator God; for a son would never contend with his father, especially among gods.

That this is the Father of the Son, the Creator of all things, the Almighty Lord, we have postponed to that inquiry in which we have promised to argue against the heresies, showing that he alone is the one proclaimed by the Son. But the apostle, writing to us for endurance in afflictions, says this too comes from God: “Because it has been granted to you for Christ's sake not only to believe in him but also to suffer for him, having the same struggle that you saw in me and now hear to be in me. If, then, there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort of love, any fellowship of the Spirit, any affection and compassion, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, united in soul (sympsychoi), minding one thing.” And if he is poured out upon the sacrifice and service of faith, rejoicing and rejoicing with them, and calls those to whom the apostle's word is addressed, the Philippians, partners in grace, how does he call them united in soul and yet psychic? Likewise, writing about Timothy and himself, he says: “For I have no one like-souled (isopsychon) who will genuinely care for your affairs; for all seek their own, not the things of Jesus Christ.”

Let not those just mentioned, then, call us “psychics” by way of reproach; nor the Phrygians either; for these too already call “psychics” those who do not pay attention to the new prophecy; against them we will argue in our work On Prophecy. The perfect man, then, must practice love, and from here hasten to divine friendship, fulfilling the commandments through love. And loving one's enemies does not mean loving evil, nor impiety, adultery, or theft, but the thief, the impious man, and the adulterer; not insofar as he sins and pollutes the name of man by such activity, but insofar as he is a man and the work of God. Indeed sinning lies in activity, not in substance; that is why it is not the work of God.

Sinners are called enemies of God, enemies, that is, of the commandments which they have not obeyed; as those who have obeyed are friends; the one named for their intimacy, the others for their estrangement by choice. For enmity and sin are nothing without the enemy and the sinner. And to desire nothing does not teach us to have no longing for the objects of desire as though they were alien, as those have supposed who teach that the Creator is other than the first God, nor as though birth were abominable and evil; for these opinions are godless. We call the things of the world alien, not as absurd, nor as not belonging to God the Lord of all, but because we do not remain among them for the whole of the age; alien in ownership and belonging to successive owners, but each one's own in use, for whom they came into being, only insofar as it is necessary to be with them. We must use what is not forbidden, then, well, according to natural appetite, refusing all excess and passionate attachment.

And how great is his kindness! “Love your enemies,” he says, “bless those who curse you, and pray for those who mistreat you,” and the like; to which he adds, “so that you may become sons of your Father in heaven,” hinting at likeness to God. Again he says: “Be well-disposed quickly to your adversary, while you are on the way with him.” The adversary is not the body, as some would have it, but the devil (and those who are made like him), who travels with us in this earthly life through men who emulate his works. It is not possible, then, for those who confess that they belong to Christ but spend their time in the works of the devil not to suffer the most hostile things. For it is written: “lest he hand you over to the judge,” and the judge to the servant of the devil's rule.

“For I am persuaded that neither death,” that inflicted by persecutors, “nor life,” that in this life, “nor angels,” the apostate ones, “nor rulers” (and the rule of Satan is the life he chose; for such are the rulers and authorities of darkness under him), “nor things present,” in which we are during the time of life, such as the soldier's hope and the merchant's gain, “nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing,” by its own activity working against the faith of the man who chooses (creation and activity are called by the same name, being our work): such activity “will not be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” You have the summary of the knowing martyr.

“We know that we all have knowledge,” the common knowledge in common matters, and that there is one God; for he was writing to believers. That is why he adds, “But not in all is knowledge,” the knowledge handed down among few. There are some who say that the knowledge about things sacrificed to idols does not reach all, “lest our liberty become a stumbling block to the weak; for the weak man is destroyed by your knowledge.” And if they say that one must buy everything sold in the market, taking “asking no questions” as a question equivalent to “asking questions,” they will offer a ridiculous interpretation. For the apostle says, “Buy all the rest from the market, asking no questions,” with the exception of the things indicated in the catholic letter of all the apostles, with the approval of the Holy Spirit, which is written in the Acts of the Apostles and was carried to the believers by the ministry of Paul himself. For they declared that it is necessary to abstain from things sacrificed to idols, from blood, from things strangled, and from sexual immorality, keeping themselves from which they would do well. Another thing, then, is what the apostle said: “Do we not have the right to eat and drink? Do we not have the right to take about a sister as wife, as the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas? But we did not use this right,” he says, “but we endure all things, so as not to put an obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ,” either by carrying burdens about, when one should be unencumbered for everything, or by becoming an example to those who wish to practice self-control, not building them up to eat what is set before them without fear and to associate with a wife casually. Especially those entrusted with so great a ministry should be set before learners as a spotless example.

“For though I am free from all, I have made myself a slave to all,” he says, “that I might win all.” “And everyone who competes exercises self-control in all things.” “But the earth is the Lord's and its fullness.” For conscience' sake, then, one must abstain from what one must abstain from. “Conscience, I say, not your own,” for it is knowing, “but the other's,” so that he may not be badly built up, imitating in ignorance what he does not know, becoming a despiser instead of magnanimous. “For why is my freedom judged by another's conscience? If I partake with thanks, why am I blasphemed for what I give thanks for? So whatever you do, do all to the glory of God,” whatever one has been permitted to do under the rule of faith.

“For with the heart one believes for righteousness, and with the mouth one confesses for salvation. For the Scripture says, ‘Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.’ This is the word of faith that we preach: that if you confess the word with your mouth, that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” He plainly describes perfect righteousness, filled out with both deed and contemplation. We must bless, then, those who persecute: “Bless and do not curse.” “For this is our boast, the testimony of our conscience, that we have known God in holiness and sincerity,” showing the work of love through this small pretext, “that we have conducted ourselves in the world not in fleshly wisdom but in the grace of God.”

So much the apostle says about knowledge; and in the second letter to the Corinthians he has called the common teaching of the faith “the fragrance of knowledge.” “For to this very day the same veil remains” for the many “at the reading of the old covenant,” not being lifted by the turning to the Lord. That is why he also showed a resurrection, to those who can see it, while still in the flesh, from the life that creeps on its belly. From this he also called such people “offspring of vipers,” the lovers of pleasure, those enslaved to belly and genitals, who cut off one another's heads because of worldly desires. “Little children, let us not love in word or tongue,” says John, teaching them to be perfect, “but in deed and truth. By this we will know that we are of the truth.” And if “God is love,” godliness too is love: “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.” “This is the love of God, that we keep his commandments.” And again it is written to the one who longs to become one who knows: “But be an example to the believers in word, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity”; for the perfection of faith, I think, is distinguished from common faith.

And the divine apostle sets forth the rule of the one who knows in these words. On the one hand he writes: “For I have learned in whatever state I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound; in everything and in all things I have been initiated, both to be filled and to be hungry, both to abound and to be in need; I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” On the other hand, speaking to others to shame them, he does not hesitate to say: “But remember the former days, in which, after you were enlightened, you endured a great contest of sufferings, partly being made a spectacle by reproaches and afflictions, and partly becoming sharers with those so treated. For you sympathized with my bonds, and accepted joyfully the plundering of your possessions, knowing that you have for yourselves a better and lasting possession. Do not throw away, then, your boldness, which has a great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that having done the will of God you may receive the promise. For yet a very little while, and the one who is coming will come and will not delay. But my righteous one will live by faith; and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him. But we are not of those who shrink back to destruction, but of those who have faith for the preservation of the soul.”

Then he sets before you a swarm of divine examples. “For was it not by faith,” he says, “through endurance, that they succeeded, who experienced mockings and scourgings, and also bonds and prison? They were stoned, they were tested, they died by the sword; they went about in sheepskins, in goatskins, destitute, afflicted, mistreated, of whom the world was not worthy, wandering in deserts and mountains and caves and the holes of the earth. And all of them, having been attested through faith, did not receive the promise of God.” What remains is to understand what is said by leaving it unsaid: “alone.”

He adds, at any rate: “God having foreseen something better concerning us (for he was good), so that apart from us they should not be made perfect. Therefore we too, having so great a holy and transparent cloud of witnesses surrounding us, laying aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, let us run with endurance the contest set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of the faith.” That he speaks of one salvation in Christ, of the righteous and of us, he has said clearly before; and no less, speaking about Moses, he adds: “considering the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt; for he was looking to the reward. By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the anger of the king; for he endured as seeing the one who is invisible.” The divine Wisdom says about the martyrs: “They seemed in the eyes of the foolish to have died, and their departure was reckoned an affliction, and their going from us a ruin; but they are in peace. For even if in the sight of men they are punished, their hope is full of immortality.”

Then it adds, teaching that martyrdom is a glorious purification: “And having been disciplined a little, they will be greatly benefited, because God tested them,” that is, for proof and for the shaming of the tempter he allowed them to be tested, “and found them worthy of himself,” clearly to be called sons. “Like gold in the furnace he tried them, and like a whole burnt offering he accepted them. And in the time of their visitation they will shine forth and run like sparks through the stubble. They will judge nations and rule over peoples, and the Lord will reign over them forever.”

Indeed, in the letter to the Corinthians the apostle Clement too, sketching for us a type of the one who knows, says: “For who has stayed among you and not proved your all-virtuous and firm faith? Who has not admired your self-restrained and gentle godliness in Christ? And who has not proclaimed the magnificent character of your hospitality? And who has not called blessed your perfect and secure knowledge? For you did all things without partiality, and walked in the ordinances of God,” and so on. Then more clearly: “Let us fix our eyes, then, on those who have served his magnificent glory perfectly. Let us take Enoch, who, found righteous in obedience, was translated; and Noah, who, believing, was saved; and Abraham, who through faith and hospitality was called friend of God and father of Isaac. Through hospitality and godliness Lot was saved out of Sodom; through faith and hospitality Rahab the harlot was saved. Through endurance and faith they went about in goatskins, sheepskins, and garments woven of camel's hair, preaching the kingdom of Christ; we mean Elijah and Elisha, Ezekiel and John, the prophets.”

“For Abraham, called the friend of God through free faith, was not puffed up by glory, but with moderation said, ‘I am earth and ashes.’ And about Job it is written thus: ‘Job was righteous and blameless, true and God-fearing, abstaining from every evil.’” He who conquered the tempter through endurance, and both bore witness and was borne witness to by God, holds to humility and says: “No one is pure from filth, not even if his life is one day.” “Moses, the faithful servant in all his house,” said to the one who gave oracles from the bush: “Who am I, that you send me? I am weak-voiced and slow of tongue,” to serve the Lord's voice with a human tongue. And again: “I am vapor from a pot.” “For God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”

Indeed David too, of whom the Lord bears witness, saying, “I have found a man after my heart, David the son of Jesse; with holy oil I anointed him”; yet he himself says to God: “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your great mercy, and according to the multitude of your compassions blot out my transgression. Wash me thoroughly from my lawlessness, and cleanse me from my sin; for I know my lawlessness, and my sin is before me always.” Then, hinting at the sin that does not fall under the law, he adds with the moderation of knowledge: “Against you alone have I sinned and done evil before you.” For Scripture says somewhere, “The spirit of the Lord is a lamp searching the storerooms of the belly”; and the more one becomes knowing by doing justly, the nearer to him is the enlightening spirit. So the Lord draws near to the righteous, and none of the thoughts and reasonings we make escapes him: I mean the Lord Jesus, by the almighty will the overseer of our heart, whose blood was consecrated for us.

“Let us, then, respect those who lead us and be reverent; let us honor the elders; let us instruct the young in the instruction of God.” For blessed is the one who teaches and does the Lord's things worthily; and this belongs to a magnanimous mind that contemplates the truth. “Let us direct our wives toward the good. Let them show,” he says, “the lovely character of purity; let them display the sincere will of their gentleness; let them make manifest the forbearance of their tongue through silence; let them show their love not by partiality, but equally to all who fear God in holiness. Let our children share in the instruction that is in Christ; let them learn what humility can do with God, what pure love can do with God, how the fear of the Lord is good and great, saving all who live in it holily with a pure heart. For he is a searcher of thoughts and intentions; his breath is in us, and when he wills he will take it away.”

“All these things faith in Christ confirms: ‘Come, children,’” says the Lord, “‘listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the Lord. Who is the man who desires life, who loves to see good days?’” Then he adds the knowing mystery of the seventh and eighth: “‘Stop your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking deceit; turn from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it.’” For by these words he hints at knowledge, with abstaining from evils and doing good things, teaching us to be perfected in deed and word. “‘The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears toward their prayer; but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil, to destroy their memory from the earth.’”

“‘The righteous cried out, and the Lord heard and rescued him from all his afflictions.’ ‘Many are the scourges of sinners, but mercy will surround those who hope in the Lord.’” He says that the one who hopes genuinely is surrounded by a multitude of mercy. For in the letter to the Corinthians it is written: “Through Jesus Christ our foolish and darkened understanding blossoms again into the light. Through him the Master willed that we should taste immortal knowledge.” And showing more expressly the characteristic of knowledge, he added: “Since these things are clear to us, and we have looked into the depths of divine knowledge, we ought to do in order all that the Master has commanded us to perform at appointed times. Let the wise man, then, show his wisdom not in words only but in good works; let the humble not bear witness to himself, but let himself be borne witness to by another; let the one pure in the flesh not boast, knowing that it is another who supplies him with self-control. See, brothers, the more knowledge we have been counted worthy of, the more we are exposed to danger.”

The dignified and pure conduct of our philanthropy, then, according to Clement, seeks the common good, whether it bears witness or teaches by deed and word, and this word is twofold, unwritten and written. This is love: to love God and one's neighbor; this leads up to the indescribable height. “Love covers a multitude of sins; love bears all things, is patient in all things; love joins us to God, does all things in concord. In love all the elect of God were perfected; without love nothing is pleasing to God. Of its perfection there is no explanation,” he says. “Who is able to be found in it, except those whom God himself counts worthy?” For example, the apostle Paul says: “If I give up my body, but have not love, I am a sounding brass and a clanging cymbal”; if I bear witness, he says, not from a chosen disposition, through knowing love, but from fear.

If, then, I confess the Lord for the sake of an expected reward, moving my lips for witness to the Lord, I am an ordinary man, sounding the Lord without knowing him. For there is the people that loves with its lips, and there is another who gives up the body to be burned. “And if I give away all my possessions,” he says, not according to the principle of loving fellowship, but according to that of requital, either from the man benefited or from the Lord who has promised; “and if I have all faith, so as to move mountains,” and to cast off the passions that darken, but am not made faithful to the Lord through love, “I am nothing,” reckoned as of no account in comparison with the one who bears witness in the way of knowledge, counted among the multitude. “All the generations from Adam to this day have passed away; but those perfected in love according to the grace of God have the place of the godly, who will be made manifest at the visitation of the kingdom of Christ.”

Love does not allow one to sin; and if one should fall unwillingly into such a situation through the intrusions of the adversary, imitating David he will sing: “I will confess to the Lord, and it will please him more than a young calf bearing horns and hoofs. Let the poor see it and rejoice.” For he says: “Offer to God a sacrifice of praise, and pay your vows to the Lord; and call on me in the day of your affliction, and I will deliver you, and you will glorify me.” “For a sacrifice to God is a broken spirit.” God, then, is called love, being good. His love “does no wrong to the neighbor,” neither wronging nor ever wronging in return, but doing good to all without exception, according to the image of God. So “love is the fulfillment of the law,” as Christ is, that is, the coming of the Lord who loves us, and our loving teaching and conduct according to Christ. By love, at any rate, not committing adultery and not desiring the neighbor's wife is perfected, which was formerly prevented by fear. The same deed, then, differs according to whether it is done through fear or accomplished through love, and whether it is worked through faith or in the way of knowledge.

Fittingly, then, their prizes too differ. For the one who knows are prepared “what eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered the heart of man”; but to the one who has simply believed he testifies a hundredfold of what he has left, a promise that happens to fall within human understanding. Having reached this point, I remembered someone who claimed to be one who knows. Explaining “But I say, the one who looks at a woman with desire has already committed adultery,” he held that desire alone is not judged, but only if, through desire, the deed corresponding to it, going beyond the desire, is accomplished in it; for if it is in a dream, in imagination, it already makes use of the body too.

The historians tell of a judgment of Bocchoris the just. A young man in love with a courtesan persuaded the girl, for a fixed fee, to come to him the next day. His desire, anticipating the girl in a dream, sated him unexpectedly; and when his beloved came as arranged, he barred her from entering. She, learning what had happened, demanded her fee, saying that she had in a way fulfilled her lover's desire. They came, then, to the judge. He ordered the young man to hold out the purse with the fee, but in the sun, and told the courtesan to take hold of its shadow, wittily ordering the image of a fee to be paid for the image of an embrace.

One dreams, then, when the soul assents to the imagination; and the one who looks with desire dreams while awake, not only, as that so-called knower said, if at the sight of the woman he conceives the intercourse in thought (for this is already the work of desire as desire), but, as the Word says, if one looks at bodily beauty and the flesh seems to him beautiful according to desire, having looked fleshly and sinfully, he is judged by what he has admired. Conversely, the one who looks at beauty through pure love considers not the flesh but the soul beautiful, admiring the body, I think, like a statue, through whose beauty he sends himself on to the Craftsman and to what is truly beautiful, showing the enlightening mark of righteousness as a holy token to the angels who watch over the ascent: I mean the anointing of good pleasure, the quality of disposition lying on the soul made glad by the coming of the Holy Spirit.

This glory, which shone on the face of Moses, the people could not look at; that is why he took a veil over the glory for those who looked in a fleshly way. For those who demand the toll hold back those who bring any worldly things, weighed down by their own passions; but the one who is bare of what is subject to the toll, and full of knowledge and of the righteousness of works, they send on with their prayers, blessing the man together with his work. “And his leaf will not fall off,” the leaf of the living tree nourished by the streams of water. And the righteous man is compared to fruit-bearing trees, not only those for the sacrifice of the lofty ones; and in the offering of sacrifices under the law there were inspectors of blemishes in the victims. Those skilled in these matters distinguish appetite from desire, and assign the one to pleasures and licentiousness, as irrational, but appetite for natural necessities as a rational movement.

This perfection, then, may be shared equally by man and equally by woman. For example, not Moses alone, having heard from God, “I have spoken to you once and twice, saying: I have seen this people, and behold, it is stiff-necked. Let me destroy them, and I will blot out their name from under heaven and make you a great and marvelous nation, much more than this one,” answers, praying, not considering his own interest but the common salvation: “By no means, Lord; forgive this people their sin, or blot me too out of the book of the living.” How great the perfection of one who wished to die with the people rather than be saved alone! But Judith too, perfected among women, when the city was besieged, having asked the elders, went out into the camp of the foreigners, despising all danger, giving herself up to the enemy for her country in faith in God; and at once she received the reward of her faith, a woman who excelled against the enemy of faith, becoming master of the head of Holofernes.

And again Esther, perfect in faith, rescuing Israel from tyrannical power and the cruelty of the satrap, a woman alone, afflicted with fasts, set herself against countless armed hands, undoing a tyrant's decree through faith; and she tamed the one and checked Haman, and kept Israel unharmed by her perfect prayer to God. I pass over Susanna and the sister of Moses: the sister of Moses shared command with the prophet, leading all the women among the Hebrews esteemed for wisdom; Susanna, by the height of her modesty, going even to death, condemned by licentious lovers, remained an unwavering martyr of chastity.

Indeed Dio the philosopher relates that a certain woman, Lysidice, through excess of modesty, bathed in her tunic; and that Philotera, when she was about to enter the bath, would quietly draw up her tunic as far as the water covered her nakedness, and then, gradually coming out again, put it back on. And did not Leaena of Attica bear tortures bravely? She knew of the plot of Harmodius and Aristogeiton against Hipparchus and revealed nothing at all, though severely racked. They say too that the Argive women, led by Telesilla the poetess, merely by appearing turned the brave Spartans from war and won for themselves freedom from the fear of death.

The author of the Danaid says similar things about the daughters of Danaus, thus: “And then the daughters of Danaus quickly armed themselves before the fair-flowing river, lord Nile,” and so on. The other poets sing of Atalanta's swiftness in the hunt, Anticlea's affection, Alcestis's love for her husband, and the courage of Macaria and the Hyacinthides. What then? Did not Theano the Pythagorean reach such a height of philosophy that to one who looked at her curiously and said, “A lovely arm,” she answered, “But not public”? To the same modesty belongs that saying too: asked on what day after intercourse with a man a woman may go down to the Thesmophorion, she said, “From her own husband, at once; from another's, never.” Indeed Themisto of Lampsacus, daughter of Zoilus and wife of Leonteus of Lampsacus, philosophized in the Epicurean way, as Myia the daughter of Theano in the Pythagorean way, and Arignote, who wrote about Dionysus; and the daughters of Diodorus called Cronus all became dialecticians, as Philo the dialectician says in his Menexenus, who gives their names as follows: Menexene, Argeia, Theognis, Artemisia, Pantaclea. I remember too a Cynic woman, called Hipparchia of Maroneia, the wife of Crates, with whom he celebrated the dog-wedding in the Painted Porch.

Arete of Cyrene, daughter of Aristippus, educated Aristippus, called “the Mother-taught.” With Plato there philosophized Lastheneia of Arcadia and Axiothea of Phlius. For of Aspasia of Miletus, about whom the comic poets write much, Socrates made use for philosophy and Pericles for rhetoric. I pass over the others because of the length of the discussion, not listing the poetesses, Corinna and Telesilla, Myia and Sappho, nor the painters, such as Irene, daughter of Cratinus, and Anaxandra, daughter of Nealces, of whom Didymus speaks in his Symposiaca.

And the daughter of Cleobulus, the sage and monarch of the Lindians, was not ashamed to wash the feet of her father's guests; since the blessed Sarah too, Abraham's wife, herself prepared the loaves for the angels, and royal daughters among the Hebrews tended sheep; whence too Homer's Nausicaa went to the washing places. The self-restrained woman, then, would choose first to persuade her husband to become her partner in what leads to happiness; but if that is impossible, let her hasten to virtue alone, obeying her husband in everything, so as never to do anything against his will, except what is thought to contribute to virtue and salvation. But if someone should hinder from such a disposition either a wife or a maidservant sincerely striving for it, such a man plainly does nothing else at that time than choose to lead them away from justice and self-restraint, and wish to make his own house unjust and licentious.

It is not possible, then, for a man or a woman to become distinguished in anything without using learning, practice, and training; and we say that virtue rests not with others but with us most of all. Other things one can hinder by making war, but what rests with us not at all, not even if one opposes it most strongly; for the gift is given by God and subject to no one else. So licentiousness would be thought the evil of no one but the licentious man, and self-restraint the good of the one able to be self-restrained.

Euripides describes a wife who loves her husband with dignity, advising: “She must think that he speaks well whenever he says anything, even if he does not, and must strive to say what will please her partner.” And again somewhere, similar things: “It is sweet, if her husband fares badly, for the wife to share his gloom, and to have a share in common of grief and pleasure.” And showing her gentleness and affection even in misfortunes, he adds: “And I, if you are sick, will bear being sick with you, and will share your ills, and nothing is bitter to me; for with friends one must fare well and ill; for what else is friendship but this?”

Marriage, at any rate, when accomplished according to reason, is sanctified, if the union is subject to God and is conducted “with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having hearts purified from an evil conscience and bodies washed with pure water, and holding the confession of hope; for he who promised is faithful.” A happy marriage must never be judged by wealth or beauty, but by virtue. “Beauty,” says the tragedy, “has helped no woman with the husband yoked to her; but virtue has helped many; for every good wife who melts toward her husband knows how to be self-restrained.” Then, as though giving advice, she says: “First of all this holds: even if the husband is ugly, he must seem handsome to the woman who has sense. For it is not the eye that judges, but the mind that sees,” and what follows. For Scripture very properly said that the woman was given by God to the man as a helper.

It is clear, then, I think, that she will choose to treat with reason and persuasion each of the troubles that befall her from her husband in the management of the home; and if he does not listen, then she will try, as far as is possible for human nature, to lead a sinless life, whether she must die with the Word or live, believing God to be the helper and partner in such conduct, the true champion and Savior for the present and for the future, making him the general and leader of every action, considering self-restraint and justice her work, and making God's friendship her goal.

Gracefully, then, in the letter to Titus the apostle says that older women should be reverent in behavior, “not slanderers, not enslaved to much wine, so that they may train the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be self-restrained, pure, workers at home, good, submissive to their own husbands, so that the word of God may not be blasphemed.” “But rather,” he says, “pursue peace with all, and sanctification, without which no one will see the Lord, seeing to it that there is no sexually immoral or profane person like Esau, who for one meal sold his birthright, and that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and through it the many be defiled.”

Then, as though putting a finishing touch on the question of marriage, he adds: “Marriage is honorable in all, and the bed undefiled; but God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterers.” One aim and one end having been shown for man and woman, Peter in his letter says what the perfect is: “Though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the proof of your faith, much more precious than gold that perishes though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ; whom, not having seen, you love; in whom, though you do not now see him, yet believing, you rejoice with joy inexpressible and glorified, receiving the end of your faith, the salvation of souls.” That is why Paul too boasts that for Christ's sake he has been “in labors more abundantly, in beatings beyond measure, in deaths often.”

Here I find the perfect understood in many ways, according to the one who succeeds in each virtue. For one is perfected as reverent, as enduring, as self-controlled, as a worker, as a martyr, and as one who knows; but whether anyone among men, while still a man, is perfect in all at once, I do not know, except only the one who for our sake put on humanity. Yet even according to the bare law one might be perfect, who professes abstinence from evils; and this is a way both to the gospel and to doing good. But the perfection of the one under the law is the knowing reception of the gospel, so that the one who is perfect according to the law may come to be; for so Moses, according to the law, foretold that we must listen, so that we might receive, according to the apostle, Christ as the fulfillment of the law. In the gospel the one who knows makes progress, not using the law only as a step, but understanding and grasping it as the Lord who gave the covenants handed it down to the apostles. And if he should also live rightly (just as knowledge cannot follow from bad conduct), and become a martyr besides, confessing most rightly out of love, receiving greater worth among men, not even so will he first be called perfect in the flesh, since the completion of life has taken this name beforehand, the knowing martyr having already first shown the perfect work and properly presented it, the blood made an offering of thanks through knowing love sending on the spirit.

From this he would be blessed and would justly be proclaimed perfect, “so that the surpassing greatness of the power may be of God and not from us,” as the apostle says. Only let us preserve our choice and our love, “afflicted in every way but not crushed, perplexed but not despairing, persecuted but not forsaken, struck down but not destroyed.” For those who hasten toward perfection must, according to the same apostle, “give no offense in anything, but in everything commend themselves” not to men but to God. Let obedience to men follow as a consequence; for this too is reasonable, because of the abusive blasphemies. And the commendation is “in much endurance, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses, in beatings, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labors, in watchings, in fastings, in purity, in knowledge, in patience, in kindness, in the Holy Spirit, in love without hypocrisy, in the word of truth, in the power of God,” so that we may be temples of God, “cleansed from every defilement of flesh and spirit. And I,” he says, “will receive you, and I will be a father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty. Let us, then, perfect holiness in the fear of God.” For even if fear produces grief, “I rejoice,” he says, “not that you were grieved, but that you were grieved to repentance; for you were grieved according to God, so that you might suffer loss in nothing from us. For godly grief produces a repentance to salvation without regret, but the grief of the world produces death. For see what earnestness this very thing, being grieved according to God, has produced in you, what defense, what indignation, what fear, what longing, what zeal, what vindication. In everything you have commended yourselves to be pure in the matter.”

These are the preliminary exercises of the knowing discipline. Since the Almighty God himself gave “some as apostles, some as prophets, some as evangelists, some as shepherds and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the building up of the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,” we must hasten to become men in the way of knowledge, and to be perfected as far as possible while still remaining in the flesh, having practiced from perfect concord here to run together with the will of God toward the restoration of the truly perfect nobility and kinship, to the fullness of Christ perfectly completed through the equipping. We see now where, how, and when the divine apostle speaks of the perfect man and shows differences among the perfect. And again: “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. For to one is given through the Spirit a word of wisdom, to another a word of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith in the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing in the same Spirit, to another workings of miracles, to another prophecy, to another discernment of spirits, to another kinds of tongues, to another interpretation of tongues; but all these the one and the same Spirit works, distributing to each individually as he wills.”

This being so, the prophets are perfect in prophecy, the righteous in righteousness, the martyrs in confession, others in preaching; not without share in the common virtues, but succeeding in those to which they have been appointed. For who in his right mind would say that the prophet is not righteous? What then? Did not the righteous too prophesy, like Abraham? “For to one God gave the works of war, to another dancing, to another the lyre and song,” says Homer. But “each has his own gift from God, one in this way, another in that”; while the apostles were filled in all things.

You will find, at any rate, if you wish, from their deeds and writings, their knowledge, life, preaching, righteousness, purity, and prophecy. But it must be known that, although Paul is young in time, having flourished immediately after the Lord's ascension, yet his writing depends on the old covenant, breathing and speaking from it. For faith in Christ and the knowledge of the gospel are the explanation and fulfillment of the law. And for this reason it was said to the Hebrews: “If you do not believe, you will not understand”; that is, if you do not believe the one prophesied by the law and foretold by the law, you will not understand the old covenant, which he himself explained at his coming.

The one who understands and sees clearly, then, is the one who knows. His work is not abstaining from evils (for this is a step to the greatest progress), nor doing something good out of fear (for it is written, “Where shall I flee and where hide from your face? If I go up to heaven, you are there; if I go away to the ends of the sea, there is your right hand; if I go down to the depths, there is your Spirit”), nor even out of hope of promised honor (for it has been said, “Behold the Lord, and his reward before his face, to render to each according to his works,” “what eye has not seen and ear has not heard and has not entered the heart of man, what God has prepared for those who love him”); but only doing good out of love, chosen for the sake of the good itself, is for the one who knows.

For example, it was said to the Lord in the person of God: “Ask of me, and I will give you the nations as your inheritance,” teaching him to ask the most royal request, the salvation of men without reward, so that we might inherit and possess the Lord. Conversely, to desire knowledge about God for the sake of some need, that this may happen to me and that may not, is not characteristic of the one who knows; for him knowledge itself is sufficient reason for contemplation. For, if I may dare to say it, the one who pursues knowledge for the sake of divine understanding itself will not choose knowledge for the sake of wishing to be saved. For thinking, through practice, extends to always thinking; and always thinking, becoming the substance of the knower by an unbroken blending, and eternal contemplation, remains a living reality. If, then, one should propose to the one who knows, by hypothesis, which he would choose, the knowledge of God or eternal salvation, supposing these were separate (though they are above all identical), without the least hesitation he would choose the knowledge of God, judging to be choiceworthy for its own sake the property of faith that has ascended through love to knowledge.

This, then, is the first beneficence of the perfect man: when it is done not for any need of what contributes to himself, but, he having judged that doing good is good, the activity, intently carried on, does good in every action; not in some things and not in others, but established in a state of beneficence, no longer for glory or, as the philosophers say, good repute, nor for reward either from men or from God; he would complete his life according to the image and likeness of the Lord. And if, while he does good, something adverse should meet him, he will let the recompense go without resentment as a good thing, becoming just and good toward the just and the unjust. To such people the Lord says: “Be as your Father is perfect.” For such a man the flesh is dead, and he alone lives, having dedicated the tomb as a holy temple to the Lord, having turned the old sinful soul to God.

He is no longer self-controlled, but has come into a state of freedom from passion, waiting to put on the divine form. “If you give alms,” it says, “let no one know; and if you fast, anoint yourself,” so that God alone may know and not one of men; but not even the one who shows mercy ought to know that he shows mercy; for so he will be merciful at one time and not at another. But when he does good by settled habit, he will imitate the nature of the good, and his disposition will be nature and practice together. We must not be carried off and transferred, but arrive where we must by walking, passing through the whole narrow way. For this is to be drawn by the Father: to become worthy to receive the power of grace from God and to run up without hindrance. And if some hate the elect one, he knows their ignorance, pitying the mind of their ignorance.

Fittingly, then, this knowledge loves and teaches the ignorant, and trains them to honor the whole creation of Almighty God. And if he has learned to love God, he will not lose his virtue in any way, neither awake nor in dreams nor in any imagination; since a settled state never departs from itself so as to fall from being a settled state, whether knowledge is called a state or a disposition. For since differing thoughts never come in, the ruling part, remaining unaltered, does not take on any alteration of impressions, dreaming images from the movements of the day. That is why the Lord commands us to keep awake, so that our soul may never be moved by passion even in dreams, but commands us to keep our conduct at night pure and spotless as if carried on by day. For this is likeness to God as far as possible: to keep the mind in the same condition; and this is the condition of the mind as mind, while the varied disposition arises from passionate attachment to material things.

For this reason, it seems to me, they called the night euphronē (“the kindly time”), since at that time the soul, having ceased from the senses, turns in on itself and shares more in prudence (phronēsis). That is why the mysteries too are celebrated mostly at night, signifying the withdrawal of the soul from the body at night. “So then let us not sleep like the rest, but let us keep awake and be sober. For those who sleep sleep at night, and those who get drunk are drunk at night; but let us, who belong to the day, be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet the hope of salvation.”

And whatever they say about sleep must be understood of death too. For each shows the withdrawal of the soul, the one more, the other less; which one can also take from Heraclitus: “Man in the night … kindles a light for himself when he has died, his sight quenched; living, he touches the dead when asleep, his sight quenched; awake, he touches the sleeper.” “For blessed are those who know the time,” according to the apostle, “that it is already the hour for you to awake from sleep; for now salvation is nearer to us than when we believed. The night is far gone, and the day has drawn near. Let us, then, put off the works of darkness and put on the weapons of light.” By the day and light he allegorically means the Son, and by the weapons of light, metaphorically, the precepts. For this reason they say that one must go to sacred rites and prayers washed, pure, and bright;

and this outward adornment and purification is done for the sake of a symbol; but purity is to think holy things. And indeed the image of baptism too would be the one handed down from Moses to the poets, thus: “And she, having washed, with clean garments on her body,” Penelope goes to prayer; and “Telemachus, having washed his hands in the gray sea, prayed to Athena.” This was a custom of the Jews, as was their often washing after the bed. Well, then, was this too said: “Be pure not by washing but in mind.” For perfect purity, I think, is that of the mind, of deeds, and of thoughts, and also sincerity of words, and finally sinlessness in dreams.

Sufficient purification for a man, I think, is exact and firm repentance, if, having condemned ourselves for our former actions, we go forward, understanding afterward and raising our mind out of both what delights the senses and our former offenses. If, then, we must derive the etymology of knowledge (epistēmē) and take its meaning from standing (stasis), because it makes our soul stand in things, which before was carried now this way, now that, so too faith must be derived as the standing of our soul concerning what is. We long to learn about the one who is righteous always and in everything, who remains righteous neither fearing the punishment of the law, nor wary of the hatred of evil in those who live with him and prosecute offenses, nor suspecting danger from those wronged. For the one who abstains from doing any injustice for these reasons is not good willingly, but good out of fear. And Epicurus says that his wise man does not wish to do wrong for some gain; for he cannot have assurance of escaping notice. So if he is persuaded that he will escape notice, according to him he will do wrong.

Such are the dark doctrines. But if one abstains from wrongdoing in the hope of the reward given by God to the righteous, not even he will be good willingly; for as fear makes the first righteous, so reward makes this one, or rather shows him to seem righteous. And the hope after death, good for the good and the opposite for the wicked, is known not only to those who pursue barbarian wisdom, but also to the Pythagoreans; for they too declared hope to be the goal for those who philosophize. Indeed Socrates too says in the Phaedo that noble souls depart from here with good hope, and again, rebuking the wicked, contrasts them, saying, “For they live with evil hope.” Heraclitus too seems to agree with this in what he says about men: “There await men when they die things they do not expect or imagine.”

Divinely, then, Paul writes plainly to the Romans: “Affliction produces endurance, and endurance proven character, and proven character hope; and hope does not put to shame.” For endurance is for the sake of future hope; and hope is also, by the same name, the rendering and restoration of hope, which does not put to shame, being no longer reproached. But the one who obeys the bare calling, insofar as he has been called, moves toward knowledge neither through fear nor through pleasures; for he does not look around to see whether any profitable gain or enjoyment will follow him from outside, but, drawn by love of the truly lovable and led to what is fitting, he is godly.

So not even if, by hypothesis, he received authority from God to do forbidden things with impunity, nor if he received besides a promise to receive the good things of the blessed as a reward for them, nay, even if he were persuaded that he would escape God's notice in what he does, which is impossible, would he ever wish to do anything contrary to right reason, having once chosen what is truly good and choiceworthy in itself and therefore lovable. For we have not understood goodness to lie in food for the belly. He has heard that food will not commend us, nor indeed marriage, nor abstaining from marriage in ignorance, but the knowing work according to virtue; since then even the dog, an irrational animal, might be called self-controlled, fearing the raised stick and so abstaining from the meat. Know well that, with such people, when the promise held out beforehand is taken away, the threatened fear removed, and the impending danger separated, their purpose is exposed.

For they are not attracted by the very nature of the thing, so as to grasp truly in the way of knowledge that all things created for our use are good, such as marriage, for example, and the begetting of children taken up with self-restraint, but that better than good is becoming passionless and virtuous for the sake of likeness to the divine. Led by external advantages or disadvantages, they abstain from some things and not from others; and even what they keep away from they clearly loathe, slandering creation and the Creator; and while seeming to live faithfully, they hold an unholy judgment. But “You shall not desire” needs neither the compulsion of fear, forcing abstinence from pleasant things, nor a reward persuading by promise to check the impulses; nor obedience because of the commandment.

Those who have obeyed God because of the promise are caught by the promise, taken by the bait of pleasure; nor would turning away from sensible things produce, as a consequence, attachment to intelligible things. On the contrary, attachment to intelligible things brings about, according to nature, a turning away from sensible things for the one who knows, who has chosen the good in the way of knowledge by the selection of the beautiful, admiring creation and sanctifying the Creator, and sanctifying likeness to the divine. “But I will free myself from desire,” he will say, “because of my kinship with you, Lord. For the arrangement created is good, and all things are well governed; nothing happens without cause; I must be in what is yours, Almighty; and even if I am here, I am with you. I wish to be without fear, so that I may be able to draw near to you, and to be content with little, practicing your just selection of good things from their likes.”

The apostle, teaching us most mystically and most holily the truly thankful choice, has shown that it is made not by rejecting the others as bad, but as the better among good things, saying: “So both the one who gives his virgin in marriage does well, and the one who does not give her in marriage does better,” for what is seemly and devoted to the Lord without distraction. We know that what is hard to obtain is not necessary, and that what is necessary has been made easy to obtain by God in his love of good. That is why Democritus says well that nature and teaching are similar, and briefly gives the reason: “For teaching reshapes the man, and in reshaping it makes nature”; and it makes no difference whether one was formed such by nature or refashioned by time and learning. The Lord has provided both, the one by creation, the other by the re-creation and renewal from the covenant. What benefits the more sovereign part is more choiceworthy, and the mind is the most sovereign of all. To whom, then, truly good things appear most pleasant, he obtains from himself the fruit he longs for, the stability of the soul. “But the one who listens to me,” it says, “will rest in peace, confident, and will be quiet without fear of any evil.” “Be confident with all your heart and your mind in God.” In this way it is possible for the one who knows already to become a god: “I said, you are gods, and sons of the Most High.”

And Empedocles too says that the souls of the wise become gods, writing thus: “And at the end they become seers, singers, physicians, and leaders among earthly men; from there they spring up as gods, highest in honors.” Man in general, then, is formed according to the idea of the connate spirit; for he is not fashioned formless and shapeless in the workshop of nature, where the birth of man is mystically accomplished, the art and the substance being common; but a particular man is characterized by the impression formed in the soul by what he chooses. In this way we say that Adam too was perfect as regards his formation; for nothing that characterizes the idea and form of man was lacking to him. But in becoming he was to receive his perfection, and to be justified through obedience; this was what was to grow to manhood, what rested with him. The cause lies in the one who chose, and still more in the one who chose what was forbidden; God is not responsible. For birth is twofold: that of things begotten, and that of things that become.

And the courage of man, who is subject to passion, they say, makes the one who shares in it fearless and invincible in substance; and anger is the mind's bodyguard in endurance, perseverance, and the like; while self-restraint and saving prudence are set over desire. But God is without passion, without anger and without desire; and he is not fearless in the sense that he does not avoid dangers, nor self-restrained in the sense that he rules over desires; for neither could the nature of God fall into any danger, nor does God flee cowardice, just as he will not desire, so as to rule over desire. Mystically, then, the Pythagorean saying was applied to us too, that man too must become one; since the high priest himself is one, God being one, according to the unchangeable state of always running toward good things.

For example, the Savior, in doing away with desire, did away with anger too, which is a desire for revenge; for in general the passionate belongs to every kind of desire; and a man deified into freedom from passion becomes undefiled and one. As those at sea held by an anchor pull on the anchor, but do not draw it to them, but draw themselves to the anchor, so those who, according to the life of knowledge, draw God to themselves, without knowing it bring themselves to God. For the one who serves God serves himself. In the contemplative life, then, one cares for oneself while worshiping God, and through one's own pure purification beholds God holily; for self-restraint, understood as self-possession, observing and contemplating itself unceasingly, is made like God as far as possible.

For example, what rests with us is that of which we are equally master, both of it and of its opposite, as philosophizing or not, and believing or disbelieving. Because we are equally masters of each of the opposites, what rests with us is found to be possible. And indeed the commandments can be done or not done by us, and praise and blame reasonably follow them; and those punished for their sins are punished for them alone; for what has happened has passed, and what has happened could never become unhappened. The sins before faith, then, are forgiven by the Lord, not so that they have not happened, but as though they had not happened. Yet Basilides says that not all are forgiven, but only the involuntary ones done in ignorance; as though some man, and not God, were providing so great a gift. To him Scripture says: “You supposed, lawless one, that I would be like you.” But even if we are punished for voluntary sins, we are punished not so that they may become undone, but because they happened. And punishment does not benefit the sinner toward not having done it, but toward sinning no more, and toward no one else falling into similar things.

Here, then, the good God trains for these three reasons: first, so that the one trained may become better than himself; then, so that those who can be saved through examples may be warned and turned back beforehand; and third, so that the one wronged may not be easily despised and apt to be wronged. There are also two ways of correction: the one instructive, the other punitive, which we have also called educative. It must be known, however, that those who fall into sins after the washing are the ones who are trained; for what was done before has been forgiven, but what follows is cleansed. About unbelievers it is said that they have been reckoned “as chaff which the wind drives away from the face of the earth,” and “as a drop from a bucket.”

“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.

So much, in outline, about the one who knows; let us now go on to what follows, and consider faith again. For there are some who distinguish, saying that our faith concerns the Son, while knowledge concerns the Father. But they fail to notice that we must truly believe in the Son, that he is the Son, that he came, how and why, and about his passion; and we must know who the Son of God is. And neither is there knowledge without faith, nor faith without knowledge; nor indeed the Father without the Son; for as soon as he is Father, he is Father of the Son, and the Son is the true teacher about the Father. And for someone to believe in the Son, he must know the Father, to whom the Son also belongs. Again, in order to come to know the Father, we must believe in the Son, because the Son of God teaches; for from faith to knowledge, through the Son to the Father. And the knowledge of the Son and the Father, according to the rule of true knowledge, is the grasp and comprehension of truth through the truth. We, then, are those who are faithful in what is disbelieved, and knowers in what is unknown; that is, knowers in what is unknown and disbelieved by all, but believed and known by few; knowers not in word, recording works, but in contemplation itself.

“Blessed is he who speaks into the ears of those who hear”; and faith is the ears of the soul. The Lord hints at this faith when he says, “Let the one who has ears to hear, hear,” so that, having believed, he may understand what he says, as he says it. Homer too, the oldest of the poets, using “hearing” for perceiving, the specific for the general, writes: “And most of all they themselves heard.” For in general the harmony and concord of the faith of both comes to one end, salvation. The apostle is our unerring witness, saying: “For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you; that is, that we may be encouraged together among you through our mutual faith, both yours and mine.” And again, going on, he adds: “For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith.” The apostle, then, appears to proclaim a twofold faith, or rather one that admits growth and perfection. For the common faith underlies as a foundation (at any rate to those who longed to be healed, moved by faith, the Lord said, “Your faith has saved you”); but the excellent faith, built on it, is perfected together with the believer, and is completed by what comes from learning and from fulfilling the commandments of the Word; such were the apostles, of whose faith it is said that it could move mountains and transplant trees.

That is why, perceiving the greatness of its power, they asked that faith be added to them, faith like a grain of mustard seed that bites the soul beneficially and grows mightily in it, so that the words about heavenly things may rest on it. For if someone knows God by nature, as Basilides thinks, … calling the excellent intellection faith and kingship, and creation of good things, … a substance worthy of the maker, near to him, interpreting it as substance, not authority, and nature and reality, an indefinable beauty of an unsurpassable creation; he does not call faith the rational assent of a soul with free will. So the commandments, both of the old and the new covenant, are superfluous, if someone is saved by nature, as Valentinus would have it, and is faithful and elect by nature, as Basilides thinks. Nature could then shine forth in time even without the Savior's coming. But if they say that the Lord's coming was necessary, the peculiarities of nature are gone for them, the elect being saved by learning, purification, and good works, not by nature.

Abraham, at any rate, who believed through hearing the voice that promised under the oak in Mamre, “To you I give this land and to your seed,” was he elect or not? If he was not, how did he believe at once, as though by nature? But if he was elect, their hypothesis is undone, since an election is found even before the Lord's coming, and indeed a saved one: “for it was counted to him as righteousness.” For if someone should dare to say, following Marcion, that the Creator saves the one who believes in him even before the Lord's coming, his own salvation, the power of the Good One will be surpassed by him, attempting to save late and after the Creator they praise, and that by learning from him or imitating him. But even if, being so, the Good One saves according to them, he undertakes salvation neither of his own nor with the consent of the one who made the creation, but by force or by deceit. And how is one who is so, and later, still good? And if the place differs and the dwelling of the Almighty falls short of the dwelling of the good God, yet the will of the one who saves does not fall short of the good, since it came first.

From what we have gone through, unbelievers are shown to be foolish; “for their paths are crooked and they do not know peace,” says the prophet. And the divine Paul exhorted us to refuse foolish and uninstructed questionings, because they breed quarrels. And Aeschylus cries out: “Do not toil in vain at what brings no profit.” The inquiry that understands with faith, building on the foundation of faith the magnificent knowledge of the truth, we know is best. And we know that neither are plain things inquired into (as whether it is day when it is day), nor things obscure and never to become plain (such as whether the stars are even or odd in number), nor indeed things that can be turned around (those are turned around which can be said equally by those who argue the opposite, as whether the embryo is a living being or not); a fourth kind is when an irrefutable and indissoluble argument is put forward from one side of these. If, then, the cause of inquiry is removed in all these ways, faith is established. For we put forward to them that irrefutable thing: that it is God who speaks and sets out in writing about each thing I inquire into.

Who, then, is so godless as to disbelieve God and demand proofs from God as from men? Again, of questions, some need sense perception, as if someone asks whether fire is hot or snow white; some need admonition and rebuke, as Aristotle says, like that question whether one should honor one's parents. And there are some that deserve even punishment, such as demanding proofs whether there is providence. Since providence exists, then, it is unholy to think that all prophecy and the arrangement concerning the Savior did not come about according to providence; and perhaps one should not even try to prove such things, since divine providence is plain from the sight of all things seen, works of art and wisdom, some coming about in order, others revealed in order. And the one who gave us a share in being and living has given us a share in reason too, wishing us to live rationally and well. For the Word of the Father of the universe is not the uttered word, but the most manifest wisdom and goodness of God, and his almighty and truly divine power, not incomprehensible even to those who do not confess him, the almighty will.

Since some are unbelieving and others contentious, not all attain the perfection of the good. For it is not possible to attain it without choice, nor does everything rest on our intention, such as the outcome. “For by grace we are saved,” not, however, without good works; but those born for the good must acquire some zeal for it; and we must also have a sound and unrepentant intention in the pursuit of the good, for which we most need divine grace, right teaching, pure docility, and the Father's drawing to himself. For, bound to an earthly body, we grasp sensible things through the body, but lay hold of intelligible things through the rational power itself. And if someone expects to grasp everything by the senses, he has fallen far from the truth. At any rate the apostle writes spiritually about the knowledge of God: “For now we see as through a mirror, but then face to face.” For the vision of the truth has been given to few. Plato too says in the Epinomis: “I do not say that it is possible for all men to become blessed and happy, except a few; as long as we live, this I define; but there is a fair hope that after death one may obtain everything.” The words of Moses mean the same: “No one will see my face and live.” For it is clear that no one can ever clearly grasp God during the time of life; but “the pure in heart will see God” when they arrive at the final perfection. For since the soul was too weak to grasp what is, we needed a divine teacher; the Savior is sent down, teacher and provider of the good possession, the holy token of the great providence, not to be spoken.

“Where, then, is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?” it says. And again: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the understanding of the understanding I will set aside,” clearly of these who are wise in their own conceit and contentious. Very finely, then, Jeremiah says: “Thus says the Lord: Stand on the roads and ask for the eternal paths, which is the good way, and walk in it, and you will find purification for your souls.” Ask, he says, and inquire of those who know, without contention and dispute. Having learned the way of truth, let us walk straight without turning, until we come upon what we long for. Fittingly, then, the king of the Romans (his name was Numa), being a Pythagorean, was the first of all men to found a temple of Faith and Peace. And to Abraham, who believed, “it was counted as righteousness.” He, pursuing the lofty philosophy of what happens in the air and the elevated philosophy of what moves in the heavens, was called Abram, which is interpreted “elevated father.” But later, looking up to heaven, whether seeing the Son in the Spirit, as some explain, or a glorious angel, or otherwise recognizing a God greater than creation and all its order, he received the alpha, the knowledge of the one and only God, and was called Abraham, becoming, instead of a natural philosopher, wise and a lover of God. For it is interpreted “elect father of sound”; for the uttered word sounds, and its father is the mind, and the mind of the good man is chosen.

And I am inclined greatly to praise the poet of Acragas, who hymns faith thus: “O friends, I know that truth is in the words I will speak; but very hard for men, and grudged, is the rush of faith upon the mind.” That is why the apostle too exhorts that our faith be not in the wisdom of men who profess to persuade, but in the power of God, which alone can save even without proofs, by bare faith. “For the most reputable man knows and guards … opinions; and justice will surely catch the fabricators of lies and their witnesses,” says the Ephesian. For he too, having learned from the barbarian philosophy, knows the purification through fire of those who have lived badly, which the Stoics later called the conflagration; according to which they also teach that the individual will rise again, thereby embracing the resurrection. And Plato says that the earth is purified at certain times by fire and water, thus: “There have been and will be many destructions of men in many ways, the greatest by fire and water, and other lesser ones by countless other means.” And a little later he adds: “The truth is that there is a deviation of the bodies moving around the earth and in the heavens, and at long intervals a destruction of things on earth by much fire.” Then he adds about the flood: “And when again the gods purify the earth with waters and flood it, the herdsmen and shepherds in the mountains are saved, while those in our cities are carried by the rivers into the sea.”

We showed in the first Miscellany that the philosophers of the Greeks are called thieves, having taken the chief doctrines from Moses and the prophets without gratitude. To this we will add that those angels who had obtained the upper lot, slipping down into pleasures, told the secrets to women, as much as had come to their knowledge, while the other angels concealed them, or rather kept them for the Lord's coming. From there flowed the teaching of providence and the revelation of heavenly things. And prophecy having now been passed on to the Greek poets, the dogmatic treatment by the philosophers became partly true, when they hit the mark by conjecture, and partly mistaken, when they did not understand the hidden meaning of the prophetic allegory; which it is our purpose to note, running briefly over what is pressing.

We say, then, that faith must advance not idle and alone, but with inquiry. For I do not say that one should not inquire at all; for “Seek and you will find,” it says. “What is sought is caught, but what is neglected escapes,” according to Sophocles. And Menander the comic poet says similar things: “All that is sought,” say the wisest, “needs care.” But we must stretch the soul's discernment toward discovery and clear away what hinders, and cast out entirely rivalry, envy, and strife itself, which will perish most miserably from among men. For very finely Timon of Phlius writes: “Man-destroying Strife goes about, crying emptily, sister and fellow worker of murderous Quarrel; she rolls about wandering over everything, and then she has fixed her head in a mortal and casts it into hope.” Then, a little further on, he adds: “For who set these to fight in destructive strife? A crowd running with Echo; for, angry at those silent, he stirred up a chattering disease on men, and many perished,” about the lying argument, the horned, the hidden one, the crocodile, the heap, and the veiled one, and about ambiguities and sophisms.

To inquire about God, then, if it tends not to strife but to discovery, is saving. For it is written in David: “The poor will eat and be satisfied, and those who seek him will praise the Lord; their heart will live forever and ever.” For those who seek according to true inquiry, praising the Lord, will be filled with the gift from God, that is, with knowledge; and their soul will live; for the heart is allegorized as the soul, which has supplied life, because the Father is made known through the Son. Nor must we offer our ears freely to all who speak and write, since cups too, when handled by many by the ears and soiled, lose their ears, and besides, falling, are themselves broken. In the same way those who have soiled the pure hearing of faith with much babbling, at last deafened to the truth, become useless and fall to the ground.

Not without reason, then, do we bid children, taken by the ears, to kiss their relatives, hinting, no doubt, that the perception of love comes through hearing; and God is love, known to those who love, as God is faithful, handed down to the faithful through learning. And we must make ourselves his own through divine love, so that we may behold like by like, listening to the word of truth guilelessly and purely, like children obedient to us. And this is what was hinted by whoever it was that inscribed at the entrance of the temple in Epidaurus: “Pure must he be who goes within the fragrant temple; and purity is to think holy things.” “And unless you become like these children, you will not enter,” he says, “into the kingdom of heaven.” For there the temple of God appears, established on three foundations, faith, hope, and love.

About faith, then, we have set out sufficient testimonies from the writings of the Greeks; but so as not to go on too long by striving to collect a great deal about hope and love too, it is enough to say only this: that in the Crito Socrates, placing living well and dying well before living, thinks he has some hope of another life after death. And in the Phaedrus too, saying that the soul alone, when by itself, can share in true wisdom and in what is greater than human power, when love from here gives it wings to heaven, he says that, having arrived through philosophic love at the goal of hope, it takes the beginning of another, eternal life.

In the Symposium he says that a natural love for the begetting of what is like has been mixed into all, in men of men only, but in the good man of what is similar to him. And it is impossible for the good man to do this without having the virtues perfect, by which he will train the young who come to him, and, as he says in the Theaetetus, will beget and make them men; for some are pregnant in body and others in soul; since among the barbarian philosophers too, to instruct and enlighten is called to beget again; and “I begot you in Christ Jesus,” says the noble apostle somewhere. And Empedocles counts Love among the first principles, understanding it as a uniting love, “which you must see with the mind, and not sit amazed with your eyes.” And Parmenides too, in his poem, hinting at such things about Hope, says: “Behold things absent as firmly present to the mind; for you will not cut off what is from holding to what is, neither scattered everywhere in every way throughout the world, nor gathered together.”

For the one who hopes, like the one who believes, sees intelligible and future things with the mind. If, then, we say that something is just, and say that something is beautiful, and speak of truth too, yet have never seen any such thing with our eyes, but only with the mind; and the Word of God says, “I am the truth”; then the Word is contemplated by the mind. “Whom do you call the true philosophers?” he said. “Those who love the sight of truth,” said I. And in the Phaedrus Plato will show it, speaking of truth as an Idea. And the Idea is a thought of God, which the barbarians have called the Word of God. The words run thus: “For one must dare to speak the truth, especially when speaking about truth; for the colorless, shapeless, intangible substance that truly is, is visible only to the mind, the soul's pilot.” And the Word, coming forth, is the cause of creation; then also he begets himself, when the Word becomes flesh, so that he may also be seen. The righteous man, then, will seek a loving discovery, and hastening toward it is fortunate; for “to the one who knocks,” it says, “it will be opened; ask and it will be given to you.” For “the violent who seize the kingdom” are said to take it by force not with contentious words, but by the perseverance of a right life and unceasing prayers, having wiped away the stains of their former sins. “Vice can be chosen in abundance.” “And God helps the one who toils.” “For the hard-won gifts of the Muses do not lie in the middle for anyone who happens by to carry off.”

The recognition of ignorance, then, is the first lesson for the one walking according to reason. Someone, being ignorant, sought; and seeking, finds the teacher; and finding, believed; and believing, hoped; and loving, is then made like the one he loved, hastening to be what he loved first. Socrates shows some such method to Alcibiades, who asks thus: “Do you not think I could know about just things otherwise?” “Yes, if you found out.” “But do you not think I could find out?” “Very much so, if you sought.” “Then do you not think I would seek?” “I do, if you thought you did not know.” In this way too the lamps of the wise virgins, lit at night in the great darkness of ignorance, which Scripture hinted at by night: wise souls, pure as virgins, understanding that they stand in worldly ignorance, light the light, rouse the mind, illuminate the darkness, drive out ignorance, seek the truth, and await the appearing of the Teacher. “For it is impossible,” said I, “for the multitude to be philosophic.” “For many are the thyrsus-bearers, but few the Bacchants,” according to Plato. “For many are called, but few chosen.” “And not in all,” says the apostle, “is knowledge.” “And pray that we may be delivered from absurd and wicked men; for not all have faith.” And the philosophical poetry of Cleanthes the Stoic writes similar things thus: “Do not look to opinion, wishing to be wise quickly, nor fear the undiscerning and shameless opinion of the many. For the multitude does not have understanding judgment, neither of just nor of beautiful things; you would find this among few men.”

More sententiously the comic poet says briefly: “It is shameful to judge fine things by the great noise.” For they have heard, I think, that fine Wisdom saying to us: “In the midst of the foolish watch your time, but in the midst of the thoughtful persevere.” And again: “The wise will hide perception.” For the many demand proof as a pledge of truth, not content with the bare salvation that comes from faith. “But for the wicked it is very much their way to distrust the powerful; but as the pledges of our Muse bid, know, the word having been divided within your heart.” For it is customary for the wicked, says Empedocles, to wish to master the truth by disbelieving. That our doctrines are reputable and worthy of belief the Greeks will know when the account is examined more fully in what follows; for we are taught like by like. For Solomon says, “Answer the fool according to his folly.” That is why we must hold out their own to those who ask for the wisdom that is theirs, so that through their own they may most easily and fittingly come to faith in the truth. “For I became all things to all,” he says, “that I might win all”; since the rain of divine grace too is sent down on just and unjust. “Or is God the God of the Jews only? Is he not also of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles too, since God is one,” cries the noble apostle.

But since they are unwilling to believe the good justly, or knowledge for salvation, we ourselves, considering their things our own, because all things are God's, and especially since good things have gone forth from us to the Greeks, will deal with them as they are naturally able to hear. For this great crowd judges what is intelligent or just not by the truth but by what pleases it; and it would be pleased by nothing more than by what is like itself. For whatever is still blind and deaf, without understanding or the fearless and keen-sighted vision of a soul that loves contemplation, which the Savior alone implants, like the uninitiated at the mysteries or the unmusical at the dances, not yet pure nor worthy of pure truth, but discordant, disorderly, and material, must still stand outside the divine chorus. “For we compare spiritual things with spiritual.” That is why the Egyptians, through what they call their sanctuaries, and the Hebrews, through the veil, hinted at the manner of concealment, which is truly divine and most necessary for us because of the sacred word stored up in the sanctuary of truth; through which only those consecrated were allowed to enter, that is, those dedicated to God, circumcised in the desires of the passions for love of the divine alone. For Plato too thought it unlawful for the impure to touch the pure.

From this, prophecies and oracles are spoken in riddles, and the mysteries are not shown freely to all who come, but with certain purifications and preliminary instructions. “For the Muse was not yet greedy for gain nor a hireling; nor were the sweet, honey-voiced, soft-sounding songs sold by Terpsichore, their faces silvered.” For example, those educated among the Egyptians first of all learn the method of Egyptian letters called epistolographic; second, the hieratic, which the sacred scribes use; and last and final, the hieroglyphic, of which one kind is literal, by the first letters, and another symbolic. Of the symbolic, one kind is literal by imitation, another is written as it were figuratively, and another is plainly allegorized by certain riddles. When they wish to write “sun,” at any rate, they make a circle, and for “moon” a crescent shape, according to the literal form. Figuratively, they engrave by transferring and transposing according to affinity, sometimes altering, sometimes transforming in many ways.

At any rate they record the praises of kings, handing them down in theological myths, through reliefs. Let this be an example of the third kind, by riddles: they likened the other stars to the bodies of snakes because of their oblique course, and the sun to that of the beetle, since it forms a round shape from ox dung and rolls it, facing backward. They say too that this creature lives six months under the earth and the other part of the year above the earth, and sows its seed into the ball and begets, and that there is no female beetle. All, then, so to speak, both barbarians and Greeks, who have treated of divine things have hidden the first principles of things, and handed down the truth in riddles and symbols, allegories and metaphors, and such figures; such too are the oracles among the Greeks, and Pythian Apollo is called Loxias (“the oblique”).

Indeed the sayings of those called the wise men among the Greeks show, in a few words, the expression of something greater; for example, “Spare time,” either because life is short and we must not spend this time in vain; or, conversely, spare your private expenses, so that, even if you live many years, it says, you may not lack necessities.

Likewise “Know yourself” indicates many things: both that you are mortal and that you were born a human being; and also, by comparison with the other eminences of life, that you are of no account, even if called glorious or rich; or, conversely, that being rich and glorious you should not pride yourself on an advantage that does not last. And know, it says, for what you were born, whose image you are, what your substance is, what your creation, and what your kinship to the divine, and the like. And the Spirit says through the prophet Isaiah: “I will give you dark, hidden treasures.” And the treasures of God and his unfailing wealth are wisdom, hard to hunt down.

And the poets too, who learned theology from these prophets, philosophize much by hidden meaning: I mean Orpheus, Linus, Musaeus, Homer, Hesiod, and those wise in this way. The charm of poetry is a veil for them against the many; and dreams and symbols are all more obscure to men, not from envy (for it is not lawful to think of God as subject to passion), but so that inquiry, slipping into the meaning of the riddles, may run up to the discovery of the truth. So Sophocles, the tragic poet, says somewhere: “And I know the god to be such: to the wise always a riddler of oracles, but to the foolish a poor teacher, and in brief,” using “poor” for “simple.”

Plainly, at any rate, it is written in the Psalms about all our Scripture, as spoken in parable: “Hear, my people, my law; incline your ear to the words of my mouth; I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter riddles from the beginning.” And the noble apostle says similar things thus: “We speak wisdom among the perfect, but a wisdom not of this age nor of the rulers of this age, who are passing away; but we speak God's wisdom in a mystery, the hidden wisdom, which God predestined before the ages for our glory; which none of the rulers of this age has known; for if they had known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.” The philosophers were not moved to insult the Lord's coming; it remains, then, that the apostle rebukes the conceit of the wise among the Jews. That is why he adds: “But we preach, as it is written, what eye has not seen and ear has not heard and has not entered the heart of man, what God has prepared for those who love him. For God has revealed it to us through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God.” For he knows as spiritual and knowing the disciple of the Holy Spirit supplied from God, which is the mind of Christ. “But the psychic man does not receive the things of the Spirit; for they are foolishness to him.”

For example, the apostle, in contrast to the perfection of knowledge, calls the common faith sometimes a foundation and sometimes milk, writing in this way: “Brothers, I could not speak to you as spiritual, but as fleshly, as infants in Christ. I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able. But not even now are you able; for you are still fleshly. For where there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not fleshly and walking according to man?” These are the choices of sinful men; but those who have abstained from them think divine things and partake of knowing food. “According to the grace given me,” he says, “as a wise master builder I have laid a foundation, and another builds on it gold and silver, precious stones.” These are the knowing structures built on the foundation of faith in Jesus Christ; but “stubble” and “wood and hay” are the additions of the heresies. “And the fire will test what sort each one's work is.” Hinting at the knowing structure in the letter to the Romans too, he says: “For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you.” But it was not possible to write such gifts openly in a letter.

For example, the Pythagorean symbols depend very closely and in a very hidden way on barbarian philosophy. The Samian advises not to have a swallow in the house; that is, not to receive a talkative, whispering, loose-tongued man, unable to keep what he shares. “For the swallow and the turtledove, birds of the field, have known the times of their coming,” says Scripture; and one should never live with chatter. Indeed the turtledove, which murmurs, showing ungrateful slander and complaint, is fittingly driven out: “Let none of you sit by and mutter, one here and another there.” And the swallow, by which the myth of Pandion is hinted at, deserves to be shunned because of the sufferings told of it, from which we have received what Tereus suffered and what he did. It also hunts the musical cicadas; so the persecutor of the Word deserves to be driven away. “By Hera, scepter-bearer, who looks down on Olympus, I have a faithful storeroom on my tongue,” the poetry says. And Aeschylus: “But I too have a key as guard upon my tongue.” Again, Pythagoras commanded that, when the pot is taken off the fire, one should not leave its mark in the ashes, but confuse it, and, on rising from bed, disturb the bedclothes; for he hinted that one must not only destroy pride, but leave no trace of anger either, and when it has boiled up and ceased, calm it and wipe away all resentment. “Let not the sun go down on your anger,” says Scripture; and the one who said, “You shall not desire,” removed all resentment. For anger is found to be an impulse of desire of a tame soul, seeking revenge irrationally in excess.

In the same way the bed is advised to be disturbed, so that one may no longer remember any nocturnal emission, nor sleep by day, nor the pleasure of the night. Perhaps too he hinted that one must confuse the dark imagination by the light of truth. “Be angry and do not sin,” David says, teaching that one must not assent to the imagination nor carry out the deed confirming the anger. Again, “Do not sail on land” is a Pythagorean symbol, and it shows that one must refuse taxes and such hirings, being troublesome and unstable. That is why the Word says tax collectors will hardly be saved. Again, Pythagoras enjoins not to wear a ring, nor to engrave images of gods on them, as Moses long before expressly legislated that no carved, molten, molded, or painted image or likeness should be made, so that we may not attend to sensible things but pass to intelligible ones. For familiarity with the ready sight cheapens the dignity of the divine, and to worship intelligible substance through matter is to dishonor it through sense. That is why the wisest of the Egyptian priests set apart the shrine of Athena open to the sky, as the Hebrews built their temple without an image. And there are some who, worshiping God, make an image of heaven containing the stars and bow to it.

Indeed, since Scripture says, “Let us make man according to our image and likeness,” I think it worth setting out the saying of Eurysus the Pythagorean, which runs thus: in his work On Fortune, having said that the Creator made man using himself as a model, he added: “And the tent is like the rest, as having come from the same matter, but worked by the best craftsman, who crafted it using himself as the archetype.” And in general Pythagoras and his followers, together with Plato, most of all the philosophers, associated closely with the lawgiver, as can be gathered from their doctrines themselves. And by a certain happy report of divination, running together not without God into some prophetic sayings, grasping the truth in parts and kinds, they honored it with names not obscure nor going beyond the expression of the things, having received an impression of kinship with the truth. Hence Greek philosophy is like the light from a wick, which men kindle, skillfully stealing light from the sun; but when the Word was proclaimed, all that holy light shone out. Then in houses the stolen light is useful at night, but by day the fire is outshone, and the whole night is lit up by so great a sun of intelligible light.

For example, Pythagoras made a summary of what Moses said about justice, saying, “Do not step over the balance,” that is, do not transgress equality in distributions, honoring justice, “which always binds friends to friends, cities to cities, and allies to allies; for equality is by nature lawful for men, but the lesser is always hostile to the greater and begins the day of enmity,” as the poet gracefully says. That is why the Lord says, “Take my yoke,” because it is kind and light. And to his disciples contending for first place he enjoins equality with simplicity, saying that they must become like children. Likewise the apostle writes that in Christ no one is slave or free, Greek or Jew. For the new creation in Christ is without rivalry and greed, and is just equality; for envy, jealousy, and grief stand outside the divine chorus; for which reason the initiates too forbid eating the heart, teaching that one must never bite and devour the soul with heaviness and pains over what happens against one's will. Wretched, at any rate, was that man whom Homer too describes as wandering alone, “eating his own heart.”

Again, since the gospel and the apostles, like all the prophets, set forth two ways, and call the one narrow and hard, hedged in by commandments and prohibitions, and the opposite, leading to destruction, broad and spacious, unhindered by pleasures and anger, and say, “Blessed is the man who has not walked in the counsel of the ungodly and has not stood in the way of sinners,” the fable of Prodicus of Ceos about Virtue and Vice follows; and Pythagoras does not hesitate to forbid walking on the public roads, commanding that one must not follow the opinions of the many, which are undiscerning and discordant. And Aristocritus, in the first book of his Refutations against Heracleodorus, mentions a letter running thus: “Atoias, king of the Scythians, to the people of Byzantium: Do not harm my revenues, lest my mares drink your water.” For the barbarian symbolically indicated the war he was going to bring on them. Likewise the poet Euphorion brings in Nestor saying: “We have not yet watered the Achaean horses at the Simoeis.” For this reason too the Egyptians set up sphinxes before their temples, as the account of God is enigmatic and obscure; and perhaps too because the divine must be both loved and feared: loved as gentle and kind to the holy, feared as inexorably just to the unholy. For the sphinx hints at the image of a beast and a man together.

It would be long to go through all the prophetic and legal sayings spoken in riddles, picking them out; for almost all Scripture is uttered in this way. It is enough, I think, for one who has sense, to set out a few examples to show what is proposed. For example, the reference of the seven enclosures around the old temple, recorded among the Hebrews, confesses concealment, as does the arrangement of the long robe, hinting by various symbols of the phenomena at the connection from heaven to earth. And the covering and the veil were embroidered with blue and purple, scarlet and linen, and hinted that the nature of the elements contains the revelation of God; for purple is from water, linen from the earth, blue, being dark, is like the air, as scarlet is like fire.

Between the covering and the veil, where the priests were allowed to enter, lay the altar of incense, a symbol of the earth set in the middle of this world, from which the exhalations come. And that place was in the middle between the area inside the veil, where only the high priest was allowed to enter on set days, and the outer court all around, open to all the Hebrews; that is why they say it is the very middle of heaven and earth; others say it is a symbol of the intelligible and the sensible world. The covering (kalymma), then, a barrier (kōlyma) to popular unbelief, was stretched before the five pillars, keeping out those in the enclosure. For this reason, most mystically, five loaves are broken by the Savior and multiply for the crowd of hearers. For many attend to sensible things as though they alone exist. “Look around,” says Plato, “lest any of the uninitiated overhear.” These are those who think nothing exists but what they can grasp tightly with their two hands, and do not accept actions, becomings, and all the invisible as part of being. For such are those who attend only to the five senses. But the understanding of God is inaccessible to the ears and the like.

Hence the Son is called the Face of the Father, having become flesh-bearing through the five senses, the Word who makes known the Father's character. “And if we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.” “We walk by faith, not by sight,” says the noble apostle. Inside the covering, then, the priestly ministry is hidden, and it keeps those laboring in it far from those outside. Again, the veil at the entrance into the holy of holies; four pillars there, a sign of the holy tetrad of the ancient covenants; and also the mystic four-lettered name, which those alone to whom the sanctuary was accessible wore; it is pronounced Iaoue, which is interpreted “he who is and will be.” And indeed among the Greeks too the name theos contains four letters. And into the intelligible world the Lord alone, having become high priest, enters, penetrating through his sufferings into the knowledge of the unspeakable, withdrawing above every name known by voice. Indeed the lampstand lay to the south of the altar of incense, by which the motions of the seven light-bearers are shown, which make their circuits to the south. For three branches grew on each side of the lampstand, with the lamps on them; since the sun too, like the lampstand, set in the middle of the other planets, gives light, by a kind of divine music, to those above it and those below it.

The golden lampstand has another riddle too, of the sign of Christ, not only in its shape, but in shedding light in many ways and in many parts on those who believe in him, hope, and see, through the ministry of the first-created. They say that the seven eyes of the Lord are the seven spirits resting on the rod that flowers from the root of Jesse. To the north of the altar of incense the table was placed, on which the loaves were set out, because the north winds are the most nourishing. They might also be certain dwelling places of churches breathing together into one body and one assembly. And what is recorded about the holy ark signifies the things of the intelligible world, hidden and closed to the many. Indeed, those golden figures, each with six wings, show either the two Bears, as some would have it, or, rather, the two hemispheres; and the name Cherubim means much knowledge. But both together have twelve wings, and through the zodiac and the time carried with it they signify the sensible world.

About these, I think, the tragedy too, speaking of nature, says: “Unwearied Time goes around, full, in ever-flowing stream, begetting itself; and the twin Bears, with swift-wandering beats of their wings, guard the Atlantean pole.” Atlas, the pole that does not suffer, can also be the fixed sphere; but perhaps it is better understood as motionless eternity. But I think it better that the ark, called by the Hebrew name thēbōtha, signifies something else. It is interpreted “one in place of one of all places.” Whether, then, the Ogdoad and the intelligible world, or God who contains all things, shapeless and invisible, is indicated, let it be put off for now; except that it signifies the rest with the glorifying spirits, which the Cherubim hint at. For the one who bade us not even to fashion a carved image would never himself have made a likeness of holy things; nor is there at all any composite and sensible living being in heaven like this; but the face is a symbol of the rational soul, the wings of the lofty ministries and activities of powers on the right and left, and the voice is thankful glory in unceasing contemplation.

It is enough to have gone this far with the mystical interpretation. The long robe of the high priest is a symbol of the sensible world; the five stones and the two carbuncles, of the seven planets, for Saturn and the Moon; for the one is southern, moist, earthy, and heavy, the other airy; that is why she is called by some Artemis, as “air-cutter” (aerotomos), and air is dark. And those set over the planets, cooperating according to divine providence in the begetting of things here, he fittingly describes as set on the breast and shoulders, through which comes the activity that produces generation, the first seven; and the breast is the dwelling place of heart and soul. The stones might also otherwise be various ways of salvation, some set in the upper, others in the lower parts of the whole body being saved. And the three hundred and sixty bells hanging from the long robe are the time of a year, “the acceptable year of the Lord,” proclaiming and resounding the greatest appearing of the Savior. And the golden headdress raised up shows the royal authority of the Lord, since the Savior is the head of the church.

The headdress above it, at any rate, is a sign of the most sovereign rule; besides, we have heard, as it has been said, “And the head of Christ is God,” the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Indeed the breastpiece, made up of the ephod, which is a symbol of work, and the oracle (this hints at the Word), is also an image of heaven, which came to be by the Word, subject to Christ, the head of all things, and moving in the same way and likewise. The shining emerald stones on the ephod, then, signify the sun and moon, the helpers of nature. And the shoulder, I think, is the beginning of the hand. The twelve set on the breast in four rows describe for us the zodiac according to the four turnings of the year. Besides, the law and the prophets had to be set under the Lord's head, through which the righteous are indicated in each of the covenants; for we would say well that the apostles are both prophets and righteous, the one and the same Holy Spirit working through all. And as the Lord is above the whole world, or rather beyond the intelligible, so the name inscribed on the plate has been thought worthy to be above every rule and authority; and it is inscribed because of the written commandments and because of the sensible coming. And it is called the name of God, since the Son, as he sees the goodness of the Father, works, having been called God the Savior, the beginning of all things, which was imaged first from the invisible God before the ages, and has shaped all things that came after itself.

Indeed the oracle signifies prophecy, which cries out by the Word and proclaims, and the judgment to come, since the same Word prophesies, judges, and discerns each thing. They say too that the garment, the long robe, prophesies the arrangement according to the flesh, by which he was seen more closely in the world. So the high priest, taking off the consecrated tunic (for the world and creation in the world have been consecrated by the one who approved the things that came to be as good), washes and puts on the other tunic, holy of holy, so to speak, which enters the sanctuary with him; showing, it seems to me, the Levite and knowing man as leader of the other priests, those washed in water and clothed only in faith and awaiting their own dwelling; he himself, having distinguished intelligible things from sensible, hastening by ascent beyond the other priests to the passage to the intelligible, washed from things here no longer with water, as he was purified before when enrolled in the tribe of Levi, but now by the knowing Word.

Pure, then, in all his heart, having brought his conduct too very well to its height, having grown beyond the priest to something greater, simply purified in word and life, having put on the brightness of glory, having received the unspeakable inheritance of that spiritual and perfect man, “which eye has not seen and ear has not heard and has not entered the heart of man,” having become son and friend, he is now filled face to face with insatiable contemplation. Nothing is like hearing the Word himself, who gives more understanding through Scripture. For he says thus: “And he will take off the linen robe which he had put on when entering the holy place, and lay it aside there. And he will wash his body with water in a holy place and put on his robe.” In one way, I think, the Lord takes off and puts on, coming down into sense; in another way the one who has believed through him takes off and puts on, as the apostle too indicated, the consecrated robe. Hence, in the image of the Lord, high priests were chosen from the consecrated tribe, the most approved, and those chosen for kingship and for prophecy were anointed.

Hence the Egyptians too did not entrust their mysteries to anyone at all, nor reveal the knowledge of divine things to the profane, but only to those who were going to proceed to kingship and to those of the priests judged most approved by nurture, education, and birth. The riddles of the Egyptians, at any rate, are like those of the Hebrews in concealment. Some of the Egyptians show the sun on a ship, others on a crocodile. And they signify that the sun, making its journey through sweet and moist air, begets time, which the crocodile hints at because of some other sacred story. Indeed in Diospolis in Egypt, on the gateway of the temple called the sacred one, there are carved a child, a symbol of birth, and an old man, of decay, and a hawk, of God, as the fish is of hatred; and, with another meaning again, the crocodile of shamelessness.

The whole symbol, then, put together, appears to mean this: “O you who come into being and pass away, God hates shamelessness.” And those who fashion ears and eyes from precious material consecrate them to the gods, dedicating them in the temples, hinting no doubt that God sees and hears all things. Besides these, the lion is for them a symbol of strength and might; as the ox, of course, of the earth itself, of farming, and of food; the horse of courage and boldness; and the sphinx of strength with intelligence, having the whole body of a lion and the face of a man. Likewise with these, man is carved on their temples, hinting at intelligence, memory, power, and art.

Indeed, in what they call the processions of the gods, they carry about golden images, two dogs, one hawk, and one ibis, and call the four images four letters. The dogs are symbols of the two hemispheres, as though going around and guarding; the hawk of the sun, for it is fiery and destructive (indeed they attribute pestilential diseases to the sun); and the ibis of the moon, likening its shadowy parts to the black and its bright parts to the white of its feathers. Some would have the tropics indicated by the dogs, which guard and keep the gates of the sun's passage south and north; the hawk shows the equator, being high and burning, as the ibis shows the ecliptic; for the ibis, of all animals, seems to have given the Egyptians the beginning of the conception of number and measure, as the oblique circle among the circles.

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.

The sacrifice acceptable to God is an unswerving separation from the body and its passions. This is true piety indeed. And is it not fittingly for this reason that philosophy was called by Socrates a practice of death? For the one who neither sets sight alongside his thinking nor drags in any of the other senses, but meets things with pure mind itself, pursues the true philosophy. This, then, is what Pythagoras too means by the five years' silence that he prescribes for his pupils: that, turned away from sensible things, they might contemplate the divine with the mind alone. It was from Moses that the foremost of the Greeks learned to philosophize in this way. For he commands that the whole burnt offerings be flayed and divided into their limbs, since the soul that knows must be stripped of its material hide, without the body's triviality and all the passions that empty and false suppositions produce, and, having put off the fleshly desires, must be consecrated to the light.

But most people, clothing themselves in what is mortal like snails, and rolled up in a ball around their own lack of self-control like hedgehogs, hold such opinions about the blessed and incorruptible God as they hold about themselves. It has escaped them, even though they happen to be near us, that God has given us countless things in which he himself has no share: birth, though he is unbegotten; food, though he has no need; growth, though he is always the same; a good old age and an easy death, though he is immortal and ageless. Therefore let no one suppose that hands and feet and mouth and eyes and comings in and goings out and angers and threats are spoken of among the Hebrews as passions of God. By no means; rather, certain things are expressed allegorically, more reverently, by these names, which we shall explain as the discussion proceeds, at the proper time. “Truly wisdom is a remedy that cures all things,” writes Callimachus in his Epigrams. “One is wise from another, both of old and now,” says Bacchylides in his Paeans; “for it is not easiest to find the gates of unspoken words.”

Well, then, did Isocrates in the Panathenaicus, having first asked, “Whom, then, do I call educated?”, continue: “First, those who deal well with the affairs that befall them each day, and who have a judgment that hits the right moment and is able for the most part to aim at what is advantageous; next, those who always behave fittingly and justly toward those who come near them, bearing the unpleasantness and harshness of others with good temper and ease, while showing themselves as light and moderate as possible to their companions; further, those who master their pleasures and are not overly defeated by misfortunes, but conduct themselves bravely in them and worthily of the nature we happen to share; fourth, and this is the greatest, those who are not corrupted by success, nor put out of themselves, nor made arrogant, but remain in the ranks of the sensible.” Then he adds the finishing touch to his discourse: “Those who have the disposition of their soul well attuned not to one only of these but to all of them, these I declare to be wise and perfect men, possessing all the virtues.” Do you see how even the Greeks extol the life of the one who knows, although they do not know it as one ought to understand it? What knowledge is, they do not know even in a dream.

If, then, it has been agreed that knowledge is our rational food, truly “blessed,” according to the Scripture, “are those who hunger and thirst” for the truth, “for they shall be filled” with everlasting food. Quite wonderfully Euripides, the philosopher of the stage, is found in harmony with what we have said, in these lines, in which he hints, I know not how, at the Father and the Son together: “To you, the ruler of all, I bring a libation and a cake, whether you love to be named Zeus or Hades; but you, receive from me a fireless sacrifice of all fruits, a full offering poured out.” For Christ is a whole offering of all fruits for us, a fireless victim. And that he speaks of the Savior himself without knowing it, he will make clear by adding: “For you, among the heavenly gods, wield the scepter of Zeus, and share with Hades the rule of those beneath the earth.” Then he says outright: “And send into the light the souls of the dead, for those who wish to learn beforehand of the struggles: whence they sprang, what is the root of evils, which of the blessed ones they must appease with sacrifice to find respite from toils.” Not unreasonably, then, among the mysteries of the Greeks too, purifications come first, as the washing does among the barbarians.

After these come the lesser mysteries, which have a certain foundation of teaching and of preparation for what is to come; and then the great mysteries, which concern the whole universe, where nothing more remains to be learned, but only to contemplate and comprehend nature and things. We may take the purifying mode through confession, and the contemplative mode through analysis, advancing to the first conception: we make our beginning by analysis from the things that underlie it, abstracting from the body its physical qualities, taking away the dimension of depth, then that of breadth, and after these that of length. For the point that remains is a unit, so to speak, having position; and if we take away its position, it is conceived as a unit. If, then, having abstracted all that belongs to bodies and to the things called incorporeal, we cast ourselves into the greatness of Christ, and from there advance in holiness into the immensity, we might in some way approach the conception of the Almighty, knowing not what he is, but what he is not. And form and motion, or standing, or a throne, or a place, or right or left, are not to be conceived at all of the Father of the universe, although these too are written; but what each of them is meant to show will be demonstrated in its proper place. The first cause, then, is not in a place, but above place and time and name and thought. For this reason Moses too says, “Show yourself to me,” most clearly hinting that God cannot be taught by human beings or expressed in words, but is known only by the power that comes from him. For the search is formless and invisible, but the grace of knowledge comes from him through the Son.

Solomon will bear us witness most clearly, speaking thus: “Human prudence is not in me, but God gives me wisdom, and I know holy things.” So Moses, speaking allegorically of divine prudence, named it the tree of life planted in paradise; and this paradise may also be the world, in which all the things of creation have grown. In it the Word too blossomed and bore fruit, having become flesh, and gave life to those who had tasted his goodness; for not without the tree did he come to our knowledge either, since our life was hung up for our faith. And Solomon again says: “She is a tree of immortality to those who lay hold of her.” For this reason it says: “Behold, I set before your face life and death: to love the Lord God, and to walk in his ways, and to hear his voice, and to believe in life. But if you transgress the ordinances and the judgments that I have given you, you shall utterly perish. For this is life and the length of your days: to love the Lord your God.”

Again: “Abraham, coming to the place which God had told him, on the third day, looking up, sees the place from afar.” For the first day is the longing for beautiful things that comes through sight; the second is the soul's desire for the best things; on the third the mind discerns spiritual things, the eyes of the understanding having been opened by the Teacher who rose on the third day. The three days might also be the mystery of the seal, through which the true God is believed in. It is consistent, then, that he sees the place from afar; for the region of God is hard to reach, the region Plato called the region of ideas, having learned from Moses that God is a place, as containing all things and the universe. But fittingly it is seen by Abraham from afar, because he is in the realm of becoming, and he is initiated at once through an angel.

Hence the apostle says: “We see now as through a mirror, but then face to face,” by means only of those pure and incorporeal apprehensions of the understanding. It is possible also in dialectic to divine something of God, if one attempts, without any of the senses, to press on through reason to what each thing is in itself, and does not stand back from the things that are until, climbing up to what lies above, he grasps by thought itself what the good is in itself, arriving at the very end of the intelligible, according to Plato. Again Moses, not allowing altars and sacred precincts to be built in many places, but establishing one temple of God, proclaimed both the only-begotten world, as Basilides says, and the one God, as Basilides no longer thinks. And because Moses, the one who knows, does not enclose the unenclosable in a place, he set up no image in the temple, showing that God is to be worshiped as invisible and uncircumscribed, while leading the Hebrews in some way to a conception of God through the honor given to the name in the temple. Moreover the Word, forbidding the building of temples and all sacrifices, hints that the Almighty is not contained in anything, by these words: “What house will you build for me? says the Lord. Heaven is my throne,” and so on. And likewise about sacrifices: “The blood of bulls and the fat of lambs I do not want,” and whatever else besides the Holy Spirit forbids through the prophet.

Most beautifully, then, Euripides too agrees with these things, writing: “What house fashioned by builders could enclose the divine form within the folds of its walls?” And about sacrifices he says likewise: “For God, if he is truly God, needs nothing; these are the wretched tales of singers.” For God did not make the world out of need, so that he might reap honors from human beings and from the other gods and daemons, as Plato says, exacting, as it were, a kind of revenue from creation: from us smoke, from gods and daemons their proper services. Most instructively, then, Paul says in the Acts of the Apostles: “The God who made the world and all things in it, he, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands, nor is he served by human hands as if he needed anything, since he himself gives to all breath and life and all things.”

And Zeno too, the founder of the Stoic school, says in his book the Republic that one should make neither temples nor statues, for no construction is worthy of the gods; and he is not afraid to write these very words: “There will be no need to build temples; for one must not consider anything a temple that is not of great worth and holy; and nothing that is the work of builders and craftsmen is of great worth and holy.” Fittingly, then, Plato too, knowing the world to be God's temple, assigned to the citizens a place in the city where their images were to be set up, but forbade anyone to possess images of gods privately. “Let no one, then,” he says, “dedicate sacred things to the gods in any other way. For gold and silver, in other cities, both in private and in temples, is a possession that provokes envy; ivory, from a body that the soul has left, is not a pure offering; iron and bronze are instruments of war; but of wood let anyone dedicate whatever he wishes, provided it is made of a single piece, and likewise of stone, for the common temples.”

Fittingly, then, in the long letter he says: “For it can in no way be put into words like other lessons, but after long association with the matter itself, and living with it, suddenly, like a light kindled from a leaping fire, it comes to be in the soul and from then on nourishes itself.” Are not these things like what was said by the prophet Zephaniah? “And the Spirit took me up and carried me up into the fifth heaven, and I beheld angels called lords, and their diadem was set on them in the Holy Spirit; and the throne of each of them was seven times brighter than the light of the rising sun; they dwelt in temples of salvation and hymned the ineffable God Most High.”

“For to find the Father and Maker of this universe is a task, and, having found him, to declare him to all is impossible. For it can in no way be put into words like other lessons,” says the truth-loving Plato. For he had heard very well how the all-wise Moses, going up the mountain (for holy contemplation, to the summit of the intelligible), necessarily gives orders that the whole people should not go up with him. And when the Scripture says, “And Moses entered into the thick darkness where God was,” this shows to those who can understand that God is invisible and ineffable, and that the unbelief and ignorance of the many is truly a thick darkness set before the radiance of the truth. And again Orpheus the theologian, having profited from this, says: “He is one, complete in himself; all things have been made as offspring of the one” (or “are born,” for it is written this way too), and he adds: “Nor does any mortal behold him, but he beholds all.” And more clearly he says further: “But him I do not see; for a cloud is fixed around him. For all mortals have mortal pupils in their eyes, small, since flesh and bones have grown in them.”

The apostle will bear witness to what has been said, saying: “I know a man in Christ caught up to the third heaven, and from there into paradise, who heard unspeakable words, which it is not permitted for a man to speak.” In this way he hints at the ineffability of God, adding “not permitted” not because of a law or fear of some commandment, but showing that the divine cannot be uttered by human power, if indeed it begins to be spoken, as is right, above the third heaven, by those who there initiate the chosen souls into the mysteries. For I know that in Plato too (for my writing now puts off the many examples from the barbarian philosophy, awaiting the proper time according to my first promises) many heavens are thought of. At any rate, in the Timaeus, when he is in doubt whether one should think there are more worlds or only this one, he makes no difference between the names, calling it world and heaven synonymously. The wording is as follows: “Have we, then, rightly spoken of one heaven, or would it have been more correct to speak of many, even infinite? One, if it is to have been made according to the pattern.”

But in the Letter of the Romans to the Corinthians too it is written: “an ocean boundless to human beings, and the worlds beyond it.” Consistently, then, the noble apostle again exclaims: “O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!” And was not this what the prophet hinted at when he ordered cakes of unleavened bread to be made hidden in the ashes, showing that the truly sacred word, initiated into the mysteries of the Unbegotten and his powers, must be kept hidden? Confirming this, the apostle said openly in the letter to the Corinthians: “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.” And again elsewhere he says: “to the knowledge of the mystery of God in Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” Our Savior himself sets his seal on these things, saying: “To you it has been given to know the mystery of the kingdom of heaven.” And again the Gospel says that our Savior spoke the word to the apostles in a mystery; for the prophecy too says of him: “He will open his mouth in parables and will utter things hidden from the foundation of the world.” And the Lord also shows the concealment through the parable of the leaven; for he says: “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, until the whole was leavened.” For either the three-part soul is saved through obedience, by the spiritual power hidden in it through faith; or the strength of the Word given to us, being intense and powerful, draws to itself, secretly and invisibly, everyone who has received it and taken it within himself, and gathers his whole being into unity.

Most wisely, then, Solon has written this about God: “Hardest of all to perceive is the unseen measure of judgment, which alone holds the limits of all things.” “For the divine,” says the poet of Acragas, “cannot be approached so as to be reached by our eyes, or grasped with our hands, which is the greatest highway of persuasion falling into human minds.” And John the apostle: “No one has ever seen God; the only-begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known,” calling the invisible and ineffable the bosom of God. From this some have called him the Depth, as having encompassed and embosomed all things, unreachable and boundless. Yes, indeed, this is the most difficult of all discussions, the one about God. For since the first principle of every matter is hard to discover, surely the first and oldest principle is hard to demonstrate, which is the cause of all other things coming to be and, once they have come to be, of their being. For how could that be expressed which is neither genus, nor difference, nor species, nor individual, nor number, nor even an accident, nor that to which an accident belongs? Nor would anyone rightly call him a whole; for “whole” belongs to the category of magnitude, and he is the Father of the whole. Nor indeed are any parts of him to be spoken of; for the One is indivisible, and for this reason also infinite, not in the sense of being impossible to traverse, but in the sense of being without dimension and without limit, and therefore without form and without name.

And if we sometimes name it, calling it, though not properly, the One, or the Good, or Mind, or Being itself, or Father, or God, or Maker, or Lord, we do not speak as though uttering his name; but for lack of anything better we use fair names, so that the mind may have these to lean on and not wander about among other things. For none of them singly shows what God is, but all of them together indicate the power of the Almighty. For the things we say of anything are said either from what belongs to it or from its relation to other things, and none of these can be applied to God. Nor is he grasped by demonstrative knowledge; for that is built from what is prior and better known, and nothing exists before the Unbegotten. It remains, then, that we understand the Unknown by divine grace and by the Word alone that comes from him, as Luke too records in the Acts of the Apostles, where Paul says: “Men of Athens, I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I went about and looked at the objects of your worship, I found also an altar on which was inscribed, ‘To an unknown god.’ What therefore you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you.”

Everything, then, that falls under a name is begotten, whether they like it or not. Whether, then, the Father himself draws to himself everyone who has lived purely and has advanced to the conception of the blessed and incorruptible nature, or whether our free will, having come to the knowledge of the good, leaps and bounds beyond the pit, as the trainers say, yet it is not without special grace that the soul grows wings and rises and is lifted above the things that lie above, laying aside all that weighs it down and giving it back to what is akin to it. Plato too says in the Meno that virtue is given by God, as these words show: “From this reasoning, then, Meno, virtue appears to come by divine dispensation to those to whom it comes.” Does it not seem to you that he hinted that the disposition of knowledge, which does not come to all, is a divine dispensation? And he adds more clearly: “But if we have inquired well in this whole discussion, virtue would be neither by nature nor taught, but comes by divine dispensation, not without intelligence, to those to whom it comes.” Wisdom, then, given by God, being the power of the Father, stirs our free will, receives faith, and rewards the attentiveness of the elect with the highest fellowship.

And now I will present Plato himself to you, plainly requiring belief in the children of God. For after discussing the visible and generated gods in the Timaeus, he says: “To speak about the other daemons and to know their origin is beyond us; but we must trust those who have spoken before, who were, as they said, offspring of gods, and surely knew their own ancestors. It is impossible, then, to disbelieve the children of gods, even though they speak without probable or necessary demonstrations.” I do not think that the Greeks could more clearly bear witness to our Savior, and to those anointed for prophecy (these proclaimed children of God, and the Lord being his true Son), that they are true witnesses about divine things; that is why he added that we must believe them, as being inspired. And if someone should say, rather in the manner of tragedy, that he does not believe (“for it was not Zeus who proclaimed these things to me”), let him know that it was God himself who proclaimed the Scriptures through the Son. And the one who announces what is his own is trustworthy, since “no one,” says the Lord, “has known the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son reveals him.”

He must be believed, then, even according to Plato, even if he is proclaimed and spoken of through the old and the new covenant without probable and necessary demonstrations. “For if you do not believe,” says the Lord, “you will die in your sins”; and conversely: “He who believes has eternal life.” “Blessed, then, are all who trust in him.” Trust is more than faith; for when someone understands that the Son of God is our teacher, he trusts that his teaching is true. And as learning, according to Empedocles, increases the mind, so trust in the Lord increases faith. At any rate we say that it belongs to the same people to find fault with philosophy and to disparage faith, to praise injustice, and to call the life of desire happy.

Now faith, even if it is a voluntary assent of the soul, is nevertheless a worker of good things and the foundation of right conduct. And if Aristotle draws a technical distinction, teaching that “making” is said also of irrational animals and of lifeless things, while “doing” belongs to humans alone, let him correct those who call God the Maker of the universe. What is done, he says, is done either as good or as necessary. Now doing wrong is not good (for no one does wrong except for the sake of something else), and nothing necessary is voluntary; doing wrong, then, is voluntary, and so it is not necessary either. The good differ from the bad most of all in their choices and their noble desires. For all wickedness of soul goes with lack of self-control, and the one who acts through passion acts through lack of self-control and wickedness. It comes over me, then, at every point to wonder at that divine saying: “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter by the door into the sheepfold, but climbs in by another way, that one is a thief and a robber; but he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep; to him the doorkeeper opens.” Then the Lord explains and says: “I am the door of the sheep.”

It is, then, by learning the truth through Christ that people must be saved, even if they happen to have practiced Greek philosophy. For now it has been shown clearly: “what was not made known to the sons of men in other generations has now been revealed.” For there was always a natural perception of the one God, the Almighty, among all right-thinking people, and most people, those who had not entirely lost their shame before the truth, laid hold of his everlasting beneficence according to divine providence. At any rate, Xenocrates of Chalcedon does not wholly despair of a conception of the divine even in irrational animals; and Democritus, even if unwilling, will admit it by the consequence of his doctrines; for he has made the same images, coming from the divine being, fall upon human beings and upon irrational animals. Far indeed is man from having no share in the conception of the divine, since he is recorded in Genesis to have received the in-breathing as well, partaking of a purer essence than the other animals.

Hence the Pythagoreans say that mind comes to human beings by divine dispensation, as Plato and Aristotle also agree. But we say that the Holy Spirit is breathed in besides upon the one who has believed, while the Platonists place mind in the soul as an emanation of divine dispensation, and the soul in the body. For it has been said openly through Joel, one of the twelve prophets: “And it shall be after these things that I will pour out of my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy.” But the Spirit is not in each of us as a part of God. How this distribution takes place, and what the Holy Spirit is, will be shown by us in the works On Prophecy and On the Soul. But “to hide the depths of knowledge is a good distrust,” according to Heraclitus; “for through distrust it escapes being known.”

(Chapter 14.) What follows must now be added, and the Greek theft from the barbarian philosophy must now be set out more clearly. For the Stoics say that God is a body, and spirit in essence, just as, of course, the soul is. All these things you will find plainly in the Scriptures. For do not think, for now, of the allegorical senses of the Scriptures as the true tradition of knowledge hands them down, in case, like skilled wrestlers, they show one thing and mean another. But the Stoics say that God pervades all being, whereas we call him Maker only, and Maker by the Word. What misled them was the saying in Wisdom: “It pervades and passes through all things because of its purity,” since they did not understand that this is said of Wisdom, the first created by God. “Yes,” they say, “but the philosophers, the Stoics and Plato and Pythagoras, and Aristotle the Peripatetic too, posit matter among the first principles, and not one principle.” Let them know, then, that what is called matter is said by them to be without quality and without form, and was said by Plato, more boldly still, to be non-being. And did he not, most mystically, knowing the one principle that truly is, say in the Timaeus in these very words: “Now let our view be put thus: the principle of all things, or principles, or whatever one thinks about them, must not be spoken of now, for no other reason than that it is difficult, in the present manner of exposition, to make plain what we think.”

Moreover, that prophetic saying, “And the earth was invisible and unformed,” gave them their starting points for a material substance. Yes, and Epicurus' introduction of chance arose from this, because he did not follow the saying: “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.” And it occurred to Aristotle to bring providence down only as far as the moon from this psalm: “Lord, your mercy is in heaven, and your truth reaches to the clouds.” For the disclosure of the prophetic mysteries had not yet been revealed before the coming of the Lord. Again, the punishments after death and the retribution by fire were stolen from the barbarian philosophy by all the poetic Muse, and by Greek philosophy as well. Plato, at any rate, in the last book of the Republic, says in these very words: “Then wild men, fiery to look at, standing by and understanding the sound, took some away separately; but Aridaeus and the others they bound hand and foot and head, threw them down and flayed them, and dragged them along the road outside, carding them on thorns.” For by the fiery men he means to indicate angels, who seize and punish the unjust: “who makes,” it says, “his angels spirits and his ministers flaming fire.”

From these things it follows that the soul is immortal. For what is punished or corrected, being in a state of perception, lives, even if it is said to suffer. What then? Does not Plato know of rivers of fire and of the depth of the earth, calling poetically Tartarus what the barbarians call Gehenna, and bringing in Cocytus and Acheron and Pyriphlegethon and other such places of punishment that correct and bring people to their senses? And pointing to the angels of the little and least ones, according to the Scripture, who behold God, and also to the oversight that reaches us through the angels set over us, he does not hesitate to write: “When all the souls had chosen their lives, in the order of their lots they went up to Lachesis; and she sent with each the daemon he had chosen, as guardian of his life and fulfiller of what had been chosen.” Perhaps Socrates' daemon too hinted at something of this kind.

Yes, and the philosophers took over from Moses the teaching that the world has come into being. And Plato said plainly: “Was it always, having no beginning of coming to be, or has it come to be, having begun from some beginning? It has come to be; for it is visible and tangible, and being tangible it has a body.” And again, when he says, “Now, the Maker and Father of this universe it is a task to find,” he not only showed that the world came into being, but also indicates that it came into being from him as a son, and that he is called its Father, since it came into being from him alone and came to exist from what was not. The Stoics too hold that the world came into being. And the devil, so much spoken of by the barbarian philosophy, the ruler of the demons, Plato in the tenth book of the Laws calls an evil-working soul, in these words: “Since soul governs and dwells in all things that move in any way, must we not say that it governs heaven too? Certainly. One soul or more? More, I shall answer for you both. Let us assume no fewer than two: the one that does good, and the one able to work the opposite.”

Similarly he writes this in the Phaedrus too: “There are indeed other evils, but some daemon has mixed with most of them a pleasure of the moment.” And in the tenth book of the Laws he plainly shows that apostolic saying, “Our wrestling is not against blood and flesh, but against the principalities, against the authorities, against the spiritual forces in the heavenly places,” writing thus: “For since we have agreed among ourselves that heaven is full of many good things, and also of their opposites, but more of those that are not good, such a battle, we say, is undying and needs wonderful vigilance.” Again, the barbarian philosophy knows one world as intelligible and another as sensible, the one the archetype, the other the image of what is called the pattern; and it assigns the one, as intelligible, to the monad, and the sensible to the hexad; for among the Pythagoreans the hexad is called marriage, as a generative number. And in the monad it establishes an invisible heaven and an unformed earth and intelligible light; for it says: “In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth; and the earth was invisible.”

Then it adds: “And God said, Let there be light; and there was light.” And in the creation of the sensible world he makes a solid heaven (and what is solid is sensible), a visible earth, and light that is seen. Does it not seem to you that it is from here that Plato leaves ideas of living beings in the intelligible world, and makes the sensible species according to the intelligible kinds? Fittingly, then, Moses says that the body was formed from the earth, what Plato calls the “earthly tent,” but that the rational soul was breathed in from above by God into the face. For there, they say, the ruling faculty is seated, and they interpret the entrance of the soul through the sense organs in the first-formed man as its entry; for this reason also man is said to have come into being “according to the image and likeness.” For the image of God is the divine and royal Word, the man free from passion, and the image of the image is the human mind. And if you wish to take up “likeness” under another name, you would find it called in Moses “following” God; for he says: “Walk after the Lord your God and keep his commandments.” And all the virtuous, I think, are followers and servants of God.

Hence the Stoics have said that the end of philosophy is to live following nature, and Plato, likeness to God (as we showed in the second Miscellany); and Zeno the Stoic, taking it from Plato, as Plato took it from the barbarian philosophy, says that all good people are friends of one another. For Socrates says in the Phaedrus that it is not fated for a bad man to be a friend to a bad man, nor for a good man not to be a friend to a good man; and he showed this sufficiently in the Lysis too, that friendship could never be preserved in injustice and wickedness. And the Athenian Stranger likewise says that the action that is dear to God and follows him is one, and has one ancient principle: that like is dear to like when it is measured, but things without measure are dear neither to the unmeasured nor to the measured.

“And God would be for us the measure of all things.” Then, a little further on, he adds again: “For every good man is like a good man, and in this way, being like God, he is a friend both to every good man and to God.” Having got this far, I remembered that too: at the end of the Timaeus he says that one must make the thinking part like what it thinks, according to its ancient nature, and having made it like, attain the end of the best life set before humanity by the gods, both for the present and for the time to come. For those words have the same force as these: “He who seeks will not stop until he finds; and having found, he will be amazed; and having been amazed, he will reign; and having reigned, he will rest.” What then? Do not those sayings of Thales also depend on these? He plainly interprets what we say, that God is glorified to the ages of ages and is called the Knower of hearts. When Thales was asked what the divine is, he said, “That which has neither beginning nor end.” And when another asked whether a man escapes the notice of the divine when he does something, he said, “How could he, when he does not even when he is thinking?” Yes, and the barbarian philosophy knows that only the noble is good, and that virtue is sufficient for happiness, when it says: “Behold, I have set before your eyes good and evil, life and death; choose life.” For it calls the good “life,” and the choice of it noble, and the choosing of the opposite evil. And the one end of good and of life is to become a lover of God; for “this is your life and length of days,” to love what is in accord with truth.

Those words are still clearer. For the Savior, having commanded us to love God and our neighbor, says that on these two commandments hang the whole Law and the Prophets. The Stoics keep repeating these doctrines, and before them Socrates in the Phaedrus, praying: “O Pan and you other gods, grant me to be beautiful within.” And in the Theaetetus he says expressly: “For he who speaks beautifully is beautiful and good.” And in the Protagoras he admits to Protagoras' companions that he has met someone more beautiful than Alcibiades, if indeed what is wisest is most beautiful; for he said that virtue is the beauty of the soul, and conversely vice is the ugliness of the soul. Antipater the Stoic, then, who wrote three books on the thesis that according to Plato only the noble is good, shows that according to Plato too virtue is sufficient for happiness, and he cites many other doctrines in agreement with the Stoics. And Aristobulus, who lived in the time of Ptolemy Philometor, and whom the author of the epitome of the Maccabean history mentions, wrote books enough to show that the Peripatetic philosophy depended on the law of Moses and the other prophets.

Let these things stand so. That we are brothers, as belonging to the one God and one Teacher, Plato too seems to say, calling us so in these words: “For you are all brothers in the city,” as we shall say to them in telling the myth, “but God, in fashioning you, mixed gold into the birth of those of you who are fit to rule, which is why they are most honored; silver into the auxiliaries; and iron and bronze into the farmers and the other craftsmen.” Hence, he says, it must be that the first welcome and love the things in which there is knowledge, and the others the things in which there is opinion. For perhaps he divines this chosen nature that longs for knowledge; unless, positing three natures, he describes three polities, as some have supposed: the silver one of the Jews, the third of the Greeks, and that of the Christians, into which the royal gold has been mixed, the Holy Spirit. And depicting the life of the Christians he writes word for word in the Theaetetus: “Let us speak, then, of the leaders; for why would anyone speak of those who spend their time in philosophy poorly? These, I suppose, do not know the way to the marketplace, nor where the law court is, or the council chamber, or any other public assembly of the city; written laws and decrees they neither see nor hear. The eager pursuits of political clubs, and meetings, and revels with flute girls, do not occur to them to engage in even in a dream. Whether anyone in the city is well or badly born, or what evil has come to anyone from his ancestors, escapes them more than, as the saying goes, the pints of the sea. And he does not even know that he does not know these things; but in truth only his body lies and resides in the city, while he himself flies, according to Pindar, measuring the stars beneath the earth and above the heaven, and searching out every nature everywhere.”

Again, with the Lord's saying, “Let your yes be yes and your no no,” this is to be compared: “But it is by no means lawful for me to concede a falsehood and to suppress the truth.” And with the prohibition of swearing this passage in the tenth book of the Laws agrees: “Let praise and oath be absent in every matter.” And, in general, Pythagoras, Socrates, and Plato, when they say that they hear the voice of God as they contemplate the structure of the universe, made precisely by God and held together unceasingly, had heard Moses saying, “He spoke, and it came to be,” describing the Word of God as a deed. And dwelling on the forming of man from dust, the philosophers at every turn proclaim the body earthly; and Homer does not hesitate to put it in the form of a curse: “But may all of you become water and earth,” as Isaiah too says, “And trample them like clay.”

And Callimachus writes expressly: “That was the year in which the winged creature, and the one in the sea, and the four-footed spoke just like the clay of Prometheus.” And again the same poet: “If Prometheus fashioned you, and you are not from some other clay.” And Hesiod says of Pandora: “And he commanded famous Hephaestus as quickly as possible to mix earth with water, and to put into it the voice and mind of a human being.” The Stoics define nature as a craftsmanlike fire proceeding methodically to generation; and God and his Word are called fire and light allegorically by the Scripture. What then? Does not Homer too, paraphrasing the separation of the water from the earth and the visible uncovering of the dry land, say of Tethys and Ocean: “For already for a long time they have kept apart from each other's bed and love.” Again, the most learned among the Greeks ascribe power over all things to God: Epicharmus (he was a Pythagorean) saying: “Nothing escapes the divine; this you must know; he himself is our overseer, and for God nothing is impossible.”

and the lyric poet: “But it is possible for God to raise up undefiled light out of black night, and to cover the pure radiance of day with dark-clouded darkness” (he alone who can make night while it is day, he says, is God). And Aratus, in the work entitled Phaenomena, having said, “From Zeus let us begin, whom we men never leave unspoken; full of Zeus are all the streets, all the marketplaces of men, and full the sea and the harbors; and everywhere we all have need of Zeus,” adds: “For we are also his offspring” (that is, by creation), “and he, kindly to men, gives favorable signs and rouses the peoples to work. … For he himself fixed these signs in heaven, distinguishing the constellations, and planned for the year stars that would most of all give men well-ordered signs of the seasons, so that all things might grow steadily. Therefore they always propitiate him first and last: Hail, Father, great wonder, great blessing to men.” And before him Homer, on the shield made by Hephaestus, describing the making of the world as Moses does, says: “On it he made the earth, on it the heaven, on it the sea, and on it all the constellations with which heaven is crowned.” For the Zeus celebrated in poems and prose writings lifts the thought up to God.

And now, so to speak, in broad daylight, Democritus writes that there are a few men who, stretching out their hands toward what we Greeks now call air, say: “Zeus speaks all things, and he knows all things, and gives all things and takes them away, and he is king of all.” And more mystically the Boeotian Pindar, since he was a Pythagorean, teaches that “one is the race of men, one of gods, and from one mother we both breathe” (that is, matter), and that there is one Maker of these, whom he calls “father, supreme artificer,” who also granted advances toward divinity according to merit. I say nothing of Plato. He plainly, in the letter to Erastus and Coriscus, appears to indicate the Father and the Son, from the Hebrew Scriptures, I do not know how, exhorting them in these words: “swearing, with an earnestness that is not unrefined and with learning, the sister of earnestness, by the God of all, the cause, and by the Lord, the Father of the leader and cause, whom, if you philosophize rightly, you will know.” And the speech in the Timaeus calls the Maker Father, speaking thus: “Gods of gods, of whom I am Father and Maker of works.”

So that when he says, “Around the king of all are all things, and for his sake are all things, and he is the cause of all good things; and the second around the second things, and the third around the third,” I understand nothing else than that the holy Trinity is indicated; for the third is the Holy Spirit, and the Son is the second, through whom all things came to be according to the will of the Father. The same Plato, in the tenth book of the Republic, mentions Er the son of Armenius, a Pamphylian by race, who is Zoroaster. At any rate Zoroaster himself writes: “These things I, Zoroaster son of Armenius, a Pamphylian by race, having died in war, wrote, whatever I learned from the gods when I was in Hades.” This Zoroaster, Plato says, came back to life on the twelfth day as he lay on the pyre. Perhaps, then, he hints at the resurrection; or perhaps at this, that the way for souls to their ascent is through the twelve signs of the zodiac, and he himself says that the descent into birth takes place by the same way. In this sense we must understand that the labors of Heracles were twelve, after which the soul attains release from this whole world. I do not pass over Empedocles either, who, speaking as a natural philosopher, mentions the taking up of all things, as there is to be at some time a change into the substance of fire.

Most clearly Heraclitus of Ephesus holds this opinion, judging that there is one world that is everlasting and another that perishes, and knowing that the world in its ordered arrangement is not other than that one when it is in a certain state. But that he knew the world composed of the whole substance, with its individual character, to be everlasting, he makes plain by saying this: “This world, the same for all, no one of gods or men made; but it always was and is and will be: ever-living fire, kindled in measures and quenched in measures.” And that he also taught that it is generated and perishable is shown by what follows: “The turnings of fire: first sea; and of sea, half is earth, half fiery whirlwind.” For he says in effect that fire, by the Word and God who governs all things, is turned through air into moisture, the seed, as it were, of the world's ordering, which he calls sea; and from this in turn come earth and heaven and what they contain. How it is taken up again and set on fire he shows clearly in these words: “Sea is poured out and measured to the same proportion as it was before it became earth.” And the same holds likewise for the other elements.

Much like this the most distinguished of the Stoics also teach, in their treatment of the conflagration and of the governance of the world, of the individual character of the world and of man, and of the survival of our souls. And again Plato, in the seventh book of the Republic, has called the day here “nocturnal” (because of the world-rulers of this darkness, I think), and the descent of the soul into the body sleep and death, in the same way as Heraclitus. And did not the Spirit foretell this of the Savior, saying through David: “I lay down and slept; I awoke, for the Lord will help me”? For it speaks allegorically not only of the resurrection of Christ as waking from sleep, but also of the Lord's descent into flesh as sleep.

So the Savior himself exhorts: “Watch”; that is, practice how to live, and try to separate the soul from the body. And Plato, in the tenth book of the Republic, divines the Lord's day in these words: “When seven days had passed for each of those in the meadow, they must rise up from there on the eighth and set out, and arrive on the fourth day.” The meadow, then, is to be understood as the fixed sphere, a gentle and pleasant place and the region of the holy; and the seven days as each motion of the seven planets, and all the working art hastening toward its end in rest. And the journey beyond the wandering stars leads to heaven, that is, to the eighth motion and day. And he says that the souls depart on the fourth day, indicating the journey through the four elements.

But not only the Hebrews but the Greeks too know that the seventh day is holy, the day by which the whole world of all living and growing things revolves. Hesiod speaks of it thus: “First the new moon, the fourth, and the seventh, a holy day.” And again: “And on the seventh again the bright light of the sun.” And Homer: “And then on the seventh came the holy day.” And: “The seventh was holy.” And again: “It was the seventh day, and by it all things had been completed.” And again: “On the seventh dawn we left the stream from Acheron.” Yes, and the poet Callimachus writes: “On the seventh dawn all things had been made for him.” And again: “The seventh is among the good things, and the seventh is the birth.” And: “The seventh is among the first, and the seventh is perfect.” And: “All seven were made in the starry heaven, appearing in their circles as the years come round.”

And the elegies of Solon too greatly exalt the number seven. What then? Is not Plato, all but prophesying the saving dispensation, saying something very like the Scripture that says, “Let us take away the righteous one from among us, for he is troublesome to us,” when he speaks thus in the second book of the Republic: “Being so disposed, the righteous man will be scourged, racked, bound, will have his eyes put out, and finally, after suffering every evil, will be impaled”? And Antisthenes the Socratic, paraphrasing that prophetic saying, “To whom have you likened me? says the Lord,” says that God is like no one; therefore no one can come to know him from an image. And Xenophon the Athenian says similar things word for word: “At any rate he who shakes all things and keeps them still is manifest as someone great and mighty; but what he is like in form is unseen. Nor does the sun, which seems all-bright, allow itself to be seen; but if anyone gazes at it shamelessly, it takes away his sight.” “For what flesh can see with eyes the heavenly and true God, the immortal, who dwells in the heavens? Not even against the rays of the sun can men stand, born mortal as they are,” the Sibyl foretold.

Well, too, does Xenophanes of Colophon, teaching that God is one and incorporeal, add: “One God, greatest among gods and men, not at all like mortals in body or in thought.” And again: “But mortals suppose that gods are born, and have their own clothing, voice, and body.” And again: “But if oxen or lions had hands, so as to draw with their hands and make works as men do, horses would draw the forms of the gods like horses, and oxen like oxen, and would make their bodies such as each of them had.”

Let us hear again Bacchylides the lyric poet speaking about the divine: “They are unsubdued by shameful diseases and unharmed, in no way like men.” And Cleanthes the Stoic, who wrote this about God in a certain poem: “You ask me what the good is like? Listen, then: ordered, just, holy, pious, master of itself, useful, noble, fitting, austere, straightforward, always advantageous, fearless, painless, profitable, without grief, helpful, well-pleasing, safe, friendly, honored, consistent, glorious, without conceit, caring, gentle, strong, enduring, blameless, ever-abiding.”

And the same poet, by implication finding fault with the idolatry of the many, adds: “Unfree is everyone who looks to opinion, as if he would obtain something good from it.” We must no longer, then, think of the divine according to the opinion of the many. “For I do not think that Zeus, imitating the form of an evil-doing man, came secretly to your bed like a human being,” says Amphion to Antiope. And Sophocles writes outright: “For it was this man's mother that Zeus married, not in the form of gold, nor clothed in swan's plumage, as when he got the Pleuronian girl with child, but wholly a man.” Then, going on, he added: “And swiftly the adulterer stood at the bridal steps.” And after this he relates the incontinence of the Zeus of the myths still more plainly, thus: “He, touching neither feast nor water for washing, went to bed, his heart stung; and all that night he mounted her.” Let these things be left to the follies of the theaters. But Heraclitus says plainly: “Though this word is always, men are without understanding, both before they hear it and when they have first heard it.”

And the lyric poet Melanippides says in song: “Hear me, O father, wonder of mortals, ruler of the ever-living soul.” And the great Parmenides, as Plato calls him in the Sophist, writes about the divine thus: “Very many are the signs that, being unbegotten, it is also imperishable, whole, only-begotten, unshaken, and without beginning.” And Hesiod too says: “For he himself is king and lord of all the immortals; no other has vied with your might.” Yes, and tragedy too, drawing people away from idols, teaches them to look up to heaven.

Sophocles, as Hecataeus, who composed the histories, says in his work On Abraham and the Egyptians, cries out plainly on the stage: “One in truth, one is God, who made the heaven and the long earth, and the sea's gleaming swell, and the might of the winds. But we many mortals, straying in heart, set up as a comfort for our woes images of gods of stone, or figures of bronze, or wrought of gold, or of ivory; and crowning these with sacrifices and evil festivals, we think that so we are pious.”

And Euripides, writing tragedy on the same stage, says: “Do you see this boundless ether on high, holding the earth around in its moist embraces? Consider this Zeus, hold this to be God.” And in the drama Pirithous the same poet also writes this tragic passage: “You, the self-begotten, who in the whirl of the ether have woven the nature of all things, around whom light, and around whom dark, spangled night and the countless throng of stars dance unceasingly.” For here he has called the Maker, Mind, the self-begotten, while what follows applies to the world, in which there are also the opposites of light and darkness. And Aeschylus, son of Euphorion, says very solemnly of God: “Zeus is ether, Zeus is earth, Zeus is heaven; Zeus is all things, and whatever is higher than these.”

I know that Plato too bears witness to Heraclitus, who writes: “The one thing that alone is wise is unwilling and willing to be called by the name of Zeus.” And again: “It is law too to obey the counsel of one.” And if you wish to refer that saying, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear,” you would find it expressed by the Ephesian thus: “Hearing without understanding, they are like the deaf; the saying bears witness to them: present, they are absent.” But do you long to hear plainly of one first principle from the Greeks too? Timaeus of Locri, in his work on nature, will bear witness for me word for word thus: “There is one principle of all things, unbegotten; for if it had come into being, it would no longer be a principle, but that would be from which the principle came to be.” For the true opinion flowed from there: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one, and him only shall you serve.” “Behold, he is clear to all, unerring,” as the Sibyl says.

And now Homer too appears to speak of the Father and the Son in these words, as if hitting on a well-aimed divination: “If, then, no one is harming you, alone as you are, there is no way to escape sickness from great Zeus.” “For the Cyclopes do not care for aegis-bearing Zeus.” And before him Orpheus, carried toward the same subject, has said: “Son of great Zeus, father of aegis-bearing Zeus.” And Xenocrates of Chalcedon, calling one Zeus the highest and another the lowest, leaves an indication of Father and Son. And, most paradoxical of all, Homer, who brings in gods with human passions, appears to know the divine; and even so Epicurus does not respect him.

At any rate he says: “Why, son of Peleus, do you pursue me with swift feet, being yourself a mortal, me an immortal god? Not yet have you recognized that I am a god.” For he has shown that the divine cannot be caught or grasped by a mortal, not by feet or hands or eyes, nor by the body at all. “To whom have you likened the Lord? Or with what likeness have you likened him?” says the Scripture. “Has a craftsman made an image, or has a goldsmith melted gold and gilded him over?” and what follows.

And the comic poet Epicharmus speaks clearly about the Word in the Republic, thus: “Human life needs reckoning and number very much; we live by number and reckoning; for these save mortals.” Then he adds expressly: “Reason steers human beings and duly saves them.” Then: “If man has reckoning, there is also a divine Reason. The one is born in man to deal with the turns of life; but the divine Reason accompanies all the arts, itself always teaching them what they must do that is profitable. For it was not man who discovered art; it is God who brings it. And the reason of man is born from the divine Reason.”

Yes, and when the Spirit cried out through Isaiah, “What is the multitude of your sacrifices to me? says the Lord. I am full of whole burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of lambs and the blood of bulls I do not want,” and a little later adds, “Wash yourselves, become clean, remove the wickedness from your souls,” and what follows, Menander the comic poet writes in these very words: “If anyone, Pamphilus, offering sacrifice, a multitude of bulls or kids, or, by Zeus, other such things, or works of craft, making golden or purple cloaks, or figures of ivory or emerald, thinks he is making God kindly, he is mistaken and has a light mind. For a man must be useful, not seducing virgins and committing adultery, stealing and killing for money. Do not covet even the thread of a needle, Pamphilus; for God sees you, being near.” “I am a God near at hand and not a God far off. Will a man do anything in secret places and I not see him?” he says through Jeremiah.

And again Menander, paraphrasing that Scripture, “Offer a sacrifice of righteousness and hope in the Lord,” writes thus: “Do not ever, dearest friend, covet even a needle belonging to another; for God delights in just works and not in unjust ones, and he lets the one who toils raise up his own livelihood, plowing the land night and day. Sacrifice to God by being just throughout, bright not in your cloaks so much as in your heart. … If you hear thunder, do not flee, if you are conscious of nothing against yourself, master; for God sees you, being near.” “While you are still speaking,” says the Scripture, “I will say: Behold, I am here.”

Again Diphilus the comic poet discusses the judgment in terms like these: “Do you think, Niceratus, that the dead, who have partaken of every luxury in life, have escaped the divine as though unnoticed? There is an eye of Justice, which sees all things. For in Hades too we think there are two paths, one the way of the righteous, the other the way of the ungodly.” And: “If the earth will cover both for all time, go off, snatch, steal, rob, make trouble. Do not be deceived; there is judgment in Hades too, which God, the master of all, will execute, whose name is fearful, and I would not name him; who grants to sinners a long life. But if any mortal thinks that, doing some evil day by day, he escapes the notice of the gods, he thinks wickedly, and in thinking so he is caught, when Justice happens to have leisure. Look, you who think there is no God. For there is, there is. And if anyone who is by nature bad fares well, let him make the most of the time; for in time he will pay the penalty later.” And tragedy agrees with these in these words: “For there shall come, there shall come that season of time, when the golden-faced ether shall let loose its treasure full of fire, and the flame, fed full, shall rage and burn all things on earth and on high.”

And a little later he adds again: “And when the whole universe fails, the whole depth of the waves will be gone, and the earth empty of dwellings; nor will the air, set on fire, bear the winged tribes any longer; and then it will save all that it destroyed before.” We shall find things like these in the Orphic writings too, written thus: “For having hidden all, he brought them up again into the joyful light from his holy heart, doing mighty deeds.” And if we live holily and justly, we are blessed here, and more blessed after our departure from here, not having happiness for a time, but able to rest in eternity, “sharing hearth with the other immortals, at table with them, free from human woes, unwearied,” as the philosophic poetry of Empedocles says. No one, even according to the Greeks, will be so great as to be above justice, nor so small as to escape its notice.

And the same Orpheus also says this: “Looking to the divine Word, attend closely to it, directing the intelligent vessel of your heart; walk well upon the path, and look only to the immortal king of the world.” And again, about God, saying that he is invisible, he says that he was known only to one, a Chaldean by race, meaning either Abraham or his son, in these words: “except a certain only-begotten one, an offshoot of the race of the Chaldeans from of old; for he was skilled in the course of the star, and how the motion of the sphere goes round the earth in a circle, evenly, on its own axis; and he guides the winds around the air and the stream of water.”

Then, as if paraphrasing “Heaven is my throne, and the earth the footstool of my feet,” he adds: “But he himself again is firmly set above the great heaven on a golden throne, and the earth stands beneath his feet. His right hand he has stretched out around the ends of the ocean; the foundation of the mountains trembles within at his wrath, and cannot bear his mighty strength. He is everywhere heavenly himself, and on earth he brings all things to their end, having himself the beginning, the middle, and the end. Otherwise it is not lawful for you to speak; and I tremble in my limbs, in my mind. From on high he rules,” and what follows. For through these words he has indicated all those prophetic sayings: “If you open heaven, trembling will seize the mountains from you, and they will melt, as wax melts before fire”;

and the words through Isaiah, “Who has measured the heaven with a span and all the earth with a handful?” Again, when he says: “Ruler of ether and of Hades, of sea and of earth, who with thunders shake the strong house of Olympus; before whom daemons shudder, and the throng of gods is afraid; whom the Fates obey, relentless though they are; imperishable, mother-father, by whose wrath all things are shaken; who move the winds, and cover all things with clouds, splitting the broad ether with lightning-blasts; yours is the order among the stars, running by unchangeable commands; beside your fiery throne stand angels of many labors, whose care it is how all things are accomplished for mortals; yours is the spring, shining new with purple flowers; yours the winter, coming on with cold clouds; yours are the autumn fruits that Bromius the reveler once distributed.”

Then he adds, expressly naming God the Almighty: “imperishable, immortal, speakable only to immortals. Come, greatest of all the gods, with mighty necessity, dread, invincible, great, imperishable, whom the ether crowns.” By “mother-father” he has not only indicated coming into being from what is not, but has also given occasion to those who introduce emanations to think perhaps of a consort of God as well. And he paraphrases those prophetic Scriptures: the one through Hosea, “I am he who makes the thunder firm and creates the wind,” whose hands founded the host of heaven; and the one through Moses: “See, see that I am, and there is no other god besides me; I will kill and I will make alive; I will strike and I will heal; and there is none who will deliver out of my hands.” “And he himself, from good, plants evil for mortals, and chilling war and tearful pains,” according to Orpheus.

Archilochus of Paros too says such things: “O Zeus, father Zeus, yours is the power of heaven, and you see the deeds of men, wicked and lawless.” Again let the Thracian Orpheus sing to us: “His right hand he has stretched out on every side over the end of the ocean, and the earth stands beneath his feet.” These things have plainly been taken from there: “The Lord will save inhabited cities, and will take hold of the whole inhabited world in his hand like a nest”; “the Lord who made the earth by his strength,” as Jeremiah says, “and set up the inhabited world by his wisdom.” Besides these, Phocylides, calling the angels daemons, shows that some of them are good and others bad, in these words (for we too have received that some are apostates): “But there are daemons over men, at one time some, at another others; some to set men free from coming evil.”

Well, then, does Philemon the comic poet too cut down idolatry in these words: “For us there is no god Fortune, no; but what happens by itself, as it falls out for each, is called fortune.” And Sophocles the tragic poet says: “Not even for the gods do all things happen by their own choice, apart from Zeus; for he holds the end and the beginning.”

And Orpheus: “One might, one god arose, the great heaven blazing; and one thing all things have become, in which all these things revolve, fire and water and earth,” and what follows. And Pindar the lyric poet, as though in Bacchic frenzy, says plainly: “What is God? What the All is.” And again: “God, who makes all things for mortals.” And when he says, “Why do you expect wisdom? Little does one man have beyond another. It is hard to search out the counsels of the gods with a mortal mind; one is born of a mortal mother,” he has drawn his thought from there: “Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?” And Hesiod too, in what he writes, agrees with what has been said: “There is no seer among men on earth who could know the mind of aegis-bearing Zeus.” Fittingly, then, Solon the Athenian in his elegies, himself following Hesiod, writes: “Everywhere the mind of the immortals is hidden from men.”

Again, when Moses had prophesied that because of the transgression the woman would give birth in toil and pain, a poet of no small note writes: “Never by day will they cease from labor and woe, nor at night, worn down as they are; and the gods will give them grievous cares.” Further, Homer, saying, “And the Father himself stretched out the golden scales,” indicates that God is just; and Menander the comic poet, interpreting God as good, says: “A daemon stands beside every man as soon as he is born, a good guide into the mysteries of life; for one must not think that there is an evil daemon, harming a good life.” Then he adds: “that God is good in all respects,” saying either that every god is good, or, which is more likely, that God is good in all things.

Again, Aeschylus the tragic poet, setting out the power of God, does not hesitate to call him Most High, in these words: “Distinguish God from mortals, and do not think that he is made of flesh like yourself. You do not know him: at one time he appears as fire, an unapproachable rush, at another as water, at another as thick darkness; and he becomes like wild beasts, like wind, and cloud, and lightning, thunder, rain. Sea serves him, and rocks, and every spring and gathering of waters. Mountains tremble, and earth, and the monstrous deep of the sea, and the great height of mountains, whenever the fierce eye of the Master looks upon them. For all-powerful is the glory of the Most High God.” Does it not seem to you that he is paraphrasing the saying, “The earth trembles before the face of the Lord”?

Besides these, most prophetic Apollo, bearing witness to the glory of God, is compelled to say of Athena, when the Medes were marching against Greece, how she begged and entreated Zeus for Attica. The oracle runs thus: “Pallas cannot appease Olympian Zeus, though she entreats him with many words and close-woven counsel; many temples of immortals he will give to raging fire, which now stand, I think, streaming with sweat, trembling with fear,” and what follows.

Thearidas, in his work On Nature, writes: “The first principle of beings, the truly true principle, is one; for it is in the beginning one and alone.” “Nor is there any other apart from the great King,” says Orpheus. Persuaded by him, the comic poet Diphilus says most sententiously: “Him who is the Father of all, honor him alone continually, the discoverer and creator of so many good things.” Fittingly, then, Plato too trains the best natures to arrive at the study that we said before is the greatest, to see the Good and to make that ascent. “And this, it seems, would not be the turning of a shell, but the turning around of a soul from a day that is a kind of night to the true ascent to being, which we shall say is true philosophy.” And he judges those who share in this to be of the golden race, saying, “You are all brothers,” but that those of the golden race are to judge most accurately and in every respect. All things, then, of every kind, lay hold of the Father and Maker of the universe, innately and untaught: lifeless things by sympathy with the living; of living things, those that are already immortal, working day by day; of those still mortal, some in fear, even while still carried in their mother's womb, and others by free will; and of human beings, all, Greeks and barbarians. And no race anywhere, whether of farmers, or of nomads, or of city-dwellers, can live without being possessed beforehand by faith in the higher power. Therefore every nation of the east, and every nation touching the western shores, the north, and all toward the south, has one and the same preconception about the one who established the rule of the world, since the most universal of his activities have passed equally through all things.

Much more did the inquisitive philosophers among the Greeks, starting from the barbarian philosophy, give first place to the invisible, the only, the most powerful, the most skillful, and the highest cause of the most beautiful things; though they did not know what follows from these things unless they were instructed by us, nor indeed how God is by nature to be conceived, but only, as we have often said, by true periphrasis. Fittingly, then, the apostle says: “Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not also of Greeks?” not only saying prophetically that those of the Greeks who believe would know God, but also indicating that in power the Lord is God of all and truly Almighty, but in knowledge he is not the God of all. For they do not know what he is, nor how he is Lord and Father and Maker, nor the rest of the dispensation of the truth, unless they are taught by the truth itself.

Likewise the prophetic words have the same force as the apostle's saying. For Isaiah says: “But if you say, We have trusted in the Lord our God, now join yourselves to my lord the king of the Assyrians.” And he adds: “And now, have we come up against this land to make war on it without the Lord?” And Jonah, himself also a prophet, hints at the same thing in these words: “And the captain came to him and said to him: Why are you snoring? Get up, call upon your God, that God may save us and we may not perish.” For he said “your God” to one who knew him with full knowledge, and by “that God may save us” he showed the awareness of the nations who had directed their mind to the Almighty but had not yet believed. And again the same: “And he said to them: I am a servant of the Lord, and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven.”

And again the same: “And they said: By no means, Lord; let us not perish on account of the life of this man.” And the prophet Malachi plainly shows God saying: “I will not accept sacrifice from your hands; for from the rising of the sun to its setting my name has been glorified among the nations, and in every place sacrifice is offered to me.” And again: “For I am a great king, says the Lord Almighty, and my name is manifest among the nations.” What name? Among those who have believed, the Son, who reveals the Father; among the Greeks, “God the Maker.” And Plato indicates free will in these words: “Virtue has no master; each will have more or less of it as he honors or dishonors it. The responsibility is the chooser's; God is not responsible.” For God is never the cause of evils. “O Trojans dear to Ares,” says the lyric poet, “Zeus who rules on high, who sees all things, is not the cause of great woes for mortals; but in the midst lies, for all men to reach, holy Justice, the attendant of pure Good Order and of wise Law; happy are the children of those who have found her to share their house.”

And Pindar plainly brings in Zeus the Savior living with Themis, interpreting him as King, a righteous Savior, thus: “First the Fates led heavenly Themis of good counsel, with golden horses, from the springs of Ocean up the holy stair along the shining road of Olympus, to be the ancient wife of Zeus the Savior; and she bore the golden-crowned, glorious-fruited, truthful Seasons.” He, then, who does not obey the truth, but is puffed up by human teaching, is ill-fated and wretched, and, according to Euripides, is one “who, seeing these things, does not perceive God and cast far away the crooked deceits of the star-gazers, whose baneful tongue shoots at random about things unseen, having no share of understanding.”

Whoever wishes, then, having arrived at true learning, let him hear Parmenides of Elea promising: “You will know the nature of the ether, and all the signs in the ether, and the unseen works of the pure, holy torch of the sun, and whence they came to be; and you will learn the wandering works of the round-eyed moon and its nature; and you will know also the heaven that holds them around, whence it sprang, and how Necessity led and bound it to keep the limits of the stars.” And let him hear Metrodorus, who, though he became an Epicurean, said this at least as if inspired: “Remember, Menestratus, that, being born mortal and having received a limited life, you went up in soul as far as eternity and the infinity of things, and saw ‘what will be and what was before.’” Then, with a happy chorus, according to Plato, we shall behold a blessed sight and spectacle, we following with Zeus, others with other gods, being initiated into the most blessed of mysteries, as is right to say, which we celebrate, ourselves whole and untouched by the evils that awaited us in later time, being initiated into and beholding whole and unshaken visions in pure light, pure ourselves and without the mark of this which we now carry about and call the body, bound to it like an oyster to its shell.

The Pythagoreans call heaven the “counter-earth,” the earth of which it is said through Jeremiah: “I will place you among the children, and I will give you a chosen land, an inheritance of God Almighty,” which those who inherit it will reign over the earth. And thousands upon thousands upon thousands of things flow in for me to cite; but for the sake of due proportion the discussion must now be brought to a stop, so that we too may not suffer what the tragic poet Agathon describes, “treating the side-work as though it were the work, and laboring at the work as though it were a side-work.”

Now that it has been clearly shown, I think, how we are to understand the Lord's calling the Greeks thieves, I willingly pass over the doctrines of the philosophers. For if we were to go through their very words, we would never finish, collecting a vast mass of notes to show that all the wisdom current among the Greeks came from the barbarian philosophy. We shall nonetheless take up this study again as far as necessary, when we collect the opinions on first principles current among the Greeks. But this too quietly presents itself to us for consideration from what has been said: how the books of the Greeks should be approached by one who is able to swim through the waves in them. “Happy,” then, it seems, according to Empedocles, “is he who has gained the wealth of divine understanding; wretched he whose care is a dark opinion about the gods.” He divinely showed that knowledge and ignorance are the boundaries of happiness and unhappiness. For “men who love wisdom must be inquirers into very many things,” according to Heraclitus; and truly “one who seeks to be good must wander much.”

It is already clear to us from what has been said that God's beneficence is everlasting, and that his natural justice is, from a beginning without beginning, simply equal toward all, given according to the worth of each race, never having begun. For God did not take a beginning of being Lord and good, being always what he is; nor will he ever cease doing good, even though he brings each thing to its end. And each of us partakes of his beneficence as far as he wills, since it is the choice and the diligent practice of a soul that has become worthy that has made the difference in election. Here, then, let the fifth Miscellany of our notes of knowledge according to the true philosophy be brought to an end.

Now the sixth, and together with it the seventh, Miscellany of our notes of knowledge according to the true philosophy, having sketched as far as possible the ethical account that is being brought to completion in these books, and having shown what the one who knows is like in his life, proceeds to show the philosophers that he is by no means godless, as they have supposed, but alone truly reverent toward God. It sets out in summary the manner of the knower's worship, as much at least as may be engraved without danger in a written memorandum. For the Lord commanded us to work for the food that remains to eternity; and somewhere the prophet says: “Blessed is he who sows upon every water, where calf and donkey tread”: that is, the people gathered from the law and from the nations into the one faith. “But the weak man eats vegetables,” according to the noble apostle. The Instructor, divided into three books, has already set out for us the upbringing and nourishment from childhood, that is, the way of life that grows together with faith from catechesis and prepares beforehand the soul of those who are being enrolled among grown men, endowed with virtue, for receiving the understanding that belongs to knowledge. When, then, the Greeks have clearly learned from what we are about to say here that in persecuting the one dear to God so unholily they are themselves the impious, then at last, as the notes proceed in the manner of the Miscellanies, we must resolve the difficulties raised against us besides, by Greeks and by barbarians, concerning the Lord's coming.

In a meadow the flowers blooming in variety, and in a garden the planting of fruit trees, are not separated each by its kind from those of other kinds (in this way some have composed learned collections, variously culled, which they titled Meadows, Helicons, Honeycombs, and Robes). So too the outline of our Miscellanies has been made many-colored like a meadow, with things that came to memory just as they happened, cleaned up neither in order nor in expression, but deliberately scattered and mixed together. And being of this sort, they would be for me notes to rekindle the embers of memory; and for anyone fit for knowledge, if he should happen upon them, the search will turn, with sweat, to his advantage and profit. For it is right that toil should go before not only food but much more knowledge, for those who are escorted by the truly narrow and afflicted way of the Lord to eternal and blessed salvation. Our knowledge and our spiritual garden is the Savior himself, into whom we are planted, having been transferred and transplanted from the old life into the good land; and the change of planting contributes to good fruit. The Lord, then, into whom we have been transferred, is light and the true knowledge.

Knowledge is also spoken of as twofold in another way. One kind is common: the understanding and perception found alike in all people, which shows itself universally in recognizing each of the things that lie before us; not only rational powers but perhaps even irrational ones will share in it. I at least would never call it knowledge, since it is by nature able to grasp things also through the senses. The other, called knowledge in a special sense, is marked out by judgment and reason; by it only rational powers become knowledges, those that apply themselves with purity to intelligible things by the bare activity of the soul. “A good man,” says David, is the one who has pity on those perishing through error, and “lends” by imparting the word of truth, not at random, but “he will order his words with judgment,” with deep reflection. “He has scattered, he has given to the poor.”

But before setting our hand to the matter proposed, we must by way of preface pay back what was still owing at the end of the fifth Miscellany. We showed that the symbolic form is ancient, and that not only our prophets used it but also most of the ancient Greeks and not a few of the other barbarians among the nations; and it was fitting also to go through the mysteries of those who are initiated. These I put off, to make them plain when we go through and refute what the Greeks have said about first principles; for we shall show that the mysteries too depend on this theory. We have shown that the expression of Greek thought was illuminated by the truth given to us through the Scriptures, understanding in what sense the theft of the truth reached them, if it is not offensive to say so. Come, then, let us bring forward the Greeks themselves as witnesses of the theft against themselves. For those who so openly purloin their own things from one another confirm that they are thieves, and, even against their will, are shown to be secretly appropriating for their own kin the truth that comes from us. For those who do not keep their hands off one another's will hardly keep them off ours.

I shall pass over in silence the doctrines of philosophy, since those who divide themselves into the schools acknowledge in writing, so as not to be convicted of ingratitude, that they received the most important of their doctrines from Socrates. Using the testimonies of a few men who are much talked about and of good repute among the Greeks, and exposing their thieving kind, without regard to the order of their dates, I shall turn to what follows. Well then, when Orpheus composed: “So there was nothing more shameless or more chilling than a woman,” Homer says outright: “So there is nothing more dreadful or more shameless than a woman.” And when Musaeus wrote: “For skill is always much better than strength,” Homer says: “By skill the woodcutter prevails rather than by force.” Again, when Musaeus composed: “And so too the grain-giving field grows leaves: some wither on the ash trees, and others it grows; so too it whirls round the generation and race of men,” Homer rewrites it: “Of the leaves, the wind pours some on the ground, but the flourishing forest grows others, and the season of spring comes on: so of the generation of men, one grows, another ceases.” Again, when Homer said: “It is not holy to boast over slain men,” Archilochus and Cratinus write, the one: “For it is not noble to jeer at men who have died,” and Cratinus in the Laconians: “This again is fearful for men, to boast greatly over slain warriors.”

Again Archilochus, transferring that Homeric line, “I was blinded; I do not deny it myself; worth many men …,” writes thus: “I went astray; and this blindness has perhaps overtaken some other man too.” So too with that verse: “Enyalius is impartial, and slays the one who would slay,” he himself reworked it and brought it out thus: “… I will do it; for truly Ares is impartial to men.” And again, rephrasing this: “For men the ends of victory lie in … of the gods,” he makes it plain in this iambic line: “And encourage the young men; but the ends of victory lie with the gods.”

Again, when Homer said, “with unwashed feet, sleeping on the ground,” Euripides writes in the Erechtheus: “On an unstrewn floor they sleep, and do not wet their feet in springs.” And likewise, when Archilochus had said, “but one man warms his heart with one thing, another with another,” alongside the Homeric “For one man delights in some deeds, another in others,” Euripides says in the Oeneus: “but one man takes pleasure more in some ways, another in others.” And I have heard Aeschylus saying: “He who is truly happy should stay at home, and he who fares badly, he too should stay,” and Euripides crying out the like on the stage: “Blessed is he who, prospering, stays at home,” and Menander too, making comedy of it thus: “One should stay at home and stay free, or no longer be the truly happy man.”

Again, when Theognis says: “An exile has no friend and faithful companion,” Euripides has composed: “Every friend flees out of the way of a poor man in exile.” And when Epicharmus said: “O daughter, alas for your fortune! You live with a young man, though you are older,” and added: “For he takes another, a young girl, and she in turn seeks some other man,” Euripides writes: “It is an evil to yoke a young wife to a young man; for he longs to take another woman's bed, and she, lacking him, plots evil.” Again, when Euripides said in the Medea, “For a bad man's gifts bring no profit,” Sophocles in the Ajax the Whip-Bearer speaks that iambic line: “Enemies' gifts are no gifts, and bring no profit.” And when Solon composed: “For excess breeds insolence, when much prosperity follows,” Theognis writes outright: “Excess breeds insolence, when prosperity follows a bad man.” Hence Thucydides too says in his Histories: “Most people, to whom unexpected good fortune comes most suddenly and in the shortest time, are wont to turn to insolence.” And Philistus likewise imitates the same, saying: “Much good fortune that comes to men in accordance with reason is safer than what comes contrary to expectation; and so too with misfortune; for those who fare well contrary to expectation and unexpectedly are wont above all to turn to insolence.”

Again, when Euripides composed: “For of a father and mother who toil at hard regimens the offspring are better,” Critias writes: “I begin with a man's birth: how would he become best and strongest in body? If the one who begets him should exercise and eat heartily and harden his body, and the mother of the child who is to be should be strong in body and exercise.” Again, when Homer said of the shield wrought by Hephaestus: “On it he made the earth, on it the sky, on it the sea … on it he set the great might of the river Ocean,” Pherecydes of Syros says: “Zas makes a robe, great and beautiful, and on it he embroiders Earth and Ogenus and the halls of Ogenus.” And when Homer said: “Shame, which greatly harms men and also profits them,” Euripides writes in the Erechtheus: “About shame I myself am hard put to judge; for there is need of it, and again it is a great evil.”

You could also take, set side by side, passages of theft from those who flourished together and competed against one another, such as these: from Euripides' Orestes, “O dear charm of sleep, helper in sickness,” and from Sophocles' Eriphyle, “Go away; you are disturbing sleep, the healer of sickness”; and from Euripides' Antigone, “The bastard is blamed in name, but its nature is equal,” and from Sophocles' Aleadae, “Everything good has an equal nature”; again from Euripides' Temenus, “For the god too helps the one who toils,” and from Sophocles in the Minos, “Fortune is no ally to those who do nothing”; and yes, from Euripides' Alexander, “Time will show you; learning by that proof I shall know you to be either good or bad,” and from Sophocles' Hipponous, “Therefore hide nothing, since Time, which sees all and hears all, unfolds all things.”

But let us run through these too in the same way. When Eumelus composed: “Nine daughters of Mnemosyne and Olympian Zeus,” Solon begins his elegy thus: “Glorious children of Mnemosyne and Olympian Zeus.” Again Euripides, paraphrasing the Homeric line, “Who are you among men, and from where? Where are your city and your parents?” uses these iambics in the Aegeus: “What land shall we say you have left, to be a stranger in this city? What are the bounds of your fatherland? Who begot you? Of what father are you proclaimed the son?” What then? When Theognis said: “Wine drunk in abundance is bad; but if one uses it with understanding, it is not bad but good,” does not Panyassis write: “Wine is the best gift from the gods to mortals when drunk in measure, but beyond measure it is worse”?

And when Hesiod says: “To you, in return for fire, I will give an evil in which all may delight,” Euripides composes: “For in return for fire another fire, greater and harder to fight, sprang up: women.” Besides these, when Homer says: “But it is in no way possible to fill a ravenous belly, the accursed thing, which gives many evils to men,” Euripides composes: “But need overcomes me, and my wretched, accursed belly, from which all evils come.” Further, when Callias the comic poet writes: “They say all must rave alike with those who rave,” Menander in the Men for Sale matches him, saying: “Good sense is not fitting everywhere it is present; one must sometimes join in the madness too.” And when Antimachus of Teos said: “For from gifts many evils come to men,” Agias composed: “For gifts beguile the mind of men, and their deeds too.”

And when Hesiod had said: “For a man wins nothing better than a wife, a good one; and nothing more chilling than a bad one,” Simonides said: “A man wins no possession better than a good wife, nor more chilling than a bad one.” Again, when Epicharmus said: “Think both as one who will live a long time and as one who will live a short time,” Euripides writes: “Why then, standing on a prosperity that is not sure, do we not live as pleasantly as we can, without grief?” Likewise, when the comic poet Diphilus said: “The life of men is easily changed,” Posidippus says: “No one, being human, has passed his life free from grief, nor again has he remained unfortunate to the end.” And Plato speaks in keeping with this, writing about man as a changeable living being. Again, when Euripides said: “O toilsome life of mortals, how slippery you lie in everything! Some things you increase, others you waste away; and there is no fixed boundary set for mortals to reach, except when the chill end of death arrives, sent from Zeus,” Diphilus writes: “There is no life that does not possess evils: griefs, cares, robberies, tortures, diseases. From these death, appearing like a physician, gives rest to those who have them, putting them to rest in sleep.”

Further, when Euripides said: “Many are the forms of divine things, and many things the gods bring to pass unexpectedly,” the tragic poet Theodectes likewise writes: “that the fortunes of mortals are not secure.” And when Bacchylides had said: “To few mortals has a god granted to fare well in due season all their time and to reach grey-templed old age before meeting with misery,” Moschion the comic poet writes: “That man is the most blessed of all who, living to the end, has practiced an even life.” And you would find that when Theognis had said: “A young wife is no use to an old husband; for she does not obey the rudder like a boat,” Aristophanes the comic poet writes: “An old man is a disgrace to a young wife.” For when Anacreon composed: “I sing of tender Love, teeming with garlands of many flowers; he is lord of the gods, he subdues mortals too,” Euripides writes: “For Love comes not upon men alone, nor again on women, but troubles the souls of the gods above and goes over the sea.”

But so that our discourse may not run on further as we eagerly show the Greeks' readiness for theft in both words and doctrines, come, let us bring forward as a direct witness for us Hippias the sophist of Elis, who arrives at the same account on the question before me, speaking thus: “Of these things some perhaps have been said by Orpheus, some by Musaeus, briefly, one here and another there; some by Hesiod, some by Homer, some by the other poets; and some in prose writings, some by Greeks and some by barbarians. But I, putting together from all of these the most important and kindred things, will make this discourse new and of many kinds.”

So that we may not overlook philosophy and history, nor even rhetoric, as having no share in the same exposure, it is reasonable to set out a few examples of these too. When Alcmaeon of Croton said that it is easier to guard against an enemy than against a friend, Sophocles composed in the Antigone: “For what wound could be greater than a bad friend?” and Xenophon said: “One could not harm enemies in any other way than by seeming to be a friend.” And when Euripides said in the Telephus: “Shall we, being Greeks, be slaves to barbarians?” Thrasymachus says in his speech For the Larissaeans: “Shall we, being Greeks, be slaves to Archelaus, a barbarian?”

When Orpheus composed: “Water is for the soul, and death is the exchange for waters; from water comes earth, and from earth again water; from this the soul, exchanging the whole ether,” Heraclitus, putting together his sayings from these, writes thus: “For souls it is death to become water, and for water it is death to become earth; from earth water comes to be, and from water soul.” And indeed, when Athamas the Pythagorean said thus: “The unbegotten beginning of all things, and its roots, are four: fire, water, air, earth; for from these come the births of the things that come to be,” Empedocles of Acragas composed: “First hear the four roots of all things: fire and water and earth and the boundless height of ether; for from these come all that was and will be and is.” And when Plato said: “For this reason the gods too, who know human affairs, take out of life more quickly those whom they hold most dear,” Menander has composed: “He whom the gods love dies young.”

When Euripides writes in the Oenomaus: “We judge the unseen by what is present,” and in the Phoenix: “Things unseen are rightly caught by proofs,” Hyperides says: “What is unseen, those who teach must seek by proofs and probabilities.” And again, when Isocrates said: “One must judge the future by what has happened before,” Andocides does not hesitate to say: “For one must use what has happened before as proofs about what is going to be.” Further, when Theognis composed: “The ruin of counterfeit gold and silver is bearable, Cyrnus, and easy for a wise man to find out; but if the mind of a friend lies hidden in his breast, being false, and he has a deceitful heart within, this is the most counterfeit thing a god has made for mortals, and the most painful of all to discover,” Euripides writes: “O Zeus, why have you given men clear signs for gold that is counterfeit, but in men's bodies there grows no mark by which one must discern the bad man?” And Hyperides himself says: “There is no mark of the mind set on the face of men.”

Again, when Stasinus composed: “Foolish is he who kills the father and leaves the children,” Xenophon says: “For I seem to myself now to have acted as if someone who had killed a father were to spare his children.” And when Sophocles composed in the Antigone: “With mother and father lying in Hades, there is no brother who could ever be born,” Herodotus says: “With mother and father no longer living, I shall have no other brother.” Besides these, when Theopompus composed: “Old men are children twice, by right reasoning,” and before him Sophocles in the Peleus: “Alone, keeping house, I tend Peleus son of Aeacus in his old age and bring him up again; for again the aging man becomes a child,” Antiphon the orator says: “For caring for the old is like caring for children,” and Plato the philosopher too: “So, it seems, the old man would become a child twice.”

Indeed, when Thucydides said: “At Marathon we alone faced the danger in front,” Demosthenes said: “No, by those who faced the danger in front at Marathon.” Nor shall I pass over these: when Cratinus said in the Wine Flask: “You know, perhaps, the preparation,” Andocides the orator says: “The preparation, gentlemen of the jury, and the zeal of my enemies, you will almost all know.” Likewise Nicias too, in his speech against Lysias concerning a deposit, says: “You see the preparation and the zeal of my opponents, gentlemen of the jury,” and after him Aeschines says: “You see the preparation, men of Athens, and the battle array.” Again, when Demosthenes said: “How much zeal, men of Athens, and how much canvassing there has been about this trial, I think nearly all of you have perceived,” Philinus likewise says: “How much zeal and battle array, gentlemen of the jury, has been made about this trial, I think not one of you is unaware.”

Again, when Isocrates had said: “being a relative of his money, but not of him,” Lysias says in the speeches on the orphans: “And he has been shown to be a relative not of their persons but of their money.” For when Homer too composed: “Friend, if by escaping this war we were to be ageless and deathless forever, I would not myself fight among the foremost, nor would I send you into the battle that gives men glory; but now, since in any case the fates of death stand over us, countless, which no mortal can flee or escape, let us go, whether we shall give glory to another or another to us,” Theopompus writes: “If by escaping the present danger we could spend the rest of our time without fear, it would be no wonder to love life; but now so many fates have grown up alongside life that death in battle seems more to be chosen.” What then? When Chilon the sophist uttered: “Give a pledge, and ruin is at hand,” did not Epicharmus bring out the same maxim in other words, saying: “Ruin is the daughter of surety, and surety the daughter of loss”?

And when Hippocrates the physician wrote: “So one must look to the season, the region, the age, and the diseases,” Euripides says in a speech in hexameter: “He who knows how to heal well must look to the ways of life of those who dwell in the city and, having seen the land, consider the diseases.” Again, when Homer composed: “No one of men, I say, has escaped his fate,” Archinus says: “For all men it is owed to die, either sooner or later,” and Demosthenes: “For all men the end of life is death, even if someone shuts himself up in a little room and keeps guard.”

And again, when Herodotus, in his story of Glaucus the Spartan, said that the Pythia declared that to tempt the god and to do the deed amount to the same thing, Aristophanes said: “For to intend is equal to doing,” and before him Parmenides of Elea: “For thinking and being are the same.” Or when Plato said: “We might say this, perhaps not absurdly, that the beginning of love is sight; hope lessens the passion, memory nourishes it, and habit preserves it,” does not Philemon the comic poet write: “All first see, then they admire, then they gaze further, then they fall into hope; thus love comes to be from these”? And when Demosthenes said: “For death is owed by all of us,” and so on, Phanocles writes in his Loves, or Fair Boys: “But the thread of the Fates cannot be unloosed, nor can any escape it, as many as feed on the earth.”

You would also find that when Plato said: “For of every plant the first shoot, if it has made a good start toward excellence, is the most decisive in bringing its own nature to its fitting end,” Ephorus the historian writes: “But none even of wild plants is naturally tamed once they have passed their youthful age.” And that saying of Empedocles: “For already I have once been a boy and a girl, a bush and a bird, and a mute fish in the sea,” Euripides rewrites in the Chrysippus: “Nothing of what comes to be dies, but, separated one thing from another, shows another form.” And when Plato in the Republic said that wives should be held in common, Euripides writes in the Protesilaus: “For the marriage bed of women ought to be common.” But when Euripides writes: “Since what suffices is enough for those who are self-restrained,” Epicurus says outright: “Self-sufficiency is the greatest wealth of all.” And again, when Aristophanes writes: “You will have a secure life if you are just, and you will live well, without tumult and fear,” Epicurus says: “The greatest fruit of justice is freedom from disturbance.”

Let these, then, suffice as the kinds of Greek theft of thought, being such as they are, as a clear example for anyone able to see. But now they have been caught not only stealing and paraphrasing thoughts and phrases, as has been shown; they will also be convicted of holding the stolen goods openly and entire. For they took the works of others outright and published them as their own: so Eugammon of Cyrene took the whole book on the Thesprotians from Musaeus, Pisander of Camirus took the Heraclea of Pisinus of Lindus, and Panyassis of Halicarnassus took the Capture of Oechalia from Creophylus of Samos.

You would find that even Homer, the great poet, took over word for word those lines, “As a man rears a flourishing sapling of olive,” and what follows, from Orpheus' Disappearance of Dionysus. And in the Theogony Orpheus composed of Cronus: “He lay with his thick neck bent aside, and all-conquering sleep took him”; and Homer transferred these lines to the Cyclops. And Hesiod composes in the Melampodia: “Sweet it is also to learn all that the immortals have ordained for mortals, a clear sign of the cowardly and the noble,” and what follows, taking it word for word from the poet Musaeus. Aristophanes the comic poet, in the first Thesmophoriazusae, transferred lines from Cratinus' Men on Fire. Plato the comic poet and Aristophanes in the Daedalus steal from each other. And the Cocalus, composed by Araros the son of Aristophanes, Philemon the comic poet altered and staged in his Changeling. The historians Eumelus and Acusilaus changed Hesiod's works into prose and published them as their own. Gorgias of Leontini and Eudemus of Naxos, the historians, stole from Melesagoras, and besides them Bion of Proconnesus, who also transcribed in summary the works of Cadmus of old; and Amphilochus, Aristocles, Leandrius, Anaximenes, Hellanicus, Hecataeus, Androtion, and Philochorus; and Dieuchidas of Megara transferred the beginning of his account from Hellanicus' Deucalioneia.

I say nothing of Heraclitus of Ephesus, who took most of his ideas from Orpheus. Plato drew from Pythagoras the teaching that the soul is immortal, and Pythagoras from the Egyptians. And many of Plato's followers have written treatises in which they show that the Stoics, as we said at the beginning, and Aristotle took most, and the most important, of their doctrines from Plato. Epicurus too contrived his leading doctrines from Democritus. So much for that. For life would fail me if I chose to go through each case, exposing the self-serving theft of the Greeks and how they claim for themselves the discovery of the finest of their doctrines, which they have received from us.

Now they are convicted not only of stealing doctrines from the barbarians, but also of imitating the things wondrously done among us from above by divine power, through those who lived holy lives, for our conversion, and of dressing them up as marvels in Greek mythology. So we shall ask them whether what they recount is true or false. False they would not say (for they would not willingly condemn themselves of the greatest folly, writing falsehoods); they would have to admit that it is true. How then do the things shown wondrously through Moses and the other prophets still appear incredible to them? For God Almighty, caring for all people, turns some to salvation by commandments, others by threats, some by wondrous signs, and some by gentle promises. But take the Greeks. Once, when a drought had been ravaging Greece for a long time and the crops were failing, those who were left, they say, came to Delphi as suppliants because of famine and asked the Pythia how they might be freed from the calamity. She declared to them one remedy for the disaster: to make use of the prayer of Aeacus. Persuaded by them, Aeacus went up the Hellenic mountain, stretched out pure hands to heaven, called on God as the common father, and prayed him to pity Greece in its distress. And as he prayed an extraordinary thunder crashed, all the surrounding air was filled with cloud, and violent, continuous rains burst down and filled the whole country. From this came an abundant and rich harvest, cultivated by the prayers of Aeacus.

“And Samuel,” it says, “called on the Lord, and the Lord gave thunder and rain in the day of harvest.” Do you see that he who sends rain on the just and the unjust through the powers subject to him is the one God? And the whole of our Scripture is full of God hearing and fulfilling each request at the prayers of the righteous. Again, the Greeks relate that once, when the Etesian winds failed, Aristaeus sacrificed in Ceos to Zeus Icmaeus; for there was great destruction, everything being scorched by the heat, and in particular the winds that usually cool the crops were not blowing; and he easily called them back. And the Delphians, when Xerxes marched against Greece and the Pythia proclaimed, “O Delphians, pray to the winds, and it will be better,” built an altar and offered sacrifice to the winds and had them as helpers; for they blew violently around Cape Sepias and shattered the whole armament of the Persian fleet.

And Empedocles of Acragas was called Wind-Stopper. It is said that once, when a wind blew from the mountain of Acragas, heavy and unhealthy for the inhabitants, and even causing barrenness in their wives, he stopped the wind. Hence he himself writes in his verses: “You will stop the might of the tireless winds, which rise over the earth and waste the fields of mortals; and again, if you wish, you will bring the winds back in return.” And he said that there followed him some “in need of prophecies, and others long pierced by grievous diseases.” Clearly, then, they have come to believe from our Scriptures that the righteous perform healings and signs and wonders. For even if certain powers move the winds and distribute the rains, let them hear the psalmist: “How lovely are your dwellings, Lord of powers.” He is the Lord of the powers and principalities and authorities, of whom Moses says, so that we may be with him: “And you shall circumcise your hardness of heart and no longer stiffen your neck; for the Lord your God, he is Lord of lords and God of gods, the great and strong God,” and what follows. And Isaiah says: “Lift up your eyes on high and see: who has displayed all these things?”

Some say, then, that plagues, hailstorms, gales, and the like tend to happen not only from the disorder of matter but also through the anger of certain daemons, or even of angels who are not good. For instance, they say that the magi at Cleonae, watching the sky for clouds about to hail, turn aside the threatened wrath by incantations and sacrifices; and indeed, if ever they lack an animal, they are content to offer blood from their own finger as the sacrifice. And Diotima of Mantinea, when the Athenians had sacrificed before the plague, brought about a ten-year postponement of the disease, just as the sacrifices of Epimenides the Cretan put off the Persian war for the same Athenians for the same length of time. They think it makes no difference whether we call these souls gods or angels. For instance, those experienced in this teaching, when founding temples, set up the tombs of the departed in many of them, indeed in almost all, calling their souls daemons and teaching that they are to be worshiped by men, as having received authority, through the purity of their life and by divine providence, to go about the region around the earth for the service of men; for they knew that some souls are held fast by nature in the body.

But we shall discuss these matters at the proper time, as our writing proceeds, in the account of angels. Democritus, foretelling many things from observing the heavens, was nicknamed Wisdom. When his brother Damasus received him kindly, he judged from certain stars that there would be much rain and foretold it. Those who believed him gathered in their crops (for it was summer and they were still on the threshing floors); but the others lost everything when an unexpected, heavy rain burst down. How, then, will the Greeks still disbelieve the divine manifestation at Mount Sinai, when fire blazed without consuming any of the things growing on the mountain, and the sound of trumpets was carried, blown without instruments? For that so-called descent of God upon the mountain is a manifestation of divine power pervading the whole world and proclaiming the unapproachable light. Such is the allegory according to Scripture. The fire, however, was seen, as Aristobulus says, by the whole multitude, not less than a million, apart from those under age, assembled around the mountain, whose circuit was not less than five days' journey.

So from every place from which it could be seen, the fire was beheld blazing by all of them round about, as though they were encamped around it, so that the descent was not a local one; for God is everywhere. And those who have compiled histories say that near the island of Britain there is a cave lying under a mountain, with a chasm at the summit; when the wind falls into the cave and breaks against the hollows of the cavity, a sound is heard like cymbals struck in rhythm. And often in the woods, too, when the leaves are moved by a sudden gust of wind, a sound strikes the ear like the song of birds. And those who have written Persian histories relate that in the upland regions, in the country of the Magi, three mountains lie in a row on a long plain. Those who travel through the place hear, when they come to the first mountain, a confused noise, as of many tens of thousands shouting, as in battle array; when they reach the middle one, they perceive a din at once louder and clearer; and at the last they hear men singing a paean as if victorious. The cause of every echo, I think, is the smoothness of the places and their cave-like character. For the air that enters, being thrown back and moving again into the same space, sounds more violently.

So much for these. But for God Almighty it is possible, even when nothing underlies it, to produce a voice and an appearance in the hearing, showing his own majesty beyond the customary things that follow a natural sequence, for the conversion of the soul that does not yet believe and its reception of the commandment that is given. And when there is a cloud and a high mountain, how is it not possible for a distinct sound to be heard, when the air is moved by the active cause? That is why the prophet says: “You heard a voice of words, and you saw no likeness.” You see how the Lord's voice is the Word without form; for the power of the Word, the luminous utterance of the Lord, truth that came from heaven above to the assembly of the church, was at work through a luminous and attentive ministry.

We might find yet another testimony confirming that the best of the philosophers appropriated the finest of their doctrines from us and boast of them as their own: that they have culled from the other barbarians too some things that contribute to each school, above all from the Egyptians, among other things the doctrine of the transmigration of the soul. For the Egyptians pursue a philosophy of their own; their sacred worship shows this most of all. First comes the Singer, carrying one of the symbols of music. He, they say, must have learned two of the books of Hermes, one of which contains hymns to the gods and the second an account of the king's life. After the Singer comes the Horoscopus, holding in his hand a clock and a palm branch, the symbols of astrology. He must always have on his lips the astrological books of Hermes, four in number: one about the arrangement of the fixed stars that appear, one about the order of the sun and moon and the five planets, one about the conjunctions and illuminations of the sun and moon, and the last about their risings.

Next comes the Sacred Scribe, with feathers on his head and a book and a basket in his hands, in which are the writing ink and the reed with which they write. He must know the so-called hieroglyphic books about cosmography and geography, the order of the sun and moon and the five planets, the topography of Egypt and the description of the Nile, the register of the furnishing of the temples and of the lands consecrated to them, and about measures and the things used in the temples. Then the Stolist follows those already mentioned, holding the cubit of justice and the libation cup. He knows all the books of instruction and those called calf-sealing. There are ten books that concern the honor paid to their gods and contain the Egyptian religion, for example about sacrifices, first fruits, hymns, prayers, processions, feasts, and the like.

Last of all the Prophet comes out, holding the water jar in plain view in his bosom; he is followed by those who carry the loaves set forth. He, as head of the temple, learns thoroughly the ten books called priestly (they contain matters concerning the laws, the gods, and the whole training of the priests); for among the Egyptians the prophet is also overseer of the distribution of the revenues. There are, then, forty-two books of Hermes that are absolutely necessary; of these, the thirty-six that contain the whole philosophy of the Egyptians are learned by those already mentioned, and the remaining six, which are medical, by the Pastophori: about the structure of the body, about diseases, about instruments, about drugs, about diseases of the eyes, and the last about women's conditions.

Such, briefly, are the things of the Egyptians. The philosophy of the Indians too has been noised abroad. Alexander of Macedon, for instance, took ten Indian gymnosophists, those thought to be the best and most concise in speech, and set problems before them, threatening to put to death the one who did not answer aptly, and ordering one of them, the eldest, to judge. The first, asked whether he thought the living or the dead were more numerous, said the living, for the dead do not exist. The second, asked whether the earth or the sea nourishes larger beasts, said the earth, for the sea is part of it. The third, asked which of the animals is the most cunning, said: “The one that has not been found out until now: man.” The fourth, questioned on what reasoning they had made Sabbas, who was their ruler, revolt, answered: “Wishing him either to live well or to die well.” The fifth, asked whether he thought day or night came first, said: “Night, by one day”; for to hard questions the answers too must be hard. The sixth, asked how one might be loved most, said: “If, being most powerful, he is not feared.” The seventh, asked how one might become a god from a man, said: “If he does what it is impossible for a man to do.” The eighth, asked which is stronger, life or death, said: “Life, since it bears so many evils.” The ninth, questioned how long it is good for a man to live, said: “Until he does not think death better than life.” When Alexander told the tenth too to say something (for he was the judge), he said: “Each spoke worse than the other.” When Alexander said, “Then you will die first yourself, for judging so,” he said: “And how, O king, would you be truthful, having said you would first kill the one who answered worst?”

That the Greeks have been caught as thieves of every kind of writing has, I think, been sufficiently shown by many proofs. But that the most esteemed of the Greeks know God not by full knowledge but by roundabout description, Peter says in the Preaching: “Know, then, that there is one God, who made the beginning of all things and has power over their end”; and: “The invisible, who sees all things; uncontainable, who contains all things; needing nothing, whom all things need and through whom they exist; incomprehensible, everlasting, incorruptible, unmade, who made all things by the word of his power,” that is, in the language of knowing Scripture, by the Son. Then he adds: “Worship this God, not as the Greeks do”; as though plainly the esteemed among the Greeks worship the same God as we, but not with perfect knowledge, since they have not learned the tradition given through the Son. “Do not,” then, he says, “worship”: he did not say “the God whom the Greeks worship,” but “not as the Greeks do,” changing the manner of the worship of God, not proclaiming another God.

What “not as the Greeks” means, Peter himself will make clear, adding: “For they, carried along by ignorance and not knowing God” (as we do, by perfect knowledge), “shaping the things over which he gave them authority for use, wood and stones, bronze and iron, gold and silver, forgetting their material and their use, set up as objects of worship the things meant to serve their existence; and the things God gave them for food, the birds of the air and the swimming creatures of the sea and the creeping things of the earth and the wild beasts with the four-footed cattle of the field, weasels and mice, cats and dogs and apes; and they sacrifice their own foods as sacrifices to things that are themselves eaten, and offering dead things to the dead as to gods, they are ungrateful to God, denying by these things that he exists.”

And that he speaks as though we and the Greeks know the same God, though not in the same way, he shows by adding next: “Nor worship as the Jews do …; for they too, thinking that they alone know God, do not know him, serving angels and archangels, the month and the moon. And if the moon does not appear, they do not keep the Sabbath called the first, nor do they keep the new moon, or unleavened bread, or the feast, or the great day.” Then he adds the crowning point of the question: “So you too, learning in holiness and righteousness what we hand on to you, keep it, worshiping God in a new way through Christ. For we have found in the Scriptures, as the Lord says: ‘Behold, I make with you a new covenant, not as I made with your fathers on Mount Horeb.’ He made a new one with us; for the ways of the Greeks and the Jews are old, but we are those who worship him in a new way, as a third race: Christians.” For he clearly showed, I think, that the one and only God is known by the Greeks in a Gentile way, by the Jews in a Jewish way, but by us in a new and spiritual way.

Moreover, he showed that the same God is the provider of both covenants, and is also the giver of Greek philosophy to the Greeks, by which the Almighty is glorified among the Greeks. This is clear from the following as well. From Greek education, and also from the law, those who accept the faith are gathered into the one race of the people being saved: not that the three peoples are divided by time, so that one might suppose three natures, but they are trained by different covenants of the one Lord, being by the word of the one Lord. And that, just as God wished to save the Jews by giving them the prophets, so also he raised up the most esteemed of the Greeks as prophets of their own in their own language, as they were able to receive God's benefaction, and distinguished them from the common run of men, the apostle Paul will show, besides the Preaching of Peter, saying:

“Take also the Greek books; recognize the Sibyl, how she makes known one God and the things that are to come; and take and read Hystaspes, and you will find the Son of God written of far more luminously and clearly, and how many kings will draw up battle lines against Christ, hating him and those who bear his name and his faithful ones, and his endurance, and his coming.” Then in one word he asks us: “The whole world and the things in the world, whose are they? Are they not God's?” That is why Peter says the Lord told the apostles: “If, then, anyone of Israel wishes to repent and to believe in God through my name, his sins will be forgiven him. After twelve years go out into the world, lest anyone say, ‘We did not hear.’”

But just as the preaching has now come at the proper time, so at the proper time the law and the prophets were given to the barbarians, and philosophy to the Greeks, accustoming their ears to the preaching. So the Lord who rescued Israel says: “In an acceptable time I heard you, and in a day of salvation I helped you; I gave you as a covenant of the nations, to settle the land and inherit the inheritance of the desert, saying to those in chains, ‘Come out,’ and to those in darkness, ‘Be uncovered.’” For if the prisoners are the Jews, of whom the Lord said, “Come out of the chains, you who wish,” speaking of those who are willingly bound and have laid on themselves “burdens hard to bear” (he says) by human additions, it is clear that those in darkness would be those who have their ruling faculty buried in idolatry. For to those righteous according to the law, faith was lacking; that is why the Lord, when healing them, said, “Your faith has saved you.” But to those righteous according to philosophy, not only faith in the Lord was lacking but also turning away from idolatry. So when the truth was revealed, they too repent of what they had done before. That is why the Lord preached the gospel also to those in Hades.

So Scripture says: “Hades says to Destruction: We have not seen his form, but we have heard his voice.” It was not, surely, the place that took on a voice and said this, but those set in Hades who had given themselves over to destruction, as though willingly throwing themselves from a ship into the sea; these, then, are the ones who heard the divine power and voice. For who in his right mind would suppose that the souls of the righteous and of sinners are under one condemnation, and so charge providence with injustice? What then? Do they not show that the Lord preached the gospel to those who perished in the flood, or rather who were bound, and to those held in prison and custody? And it was shown in the second Miscellany that the apostles, following the Lord, also preached the gospel to those in Hades. For it was necessary, I think, that just as here, so there too the best of the disciples should become imitators of the teacher, so that he might bring to conversion those of the Hebrews, and they the Gentiles: that is, those who had lived in righteousness according to the law and according to philosophy, yet not perfectly, but had ended their life in sin. For it befitted the divine plan that those who had greater worth in righteousness, who had lived excellently and repented of their offenses, even though they were in another place, making their confession, being among those who belong to God Almighty, should be saved, each according to his own knowledge.

The Savior too, I think, is at work, since saving is his work; which is just what he has done, drawing to salvation through the preaching those who were willing to believe in him, wherever they happened to be. If, then, the Lord went down to Hades for no other reason than to preach the gospel, as he did go down, either he preached to all or only to the Hebrews. If to all, then all who believe will be saved, even if they happen to be from the nations, having made their confession there; for God's punishments are saving and educative, leading to conversion and choosing the repentance of the sinner rather than his death; and all the more since souls released from bodies can see more clearly, even if they are darkened by passions, because they are no longer screened by the poor flesh. But if he preached only to the Jews, who lacked knowledge of the Savior and faith in him, it is clear that, since God shows no partiality, the apostles too, as here so there, preached the gospel to those of the nations who were fit for conversion. And it is well said in the Shepherd: “So they went down with them into the water; but these went down alive and came up alive, while those who had fallen asleep before went down dead but came up alive.”

Indeed, the Gospel also says that many bodies of those who had fallen asleep were raised, clearly having been transferred to a better order. There took place, then, a universal movement and transfer according to the Savior's plan. A righteous man, then, insofar as he is righteous, does not differ from another righteous man, whether he is under the law or a Greek; for God is Lord not of the Jews only but of all men, and more closely Father of those who know him. For if to live well is to live lawfully, and to live reasonably is to live according to law, and those before the law who lived rightly were reckoned to faith and judged to be righteous, it is clear that those too who were outside the law but lived rightly, because of the particular character of the soul, even if they were in Hades and in custody, on hearing the Lord's voice, whether his own or that working through the apostles, turned and believed with all speed. For we remember that the Lord is the power of God, and power could never be weak. Thus, I think, it is shown that God is good and that the Lord is able to save with justice and equality toward those who turn, whether here or elsewhere. For the active power does not reach here only, but is everywhere and is always at work.

For instance, in the Preaching of Peter the Lord says to the disciples after the resurrection: “I chose you twelve, judging you disciples worthy of me” (whom the Lord wished), “and considering you faithful apostles, sending you into the world to preach the gospel to the people throughout the inhabited world, that they may know that there is one God, making known through faith in me, the Christ, the things that are to come, so that those who have heard and believed may be saved, and those who have heard and not believed may bear witness, having no defense to plead, saying, ‘We did not hear.’” What then? Did not the same plan take effect in Hades too, so that there also all souls, having heard the preaching, might either show repentance or confess that their punishment is just, because they did not believe? It would have been no ordinary unfairness if those who had departed before the Lord's coming, without the gospel having been preached to them and without giving any cause of their own by believing or not believing, should have a share either in salvation or in punishment. For surely it is not right that some should have been condemned without trial, and only those after his coming should have enjoyed the divine justice. To all rational souls it has been said from above: “Whatever any of you did in ignorance, not knowing God clearly, if having come to know him he repents, all his sins will be forgiven him.” “For behold,” he says, “I have set before your face death and life, to choose life”; God saying that he set both before them for comparison and choice, not that he made both.

And in another scripture he says: “If you listen to me and are willing, you shall eat the good things of the land; but if you do not listen to me nor are willing, the sword shall devour you; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken these things.” And again David says plainly, or rather the Lord speaking in the person of the holy one (and this holy one is one from the foundation of the world: everyone who at various times has been saved, or will be saved, through faith): “My heart was glad and my tongue rejoiced. And moreover my flesh will dwell in hope,” he says, “because you will not abandon my soul to Hades, nor let your holy one see corruption. You have made known to me the ways of life; you will fill me with gladness with your presence.”

Just as the people is precious to the Lord, so the whole people is holy: together with the Jew, also the one who turns from the nations, who was foretold as the proselyte. Fittingly, then, Scripture says that the ox and the bear will be together. For the Jew is called an ox, from the animal under the yoke that the law judged clean, since the ox both divides the hoof and chews the cud; and the Gentile is shown by the bear, an unclean and wild beast. This animal gives birth to unformed flesh, which it shapes into the likeness of the beast with its tongue alone; for the one who turns from the nations is formed by the Word so as to be tamed from a beastly life, and once tamed, he too is purified like the ox. For instance, the prophet says: “Sirens will bless me, and daughters of sparrows, and all the beasts of the field.” Among the unclean animals the beasts of the field are known, that is, of the world; for he calls beasts those who are wild with respect to faith and filthy in life and not cleansed even by the righteousness of the law. But changing from being beasts through faith in the Lord, they become men of God, advancing from first willing to change to becoming so. For the Lord exhorts some, and to those who have already set their hand to it he stretches out his hand and draws them up. For the Master of all will not shrink from anyone's person, nor will he regard greatness, because he himself made small and great and provides for all alike.

And David says: “Though the nations were caught in the destruction they made, and their foot was taken in the very snare they hid, yet the Lord became a refuge for the poor, a helper in due season and in affliction.” Fittingly, then, those in affliction had the gospel preached to them. And for this reason he says: “Declare among the nations his doings,” so that they may not be judged unjustly. If, then, he preached the gospel to those in the flesh for this reason, that they might not be condemned unjustly, how did he not also preach it, for the same reason, to those who had departed before his coming? “For the Lord is righteous and has loved righteousness; his face has beheld uprightness.” “But he who loves unrighteousness hates his own soul.”

If, then, all sinful flesh perished in the flood, the punishment having come upon them for their correction, we must believe, first, that the will of God is educative and effective to save those who turn; and then, that the finer part, the soul, could never suffer anything terrible from the coarser element of water, since through its fineness and simplicity it is not held fast (which is why it is also called incorporeal). But whatever is coarse, having been thickened by sin, is cast off together with the fleshly spirit that lusts against the soul. Now even Valentinus, the leader of those who champion community, writes word for word in his homily On Friends: “Many of the things written in the public books are found written in the church of God. For these common things are the words from the heart, the law written in the heart. This is the people of the Beloved, loved by him and loving him.”

For by public books, whether he means the Jewish Scriptures or those of the philosophers, he makes the truth common. And Isidore, both son and disciple of Basilides, in the first book of his Expositions of the Prophet Parchor, also writes word for word: “The Athenians say that it was revealed to Socrates that a daemon attended him; and Aristotle says that all men have daemons that accompany them during the time of their embodiment. He took this prophetic teaching and set it down in his own books, without acknowledging where he had stolen this doctrine from.” And again in the second book of the same work he writes thus: “And let no one think that what we say is proper to the elect was said beforehand by certain philosophers. For it is not their discovery; they appropriated it from the prophets and attributed it to one who, by their own account, was not wise.” And again in the same work: “For it seems to me that those who make a profession of philosophy do so in order to learn what the winged oak is, and the embroidered robe upon it, all that Pherecydes set out as theology in allegory, taking the theme from the prophecy of Ham

As we noted long ago, by philosophy we do not mean the discipline of each school, but what is truly philosophy, … a wisdom of skill that gives experience in the affairs of life; and wisdom we call firm knowledge of things divine and human, a sure and unchangeable apprehension that embraces what is, what has been, and what will be, which the Lord has taught us both by his coming and through the prophets. And it cannot be overturned by argument, having been handed down by the same will by which it is also altogether true, as known through the Son. The one is eternal, the other useful for a time; the one is one and the same, the others many and indifferent; the one is without any movement of passion, the other goes with passionate desire; the one is perfect, the other lacking.

This wisdom, then, is what philosophy desires, being a matter of the soul, of right reason, and of purity of life; it is disposed toward wisdom with love and affection and does everything for the sake of attaining it. Among us, philosophers are those who love the wisdom of the maker and teacher of all things, that is, the knowledge of the Son of God; among the Greeks, those who take up arguments about virtue. Philosophy would be the unobjectionable doctrines of each of the schools (I mean the philosophical schools), together with the life that agrees with them, gathered into one selection. These too, stolen from the God-given grace of the barbarians, have been adorned with Greek style. For some things they stole, others they misheard; and among the rest, some things they said under inspiration but did not work out perfectly, and others by human conjecture and reasoning, in which they also go astray. They think they attain the truth perfectly, but, as we understand them, only partially.

At any rate they know nothing beyond this world. And indeed, just as geometry, dealing with measures, magnitudes, and figures by drawing on flat surfaces, and painting, which appears to take in the whole field of vision in scene-painting but in doing so deceives the sight, using by its technique points placed according to the incidence of the lines of sight (hence appearances of projection, recession, and aspect are preserved, and some things seem to stand out, others to recede, and others to appear in some other way on a flat and smooth surface), so too the philosophers imitate the truth after the manner of painting. Self-love is the cause of all sins for each person on each occasion. Therefore one must not be a lover of self, choosing the glory that comes from men, but, loving God, must become truly holy, with prudence.

If, then, anyone treats partial things as universal, and honors the servant as lord and ruler, he misses the truth, not understanding what David said in confession: “I ate earth and ashes like bread.” For self-love and conceit are earth and error to him. If so, knowledge and understanding come from learning. And if there is learning, one must seek the teacher. Cleanthes claims Zeno as his teacher, Theophrastus Aristotle, Metrodorus Epicurus, and Plato Socrates; but if I go back to Pythagoras and Pherecydes and Thales and the first wise men, I come to a halt, seeking their teacher. And if you say the Egyptians, or the Indians, or the Babylonians, or the Magi themselves, I shall not stop asking for their teacher. I lead you back even to the first generation of men, and from there I begin to inquire: who is the teacher? No man, for they had not yet learned; nor any angel either, for men do not hear as angels, as angels, communicate, nor do angels have a tongue as we have ears. Nor would anyone ascribe organs of voice to angels, I mean lips and the parts next to them, throat and windpipe and chest and breath and air being struck. Far indeed is God from shouting aloud, separated by unapproachable holiness even from the archangels themselves. And we have been taught that the angels too, and their rulers, learned the truth; for they came into being.

It remains, then, that we climb higher still and long for their teacher. And since the unbegotten is one, God Almighty, and one also is the first-begotten, “through whom all things came to be, and without him not one thing came to be” (“For truly God is one, who made the beginning of all things,” Peter writes, indicating the first-born Son, understanding accurately the words: “In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth”), and he is called Wisdom by all the prophets, he is the teacher of all created beings, the counselor of God who foreknew all things; and he from above, from the first foundation of the world, has taught “in many ways and in many portions” and brings to perfection. Hence it is fittingly said: “Do not call anyone on earth your teacher.” You see where the true philosophy has its handles. Even if the law is an image and shadow of the truth (the law is indeed a shadow of the truth), yet the self-love of the Greeks proclaims certain men as teachers.

Just as every family goes back to God the Maker, so the teaching of good things goes back to the Lord, both the teaching that justifies and the teaching that leads by the hand to it and helps. But if some, having received seeds of the truth in whatever way from some …, did not nurture them, but handed them over to barren and rainless ground and choked them with wild weeds, as the Pharisees turned aside from the law by introducing human teachings, the teacher is not to blame for this, but those who chose to mishear. Those of them who were persuaded by the Lord's coming and the clarity of the Scriptures come to full knowledge of the law, just as those who come from philosophy are established, through the Lord's teaching, in full knowledge of the true philosophy. For “the words of the Lord are pure words, silver refined by fire, tested, purified seven times in the earth.”

Either the righteous man, like silver often refined, becomes tested, having become the Lord's coin and received the royal stamp; or, since Solomon too says, “The tongue of the righteous is silver refined by fire,” he is indicating that teaching that is tested and wise is praiseworthy and acceptable when it has been richly purified “in the earth,” that is, when the knowing soul is sanctified in many ways by abstaining from earthly fires. And the body too, in which it dwells, is purified, being claimed as its own for the purity of a holy temple. This first cleansing of the soul in the body is abstinence from evils, which some consider perfection; and this is simply the perfection of the common believer, Jew and Greek. But in the one who knows, after what others consider perfection, righteousness advances to the activity of doing good; and in whomever the heightening of righteousness has grown into doing good, in him perfection abides in an unchangeable habit of doing good, after the likeness of God. For those who are the seed of Abraham, still servants of God, are the called; but the sons of Jacob are his elect, who have tripped up the activity of evil.

If, then, we call Christ himself wisdom, and also his activity through the prophets, by which it is possible to learn thoroughly the tradition of knowledge, as he himself taught the holy apostles during his coming, then knowledge would be wisdom, being understanding and apprehension, firm and secure, of things present, future, and past, as having been handed down and revealed by the Son of God. And indeed, if contemplation is the goal of the wise man, the one who is still a philosopher reaches for divine understanding but does not yet attain it, unless by learning he receives the prophetic voice made clear to him, through which he receives “what is, what will be, and what was before,” how they are, were, and will be. This knowledge, handed down unwritten from the apostles to a few by succession, has come down to us. From this, then, knowledge or wisdom must be exercised into an eternal and unchangeable habit of contemplation.

For Paul too, in his letters, plainly does not disparage philosophy, but thinks it right that one who has shared in the height of the one who knows should no longer run back to Greek philosophy, which he calls allegorically “the elements of the world,” since it is a kind of elementary teaching and preparatory training for the truth. That is why, writing also to the Hebrews, who were turning back from faith to the law, he says: “Or do you again need someone to teach you what are the elements of the beginning of the oracles of God? And you have come to need milk, not solid food.” In the same way, then, he writes to the Colossians, who had turned from among the Greeks: “See that no one will be the one who carries you off as spoil through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the elements of this world and not according to Christ,” enticing them to run back again to philosophy, the elementary teaching. And if someone says that philosophy was discovered by the Greeks through human understanding, still I find the Scriptures saying that understanding is sent by God.

The psalmist, at any rate, considers understanding the greatest gift and asks for it, saying: “I am your servant; give me understanding.” And is it not the breadth of knowledge that David asks for when he writes: “Teach me goodness and discipline and knowledge, for I have believed your commandments”? It is agreed that the covenants are authoritative and are given to those more highly honored. At any rate the psalm says again of God: “He has not done so for any nation, and he has not shown them his judgments.” “He has not done so” shows that he did do it, but not so. The “so,” then, is in comparison with the preeminence that has come to us; for surely the prophet could have said simply “he has not done” without adding “so.” And indeed Peter too says in the Acts: “Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation the one who fears him and works righteousness is acceptable to him.”

God's impartiality, then, is not from a point in time but from eternity; nor did his beneficence ever begin, nor is it confined to certain places or people, for his doing of good is not partial. “Open to me the gates of righteousness,” he says; “entering by them I will give thanks to the Lord. This is the gate of the Lord; the righteous shall enter by it.” And Barnabas, explaining the prophet's saying, adds: “Of the many gates that are open, the one in righteousness is this one, which is in Christ, in which all who have entered are blessed.” That prophetic saying too holds the same meaning: “The Lord upon many waters”: not only the various covenants, but also the ways of teaching, both among the Greeks and among the barbarians, that lead to righteousness. And David, bearing clear witness to the truth, sings: “Let the sinners be turned back to Hades, all the nations that forget God.” They forget, evidently, one whom they formerly remembered, and they set aside the one whom they knew before they forgot him. There was, then, a dim knowledge of God even among the nations.

Let these things be so. But the one who knows must be very learned. And since the Greeks say, following Protagoras who began it, that to every argument an argument is opposed, it is fitting that he be prepared for such arguments too. For Scripture says: “He who says much will also hear in return.” “And who will understand the Lord's parable, except one who is wise and understanding and loves his Lord?” Let such a one, then, be faithful; let him be able to express knowledge; let him be wise in the discernment of words; let him be vigorous in deeds; let him be pure. “For the greater he seems to be, the more humble-minded he ought to be,” says Clement in the letter to the Corinthians. Such a man is able to obey that precept: “And some snatch out of the fire, but on those who doubt have mercy.” The pruning hook, of course, was made primarily for pruning, but with it we also separate tangled branches and cut the thorns that grow along with the vines, which are hard to get at; yet all these relate to pruning. Again, man was made primarily for the knowledge of God, but he also farms, measures land, and philosophizes: the first for living, the second for living well, and the third for studying things that admit of demonstration.

Indeed, let those who say that philosophy takes its rise from the devil consider this too: Scripture says that the devil transforms himself into an angel of light. To do what? Clearly, to prophesy. And if he prophesies as an angel of light, he will say true things. If they are angelic and luminous, he will then prophesy useful things too, when he is transformed in likeness of activity, even if he is different in the substance of his apostasy. For how could he deceive anyone unless he drew the lover of learning into familiarity by true things, and so afterward dragged him down into falsehood? Besides, he will be found to know the truth, and if not with firm apprehension, at least not without experience of it. Philosophy, then, is not false, even if the thief and liar speaks true things by a transformation of activity; nor must we ignorantly condemn beforehand what is said because of the speaker (which must also be observed with those who are now said to prophesy), but we must examine what is said, whether it holds to the truth.

Speaking now in general terms, we would not be wrong to say that all things necessary and profitable for life come to us from God, and that philosophy was given especially to the Greeks, like a covenant of their own, being a foundation for the philosophy according to Christ, even if those who practice Greek philosophy willfully shut their ears to the truth, despising the speech of the barbarians or fearing the danger of death that hangs over the believer under the civil laws. But as in the barbarian philosophy, so in the Greek, tares were sown by the tares' own farmer. Hence both the heresies among us grew up along with the fruitful wheat, and those who preach the godlessness and pleasure of Epicurus, and whatever else contrary to right reason has been sown in Greek philosophy, are bastard fruits of the husbandry given by God to the Greeks.

This pleasure-loving and self-loving wisdom the apostle calls “the wisdom of this age,” as teaching only the things of this world and about it, and consequently subject, under their government, to the rulers here. That is why this partial philosophy is elementary, while the truly perfect understanding is concerned with intelligible things beyond the world, and with things still more spiritual than these, “which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, nor has it entered the heart of men,” until the teacher made the account of them clear to us, revealing the holy of holies and, ascending further, things holier still, to those who are genuinely, and not illegitimately, heirs of the Lord's adoption. For we dare to say (for here lies the faith of the one who knows) that the one who truly knows understands all things and comprehends all things, with firm apprehension even of things that are hard for us, as were James, Peter, John, Paul, and the rest of the apostles. For prophecy is full of knowledge, as given by the Lord and again made clear through the Lord to the apostles. And is not knowledge the property of the rational soul trained for this, so that through knowledge it may be enrolled for immortality? For both are powers of the soul: knowledge and impulse.

Impulse is found to be a movement that follows some assent; for one who has an impulse toward some action first gets knowledge of the action, and second the impulse. Let us consider this further. Since learning is prior to doing (for by nature the one who acts first learns what he wishes to do), and knowledge comes from learning, and doing from having an impulse; and since knowledge comes from learning, and impulse follows understanding, and action follows impulse; knowledge would be the beginning and maker of every rational action, so that the particular character of the rational soul would rightly be marked out by this alone. For in truth impulse is, as it were, knowledge moving toward things, while knowledge itself is a kind of vision by the soul of things, either of some things or, when perfected, of all.

And yet some say that the wise man is persuaded that there are some things incomprehensible, so that he has a kind of comprehension even of these, comprehending that the incomprehensible things will remain incomprehensible. This is common even to those who can see only a little ahead; for such a person affirms that there are some incomprehensible things. But the one who knows, of whom I speak, himself comprehends what seems incomprehensible to others, believing that nothing is incomprehensible to the Son of God, and therefore nothing is beyond teaching; for he who suffered out of love for us would hold back nothing in the teaching of knowledge. This faith, then, becomes a firm demonstration, since truth follows what has been handed down by God. And if anyone longs for wide experience, the disciple of wisdom “knows the things of old and conjectures the things to come; he understands the turns of speech and the solutions of riddles; he foreknows signs and wonders and the outcomes of seasons and times.”

For the one who knows is such that he is subject only to the affections that arise for the maintenance of the body, such as hunger, thirst, and the like. But in the case of the Savior it would be ridiculous to suppose that the body, as a body, demanded the necessary services for its maintenance; for he ate not for the sake of the body, which was held together by holy power, but so that it might not enter the minds of those who were with him to think otherwise about him, as indeed later some supposed that he had been manifested only in appearance. He himself was entirely free from passion; no movement of passion, either pleasure or pain, found its way into him. The apostles, having mastered anger and fear and desire in a more knowing way through the Lord's teaching, did not admit even what seem to be the good forms of passionate movement, such as boldness, zeal, joy, and cheerfulness; they were in no way changed, by a firm settledness of mind, but always remained unaltered in a habit of discipline, at least after the Lord's resurrection. For even if someone accepts the aforesaid goods when they arise with reason, they are still not to be admitted in the perfect man. He has no occasion for boldness (for he is never among terrors, since he considers nothing in life terrible, and nothing can draw him away from the love of God); nor does he need cheerfulness (for he does not fall into grief, being persuaded that all things turn out well); nor indeed does he become angry (for there is nothing that will move him to anger, since he always loves God and is wholly turned to him alone, and therefore hates none of God's creatures); nor is he zealous (for he lacks nothing needed for being made like the beautiful and good; nor, then, does he love anyone with this common friendship, but he loves the Creator through the creatures).

So he does not fall into desire or any craving, nor is he in need, as far as the soul is concerned, of anything else, since he is already united through love with the Beloved, to whom he has been made akin by his own choice, and drawing nearer to him by the habit that comes from discipline, being blessed through the abundance of good things; so that for these reasons he strives to be made like the teacher in freedom from passion. For the Word of God is intellectual, and in this respect the image of mind is seen in man alone; hence the good man is godlike and resembles God in soul, and God in turn is manlike; for the form of each is the mind, by which we are characterized. That is why those who sin against a man are also unholy and impious.

For it is nonsense to say that the one who knows, the perfect man, must not be deprived of anger and boldness, as though without these he would not rise above circumstances nor endure terrors; and that, if we should also take away his cheerfulness, he would be utterly overwhelmed by griefs and for that reason depart from life most wretchedly. And if he had no share in desire, as some have thought, he would not, they say, gain a longing … for likeness to the beautiful and good. If, then, every appropriation of what is beautiful comes about with craving, how, they say, does one who craves the beautiful remain free from passion? But these people, it seems, do not know the divine quality of love. For love is no longer a craving of the one who loves, but an affectionate appropriation, which has restored the one who knows to the unity of the faith, no longer needing time and place. He who through love is already among the things amid which he will be, having anticipated his hope through knowledge, does not even crave anything, since he has, as far as possible, the very object of craving. Fittingly, then, he remains in the one unchangeable habit, loving in the manner of knowledge; nor will he strive to be made like the beautiful, since through love he possesses beauty. What further need has he of boldness and desire, who through love has received appropriation to the God who is free from passion, and through love has enrolled himself among his friends?

We must, then, exempt the one who knows, the perfect man, from every passion of the soul. For knowledge produces training, training produces a habit or disposition, and such a state produces freedom from passion, not moderation of passion; for the complete cutting off of desire reaps freedom from passion. Nor does the one who knows share in those much-talked-of goods, that is, the passionate goods that lie next to the passions: I mean, for example, gladness (which lies next to pleasure), dejection (for this is yoked to grief), and caution (for it is subordinate to fear), nor indeed spirit (this is ranked beside anger),

even if some say that these are no longer evils but already goods. For it is impossible that one who has once been perfected through love, and who feasts eternally and insatiably on the never-cloying gladness of contemplation, should still delight in small and grovelling things. For what reasonable cause is left to him to run back to worldly goods, when he has attained the unapproachable light, even if not yet in time and place, yet by that knowing love through which the inheritance and the complete restoration follow, the rewarder confirming by deeds what the one who knows, having chosen it knowingly through love, has already anticipated and taken beforehand? Is it not so that, departing to the Lord through his love for him, even if his tent is seen on earth, he does not remove himself from life (for that is not permitted him), but he has removed his soul from the passions (for that is granted him), and he lives having put his desires to death, and no longer makes common use of the body, but only allows it the use of necessities, so as not to give cause for its dissolution?

How then does he still need courage, since he is not among terrors, not being present here, but already wholly united with the Beloved? And what need of self-restraint has he who does not need it? For to have such desires as to need self-restraint for self-control over them belongs to one not yet pure but subject to passion; and courage is taken up because of fear and cowardice. For it is certainly no longer fitting that the friend of God, whom God foreordained before the foundation of the world to be enrolled in the highest adoption, should fall into pleasures or fears and be occupied with the repression of passions. For I would dare to say: just as he stands foreordained through what he will do and what he will attain, so he too, having foreordained, holds through what he has known the one whom he has loved; he does not have a future hard to discern, as the many live by guessing, but has received through knowing faith what is unclear to others.

And for him, through love, the future is already present. For he has believed God, who does not lie, both through prophecy and through the coming; and what he has believed he possesses, and he holds fast the promise (and the one who promised is truth), and he has securely received, with understanding, the fulfilment of the promise through the trustworthiness of the one who promised. And he who knows that his state among the things where he is is a firm apprehension of things to come, goes out to meet the future beforehand through love. For instance, he will not even pray to obtain the things here, being persuaded that he will obtain the truly good things; but he will pray always to hold to the faith that attains and succeeds. And besides this he will pray that very many may become as like himself as possible, for the glory of God, which is perfected through full knowledge. For whoever is made like the Savior is himself a kind of savior, so far as it is lawful for human nature to receive the image, carrying out without transgression what accords with the commandments.

The one whose practice is to worship the divine through true righteousness, of works and of knowledge: his voice in prayer the Lord does not wait for, saying: “Ask, and I will do it; think, and I will give it.” For in general, what is unchangeable cannot take firm hold and stability in what is changing; and in continual change, the ruling faculty becoming unstable for that reason, the power of habit is not preserved. For what is always being altered by things coming in and falling upon it from outside, how could it ever come to be in a habit and disposition, and, in short, in the possession of understanding? And yet the philosophers too consider the virtues habits, dispositions, and forms of understanding. As knowledge is not born with men but is acquired, and learning it needs attention at the beginning, and nourishment and growth, and then from unceasing practice comes into a habit, so, when perfected in the mystic habit, it remains unshakable through love. For he has not only apprehended the first cause and the cause begotten by it and holds firmly about them, possessing in a steadfast way steadfast, unchangeable, and immovable principles, but also about good and evil, about all coming into being, and, in a word, about the things of which the Lord spoke, he has the most exact truth from the foundation of the world to the end, having learned it from the truth itself; not choosing before the truth itself anything that might appear persuasive or compelling by Greek reasoning, but having received what was spoken by the Lord as clear and manifest. Even if these things are still hidden from others, he has already received knowledge of all things. And the oracles we have declare about things that are, how they are, about things to come, how they will be, and about things past, how they came to be.

And in matters of understanding, being alone truly understanding, he will excel and will champion the account of the good, always devoted to intelligible things, copying from those archetypes above his management of human affairs, as sailors steer the ship by the star; ready and prepared for every fitting action; accustomed to disregard all that is troublesome and terrible when he must endure it; never doing anything rash or out of harmony either for himself or for the community; foreseeing, and unbending to pleasures, whether waking or in dreams. For, accustomed with self-restraint to a frugal diet and self-sufficiency, he is simple and dignified, needing few necessities for living, busying himself with nothing superfluous; and even these he does not treat as primary, but accepts them, as far as necessary, from the fellowship of life, as needed for his sojourn in the flesh. For knowledge is primary for him.

As a consequence, then, he also devotes himself to the studies that train him for knowledge, taking from each discipline what contributes to the truth: pursuing in music the proportion in harmonies; in arithmetic noting the increases and decreases of numbers and their relations to one another, and how most things fall under some proportion of numbers; in geometry contemplating essence itself by itself and becoming accustomed to conceive of continuous extension and unchangeable essence, different from these bodies; and again from astronomy, raised from the earth in mind, he will be lifted up with heaven and will travel round with its revolution, always investigating divine things and their harmony with one another; setting out from these, Abraham ascended to the knowledge of the Creator. And the one who knows will also make use of dialectic, choosing the division of genera into species, and will take up the distinguishing of beings until he touches the first and simple things. But most people fear Greek philosophy as children fear bogeys, afraid that it will lead them away.

But if their faith (for I would not call it knowledge) is such that it can be dissolved by plausible argument, let it be dissolved; by this above all they confess that they will not hold the truth. For truth is invincible, it says, but false opinion is destroyed. For instance, we choose purple by comparing it with another purple. So if someone admits that he does not have a trained heart, he has neither the money-changers' table nor the criterion of arguments. And how is he still a banker, if he cannot test and distinguish genuine coin from counterfeit? And David cries: “For the righteous will not be shaken forever”: neither, then, by deceitful argument nor by misleading pleasure; hence he will not be shaken from his own inheritance. “He will not be afraid of an evil report”: neither, then, of empty slander nor of false opinion about himself; nor will he fear cunning arguments, since he can discern them and can ask and answer rightly. For dialectic is like a fence, so that the truth is not trampled by the sophists. For those who are praised in the holy name of the Lord, according to the prophet, must “rejoice in heart, seeking the Lord.” “Seek him, then, and be strengthened; seek his face continually,” in every way. For having spoken in many portions and in many ways, he is not known simply.

So our one who knows will be very learned, using these not as virtues but as certain helpers; and in distinguishing what is common and what is particular he will attain the truth. For the cause of all error and false opinion is the inability to discern in what way things share with one another and in what way they differ. And if someone does not follow the argument according to the distinctions, he will unawares confuse the common and the particular; and when this happens, he necessarily falls into pathlessness and error. The distinguishing of names and of things, even in the Scriptures themselves, produces great light in souls; for one must attend both to words that signify several things and to several words when they signify one thing; from this comes the ability to answer rightly. But much useless learning must be declined, which busies one with things of no concern; the one who knows uses the disciplines as auxiliary preparatory exercises, both for the exact transmission of the truth, as far as attainable, without distraction, and for protection against arguments contrived to cut the truth away.

He will not, then, fall behind those who make progress in the general studies and in Greek philosophy, yet not as his primary aim but as something necessary, secondary, and dependent on circumstances. For what those who labor in the heresies use cunningly, the one who knows will use for good. Since, then, the truth that appears in Greek philosophy is partial, the real truth, like the sun shining on colors, white and black, shows what each of them is; so it too refutes every sophistic plausibility. Fittingly, then, it was proclaimed beforehand also among the Greeks: “Beginning of great virtue, queen Truth.”

Just as we have Abraham as an example in astronomy, so we have the same Abraham in arithmetic. For hearing that Lot had been taken captive, he numbered his own household servants, 318, and going out he overcame a very great number of the enemy. They say, then, that the letter that stands for 300 is by its shape a type of the Lord's sign, and that iota and eta signify the saving name; it is indicated, then, that Abraham's household in respect of salvation, those who had taken refuge in the sign and the name, became masters of the captors and of the very many unbelieving nations following them. Now the number 300 is three in the hundreds, and ten is acknowledged to be all-perfect; and eight is the first cube, equality in all dimensions: length, breadth, depth. “And the days of men will be,” it says, “120 years.” This number is the fifteenth by addition from unity, and the moon becomes full on the fifteenth day.

In another way, too, the number one hundred and twenty is triangular, and it is made up, by way of equality, of sixty-four, whose partial sums generate squares: 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15; and, by way of inequality, of fifty-six, the seven even numbers starting from two, which generate the oblong numbers: 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14. According to yet another meaning, the number one hundred and twenty is made up of four numbers: one triangular, fifteen; another square, twenty-five; a third pentagonal, thirty-five; and a fourth hexagonal, forty-five. For in each kind the fifth is taken by the same proportion: of the triangular numbers counted from the unit the fifth is fifteen, of the square numbers twenty-five, and of the following ones proportionally. Now the number twenty-five, being the fifth from the unit, is said to be a symbol of the tribe of Levi; and thirty-five belongs to the arithmetical, geometrical, and harmonic diagram formed from double ratios, 6, 8, 9, 12, whose sum makes thirty-five. In these days, the Jews say, children born at seven months are formed. And forty-five belongs to the diagram formed from triple ratios, 6, 9, 12, 18, whose sum makes forty-five; and in these days likewise, they say, children born at nine months are formed.

This, then, is the kind of arithmetical example. As a testimony of geometry let there be the tabernacle that was built and the ark that was constructed, made with most rational proportions by divine designs, by the gift of understanding, which leads us from sensible things to intelligible ones, or rather from these to the holy things and the holy of holies. For the square timbers show security, because the square figure stands on right angles on every side. The length of the structure was three hundred cubits, its breadth fifty, and its height thirty; and the ark is finished off in a cubit at the top, tapering from its broad base in the manner of a pyramid, a symbol of those who are purified and tested by fire. This geometrical proportion serves to escort us to those holy dwelling places whose differences are indicated by the differences of the numbers set out here.

The ratios contained in them are sixfold, as three hundred to fifty; tenfold, as three hundred is ten times thirty; and one and two-thirds, for fifty is one and two-thirds of thirty. There are some who say that the three hundred cubits are a symbol of the Lord's sign; the fifty, of hope and of the forgiveness at Pentecost; and the thirty, or, as in some sources, twelve, they report as signifying the preaching, because the Lord preached in his thirtieth year and the apostles were twelve; and that the structure is finished off in one cubit because the progress of the righteous man ends in the unit and in the unity of the faith. The table in the temple was six cubits, and its four feet a cubit and a half each. So they make twelve cubits in all, in keeping with the revolution of the twelve months in the yearly cycle, in which the earth, adapting itself to the four seasons, brings all things forth and to maturity. The table, I think, shows an image of the earth, resting on four feet, summer, autumn, spring, and winter, through which the year makes its way. That is why it says that the table has twisted wave-mouldings: either because all things revolve in the cycles of the seasons, or perhaps it indicated the earth encircled by the ocean.

Further, as an example of music, let David be set before us, playing the harp and prophesying at once, singing praise to God melodiously. The enharmonic genus suits the Dorian mode very well, and the diatonic the Phrygian, as Aristoxenus says. The harmony of the barbarian psaltery, then, which displays the solemnity of its melody and is the most ancient, became above all a model for Terpander, who hymns Zeus in the Dorian mode somewhat as follows: “Zeus, beginning of all things, leader of all, Zeus, to you I send this beginning of hymns.” For the psalmist the lyre, understood allegorically, would be in its first meaning the Lord, and in its second those who strike the souls more immediately under the Lord, the leader of the Muses. And if the people that is being saved is called a lyre, it is heard glorifying God musically by the inspiration of the Word and by the knowledge of God, struck into faith by the Word. You may also take, in another way, as a musical symphony the church's concord of the law and the prophets together with the apostles and the gospel, and, below it, the harmony within each prophet as the speaking persons change.

But, it seems, most of those who bear the name treat the Word boorishly, like the companions of Odysseus: they pass by not the Sirens but rhythm and melody, having stopped their ears with ignorance, because they know that once they have lent their hearing to Greek learning they will not afterwards be able to achieve their return home. But the one who gathers the flower of what is useful for the benefit of the catechumens, especially if they are Greeks (“and the earth is the Lord's, and its fullness”), must not abstain from the love of learning like irrational animals; he must rather collect as many aids as he possibly can for his hearers. Only, he must by no means linger among these things, except for the sole purpose of what is useful in them, so that, having taken and acquired it, he may be able to go home to the true philosophy, having secured for his soul a firm mooring cable, the security that comes from every quarter. We must, then, take hold of music for the adornment and composure of character.

Indeed, even at a drinking party we pledge one another with psalm-singing, charming our desire to rest and glorifying God for the bountiful gift of human enjoyments, the foods for the growth of body and of soul that are supplied everlastingly. But superfluous music must be spat out, the kind that enervates souls and throws them into variety, now mournful, now licentious and voluptuous, now frenzied and mad. The same account holds for astronomy. For, through its inquiry into the heavenly phenomena, the shape of the universe, the revolution of the heaven, and the motion of the stars, it brings the soul nearer to the creating power, and it teaches one to be quick to perceive the seasons of the year, the changes of the weather, and the risings of the stars; for navigation and agriculture too are full of the use it provides, just as architecture and building are of the use of geometry. This study also makes the soul as attentive as possible, sharp to discern the true and to refute the false, able to find correspondences and proportions, so as to track down the like in the unlike; and it leads us to discover length without breadth, surface without depth, and the point without parts, and transfers us from sensible things to intelligible ones.

The branches of learning, then, are helpers of philosophy, and philosophy itself is a helper toward treating of the truth. For example, the cloak was at first a fleece; then it was carded and became woof and warp, and then it was woven. So the soul must be prepared beforehand and worked in various ways if it is to be made excellent. For one part of truth concerns knowing and another doing; the latter has flowed from the contemplative part, but it needs practice, much exercise, and experience. And of the contemplative part, too, one side is directed toward one's neighbors and another toward oneself. Therefore education must also be so arranged as to be fitted to both. It is possible, then, for one who has thoroughly learned the essentials of what leads to knowledge to remain thereafter at rest in quiet, directing his actions toward contemplation. But for the benefit of neighbors, some of whom are eager to write and others set on handing on the word, both general education is useful and the reading of the Lord's Scriptures is necessary for the demonstration of what is said, especially if the hearers come up from Greek education.

Such a church David describes: “The queen stood at your right hand, in a robe woven with gold, clothed in many colors,” that is, with Greek and superfluous learning as well; “in golden fringes, clothed in many colors.” But the truth comes through the Lord. “For who has known your counsel,” it says, “unless you have given wisdom and sent your Holy Spirit from the highest? And so the paths of those on earth were set straight, and men were taught what pleases you and were saved by wisdom.” For the one who knows, according to Scripture, “knows the things of old and conjectures the things to come; he understands the turns of speech and the solutions of riddles; he foreknows signs and wonders and the outcomes of seasons and times,” as we have said before.

Do you see the source of the branches of learning setting out from wisdom? To those who object, “What is the use of knowing the causes of how the sun moves, for instance, and the other stars, or of having studied geometrical theorems, or dialectic, or each of the other branches of learning? These are of no help toward the performance of duties; and Greek philosophy is human understanding, for it is not able to teach the truth,” we must say, first, that these people stumble concerning the greatest of things, that is, the choice of the mind. For “those who keep holy things holily,” it says, “will be made holy, and those who have been taught them will find a defense.” For the one who knows alone will with good reason do holily all that is to be done, as he has learned according to the Lord's teaching, having received it through men. And again one may hear: “For in his hand,” that is, in his power and wisdom, “are both we and our words, and all understanding and knowledge of crafts.” “For God loves nothing but the one who dwells with wisdom.” Next, they have not read what was said by Solomon. For, when he treats of the building of a ship, he says outright: “Wisdom the craftswoman built it; but your providence, Father, steers it.”

And how is it not absurd to think philosophy worse than carpentry and shipbuilding? Perhaps, too, the Lord fed that multitude reclining on the grass across from Tiberias with the two fishes and the five barley loaves as a hint of the preparatory training of Greeks and Jews before the divine wheat, the food cultivated by the law. For barley ripens earlier for the summer season than wheat. The fishes signified Greek philosophy, which is born and moves in the surge of the Gentiles, given as abundant nourishment to those still lying on the ground. They did not increase like the fragments of the loaves; but, having shared in the Lord's blessing, they were breathed into, receiving the resurrection of divinity through the power of the Word. But if you like subtlety, take one of the fishes to indicate general education and the other the philosophy that rises above it; and these indeed are … of the Lord's Word. “And a chorus of voiceless fishes splashed around,” as the tragic Muse has said somewhere. “I must decrease, and the Lord's Word alone must from now on increase,” in whom the law reaches its end, said John the prophet.

Understand now, I pray, the mystery of the truth, and pardon me if I hesitate to go further in working it out, proclaiming only this: “All things came to be through him, and without him not one thing came to be.” Indeed he is called the cornerstone, “in whom the whole building, fitted together, grows into a holy temple of God,” according to the divine apostle. For now I pass over the parable in the Gospel that says: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who cast a net into the sea and from the multitude of fishes caught made a selection of the better ones.” And already our wisdom proclaims the four virtues outright, somewhat as follows, so that the springs of these too were given to the Greeks from the Hebrews. One can learn it from these words: “And if anyone loves righteousness, her labors are virtues; for she teaches self-restraint and prudence, righteousness and courage, than which nothing is more useful for human beings in life.” Above all, they ought to have known this too: that by nature we are born for virtue, not so as to have it from birth, but fitted to acquire it.

By this reasoning the difficulty the heretics raise against us is solved: whether Adam was formed perfect or imperfect. If imperfect, how is the work of a perfect God imperfect, and a human being above all? If perfect, how does he transgress the commandments? They will hear from us, too, that he was not perfect in his constitution, but fitted to receive virtue. For there is surely a difference between having been made fitted for virtue and the possession of it. And he wishes us to be saved by our own efforts. This, then, is the nature of the soul: to move of itself. Then, being rational, since philosophy is rational, we have a certain kinship with it. Aptitude is a tendency toward virtue, but it is not virtue. All, then, as I said, are naturally made for the acquisition of virtue; but one advances more and another less, in learning and in training. That is why some have attained perfect virtue and others have reached a certain point, while some, through neglect, even if otherwise well endowed, have turned to the opposite. Much more is knowledge, which surpasses all branches of learning in greatness and truth, the hardest of all to acquire, and it is won with much toil.

But, it seems, they did not know the mysteries of God: that God created man for incorruption and made him an image of his own proper being; and according to this proper being of the one who knows all things, the one who knows, righteous and holy with prudence, hastens to arrive at the measure of full maturity. And that in the one who knows not only actions and thoughts but also words are pure, is shown here: “You tested my heart, you visited it by night,” it says; “you tried me by fire, and no injustice was found in me, so that my mouth might not speak the works of men.” And what does it mean by “the works of men”? He recognizes sin itself, not only sin that has been brought to repentance (for that is common to the other believers too), but what sin is. For he does not condemn this or that sin, but simply all sin; nor does he set out what someone has done wrongly, but what must not be done. Hence repentance too is twofold: the one is common, for having transgressed; the other, having learned the nature of sin, persuades one to withdraw from sinning itself by a reason that goes before, which is followed by not sinning.

Let them not say, then, that the one who does wrong and sins transgresses through the working of demons; for then he would be innocent. Rather, by choosing the same things as the demons in sinning, unstable, light, and changeable in his desires like a demon, a man becomes demonic. For instance, the bad man, having become sinful in nature through vice, is established as worthless, having what he willingly chose; and being sinful, he also errs in his actions; conversely, the good man acts rightly. That is why we call good not only the virtues but also good actions. Of goods, we know that some are chosen for their own sake, like knowledge (for once it is present we seek nothing else from it except that it be present, that we be in unbroken contemplation, and that we strive toward it and for its sake); and others for the sake of other things, like faith, for the sake of the escape from punishment and the benefit of the reward that result from it. For fear is the cause of not sinning for the many, and the promise is the starting point for pursuing obedience, through which comes salvation.

Knowledge, then, is the most perfect good, being chosen for its own sake; and the good things that follow through it follow as consequences. Punishment is a cause of correction for the one punished, and for those able to see far ahead it becomes an example by which they check themselves from falling into the same faults. Let us, then, receive knowledge, not desiring its results, but embracing it for the sake of knowing itself. For the first benefit is the habit of knowing, which furnishes harmless pleasures and exultation, both now and hereafter. They say that exultation is gladness, being a reckoning of the virtue that accords with truth, through a certain feasting and expansion of the soul. The works that share in knowledge are good and noble actions. For true wealth is abundance in actions according to virtue, and poverty is want in respect of worldly desires. For the acquisition and use of necessities are not harmful in their quality, but in quantity beyond measure.

That is why the one who knows limits his desires both in acquisition and in use, not going beyond the boundary of necessities. Considering, then, life here necessary for the growth of understanding and the gaining of knowledge, he will value most highly not living but living well, preferring neither children nor marriage nor parents to love for God and righteousness in life. To such a man his wife, after the bearing of children, is regarded as a sister, as though of the same father; she is reminded of her husband only when she looks at the children, as one who will truly be a sister after the laying aside of the flesh, which separates and distinguishes the knowledge of spiritual beings by the peculiarity of their shapes. For souls in themselves are equally souls, neither masculine nor feminine, when they neither marry nor are given in marriage. And perhaps in this way the woman is changed into the man, becoming equally free of womanishness, manly, and perfect.

This, then, was the laughter of Sarah when she received the good news of the birth of a son: not, I think, that she disbelieved the angel, but that she was ashamed of that intercourse again, through which she was to become the mother of a child. And perhaps it was from then on that Abraham, when he was in danger before the king of Egypt because of Sarah's beauty, fittingly called her his sister, of the same father, but not of the same mother. To those who have repented of their sins and have not firmly believed, God grants their requests through prayers; but to those who live without sin and as knowers, he gives when they have only thought of them. For instance, to Hannah, when she had only thought of the child, the conception of Samuel was given. “Ask,” says Scripture, “and I will do it; think, and I will give.” For we have been taught that God knows the heart, judging not from the movement of the soul, as we humans do, nor from the outcome (it is ridiculous to think so); nor, as the architect praised the work once it was done, did God likewise, having made the light, then look at it and call it good. Rather, knowing even before he made it what it would be, he praised it. What came into being by the power of the maker was good from above, through the purpose that has no beginning, that which was to be good in actuality. For he declared beforehand that what was to be was already good, the transposition of the words concealing the truth.

The one who knows, then, prays even in thought at every hour, made intimate with God through love. And first he will ask for the forgiveness of sins; then, once he no longer sins, for the ability to do good, and to understand the whole creation and ordering according to the Lord, so that, having become pure in heart, he may through the knowledge that comes by the Son of God be initiated into the blessed vision face to face, having listened to the Scripture that says, “Fasting with prayer is good.” Fasts signify abstention from all evils absolutely, those of deed, of word, and of thought itself. Righteousness, then, it seems, is foursquare, equal and alike on every side: in word, in deed, in abstention from evils, in doing good, in the perfection of knowledge, nowhere limping in any way, so as not to appear unjust and unequal. Insofar as someone is righteous, he is certainly also faithful; but insofar as he is faithful, he is not yet also righteous—I mean the righteousness that comes by progress and perfecting, according to which the one who knows is called righteous.

For instance, Abraham, having become a believer, was credited with righteousness, having advanced to what is greater and more perfect than faith. For the one who only abstains from evil action is not righteous unless he also achieves doing good and knowing the reason why some things must be avoided and others done. “Through the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left,” says the apostle, the righteous man is escorted to the highest inheritance, protected by the one set and acting with the other. For the covering of the full armor and abstention from sins are not by themselves enough for perfection, unless one adds the work of righteousness, activity in doing good. Then the one who is dexterous on both sides, the one who knows, is revealed to us in righteousness, glorified already even here, like Moses, in the face of his soul—which, as we said earlier, is the characteristic mark of the righteous soul. For as the mordant of the dye, remaining in wool, gives it its distinctive quality and its difference from other wool, so in the soul the labor has passed, but the good remains; and the pleasure is left behind, but the shame is stamped in. For these are the characteristic qualities of each kind of soul, by which the one is known as glorified and the other as condemned.

Indeed, just as from righteous action and continual converse with God who spoke to him a certain glorified color settled on Moses' face, so also on the righteous soul a certain divine power of goodness, touching it by oversight, by prophecy, and by governing activity, imprints something like an intellectual radiance, as it were the sun's warmth, a visible seal of righteousness, a light united to the soul through undivided love, a soul that bears God. Here the likeness to God the Savior emerges for the one who knows, as far as is permitted to human nature, as he becomes perfect “as the Father,” it says, “who is in heaven.” It is he who said, “Little children, I am with you yet a little while.” For God too does not remain blessed and incorruptible insofar as he is good by nature, “neither having trouble nor causing it to another,” but by doing good in his own proper way; being truly God and a good Father, and being and becoming so in unceasing beneficence, he remains unchangeably in the sameness of his goodness. For what is the use of a good that does not act or do good?

The one, then, who has first moderated his passions and trained himself toward freedom from passion, and has grown to the beneficence of the perfection of knowledge, is here equal to the angels. Already luminous and shining like the sun in doing good, he hastens by righteous knowledge through the love of God to the holy dwelling place, like the apostles. They did not become apostles because they were chosen for some exceptional peculiarity of nature, since Judas too was chosen with them; rather, they were capable of becoming apostles, being chosen by the one who foresees even how things will end. Matthias, at any rate, who was not chosen with them, having shown himself worthy to become an apostle, is put in Judas's place.

It is possible, then, even now for those who have trained themselves in the Lord's commandments and lived perfectly and as knowers according to the gospel to be enrolled in the election of the apostles. Such a man is in truth a presbyter of the church and a true deacon of God's will, if he does and teaches the things of the Lord: not ordained by men, nor regarded as righteous because he is a presbyter, but enrolled in the presbyterate because he is righteous. And even if here on earth he is not honored with the chief seat, he will sit on the twenty-four thrones, judging the people, as John says in the Revelation. For in truth there is one saving covenant, reaching from the foundation of the world to us, though it is supposed to differ in its giving according to different generations and times. For it follows that there is one unchangeable gift of salvation, from one God through one Lord, benefiting in many ways; and for this reason the dividing wall that separates the Greek from the Jew is taken away, to make a people for his own possession.

And so both come to the unity of the faith, and the election from both is one. “And more elect than the elect,” it says, are those who are so by perfect knowledge, culled like flowers from the church itself and honored with the most magnificent glory, judges and administrators, the twenty-four, equally from Jews and from Greeks, the grace being doubled. For the grades here in the church, of bishops, presbyters, and deacons, are, I think, imitations of the angelic glory and of that ordering which the Scriptures say awaits those who, following in the footsteps of the apostles, have lived in the perfection of righteousness according to the gospel. The apostle writes that these, taken up in the clouds, will first serve as deacons, then be enrolled in the presbyterate by advancement in glory (for glory differs from glory), until they grow to the perfect man.

Such people, according to David, will rest on the holy mountain of God, the highest church, in which the philosophers of God are gathered, the true Israelites, the pure in heart, in whom there is no guile; who did not remain in the seventh day of rest, but by the good work of the divine likeness rose up to the inheritance of the eighth-day beneficence, devoting themselves to the pure vision of insatiable contemplation. “And there are other sheep,” says the Lord, “which are not of this fold,” deemed worthy of another fold and dwelling place in proportion to their faith. “But my sheep hear my voice,” understanding the commandments as knowers; that is, receiving them magnanimously and worthily, together with the recompense and consequence of works. So when we hear, “Your faith has saved you,” we do not understand him to say that those who have believed in any way whatever will be saved, unless works also follow. For instance, he spoke this word only to Jews who had lived according to the law and blamelessly, who lacked only faith in the Lord.

One could not, then, be faithful and at the same time lack self-control; but even if he does not depart the flesh, he must put away the passions, so as to be able to go to his own dwelling place. To know is more than to believe, just as, indeed, to be deemed worthy of the highest honor after being saved is more than being saved. So through much discipline the believer among us, having stripped off the passions, passes to the dwelling place that is better than the former one, bearing the greatest punishment, the characteristic mark of repentance for the sins he committed after baptism. For he is pained still more at not yet, or not at all, obtaining what he sees others have received. Besides, he is ashamed of his transgressions; and these are indeed the greatest punishments for the believer. For God's righteousness is good, and his goodness is righteous. And even if the punishments come to an end somewhere, with the completion of the payment and the purification of each, those found worthy of the other fold have the greatest abiding grief, that of not being with those glorified through righteousness.

For instance, Solomon, calling the one who knows wise, says this about those who marvel at the dignity of his dwelling place: “For they will see the end of the wise man and will not understand what the Lord planned for him and for what he kept him safe.” And of his glory they will say: “This was the one whom we once held in derision and as a byword of reproach, we fools; we counted his life madness and his end without honor. How was he numbered among the sons of God, and his lot is among the saints?” Not only the believer, then, but also the Gentile is judged most justly. For since God, being foreknowing, knew that he would not believe, he nevertheless, so that he might receive the perfection possible to him, gave him philosophy, but before faith; and he gave the sun, the moon, and the stars for worship, “which God made for the nations,” says the law, so that they might not become entirely godless and so perish utterly. But those who have been ungrateful even regarding this commandment, devoting themselves to carved images, are judged unless they repent: some because, though able, they did not wish to believe God; others because, though willing, they did not take pains to become believers.

So too are judged those who did not run back from the worship of the stars to their maker. For this was a way given to the nations, to rise up to God through the worship of the stars. But those who were not willing to abide by the stars given to them, but fell away from these too to stones and wood, “were counted as dust,” it says, “and as a drop from a jar,” superfluous for salvation, cast off from the body. As, then, simply saving belongs to the intermediate things, but saving rightly and fittingly is a right action, so too every action of the one who knows may be called a right action, but that of the simple believer an intermediate action, not yet performed according to reason nor done rightly with understanding; while every action of the Gentile, conversely, is sinful. For the Scriptures present as proper not simply doing well, but doing one's actions toward some goal and acting according to reason.

Just as those unskilled in playing the lyre should not touch lyres, nor those unskilled in playing the pipe touch pipes, so neither should those take matters in hand who have not received knowledge and do not know how to use them throughout their whole life. The contest for freedom, at any rate, is fought not only in wars by the athletes of war, but also at banquets, in bed, and in the law courts by those anointed by the Word, who are ashamed to become captives of pleasure: “Never will I exchange virtue for unjust gain.” And unjust gain, plainly, is pleasure and pain, longing and fear, and, in a word, the passions of the soul, whose delight for the moment is painful afterward. “For what is the profit,” it says, “if you gain the world but lose your soul?” It is clear, then, that those who do not perform good actions do not know what is profitable for themselves either. And if so, they are not able to pray rightly to receive good things from God, not knowing what is truly good; nor, if they received them, would they perceive the gift or enjoy worthily what they did not know, both through inexperience in using well what is given and through excessive lack of learning, not yet knowing how divine gifts are to be used. And lack of learning is the cause of ignorance.

And it seems to me the boast of a soul that is proud, but has a good conscience, to exclaim at what happens in times of difficulty: “Against this let them contrive whatever they must; for the good is with me, and justice will be my ally, and I will never be caught while doing what is right.” This good conscience preserves holiness toward God and justice toward men, keeping the soul pure with solemn thoughts, chaste words, and righteous deeds. So the soul, receiving the Lord's power, practices being God, considering nothing evil except ignorance and activity not in accordance with right reason, and always giving thanks to God for all things, through righteous hearing and divine reading, through true inquiry, through holy offering, through blessed prayer, praising, hymning, blessing, singing psalms. Such a soul is never separated from God at any time. Fittingly, then, it has been said: “And those who trust in him will understand truth, and the faithful will abide with him in love.” You see what Wisdom says about those who know.

In proportion, then, the dwelling places too are various, according to the worth of those who have believed. For instance, Solomon: “For there will be given to him the chosen grace of faith and a more delightful lot in the temple of the Lord.” The comparative shows the lower places in the temple of God, which is the whole church, and leaves us to think also of the superlative, where the Lord is. These chosen dwelling places, three in number, are hinted at by the numbers in the Gospel, the thirty, the sixty, and the hundred. And the perfect inheritance belongs to those who arrive at the perfect man according to the image of the Lord. The likeness is not, as some think, that of the human shape (for this inference is godless), nor that which is by virtue in relation to the first cause (for this interpretation too is impious, of those who have supposed that the virtue of man and of God Almighty is the same): “You supposed lawlessly,” it says, “that I will be like you.” But “it is enough for the disciple to become like the teacher,” says the Teacher. According to the likeness of God, then, the one enrolled into adoption and friendship with God comes to be, in the joint inheritance of the lords and gods, if he is perfected according to the gospel, as the Lord himself taught.

The one who knows, then, is stamped with the closer likeness, the mind of the teacher. Understanding that mind, with which he gave his commands and counsel to the prudent and self-restrained, as the one who taught wished, and taking up for himself its magnificent meaning, he teaches worthily on the housetops those able to be built up to a height, and he leads the way in doing what is said, according to the pattern of conduct. For the commands he gave are possible; and in truth the kingly person, the Christian, must be one who rules and leads, since we were appointed to be lords not only over the wild beasts outside but also over the savage passions within ourselves. By understanding of the evil and the good life, then, it seems, the one who knows is saved, understanding and doing more than the scribes and Pharisees. “Bend your bow, prosper, and reign,” David writes, “for the sake of truth and meekness and righteousness, and your right hand will guide you wonderfully,” that is, the Lord. “Who, then, is wise and will understand these things? Who is understanding and will know them? For the ways of the Lord are straight,” says the prophet, showing that only the one who knows can understand and explain what was spoken in a hidden way by the Spirit. “And the one who understands will keep silent at that time,” says Scripture, that is, about speaking out to the unworthy; since the Lord says, “Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear,” saying that hearing and understanding do not belong to all.

For instance, David writes, “Dark water in clouds of the air; at the brightness before him the clouds passed, hail and coals of fire,” teaching that the holy words are hidden. And he indicates that to those who know they are sent down from God transparent and bright, like harmless hail, but to the many they are dark, like coals quenched from fire, which, unless someone kindles and rekindles them, will not blaze up or give light. “The Lord,” then, he says, “gives me a tongue of instruction, to know in season when I must speak a word”—not only in bearing witness, but also in question and answer—“and the instruction of the Lord opens my mouth.” It belongs, then, to the one who knows to know how to use speech: when, how, and to whom.

And already the apostle too, saying “according to the elements of the world and not according to Christ,” teaches that Greek teaching is elementary and that according to Christ is perfect, as we have already indicated before. For instance, the wild olive is grafted into the richness of the olive and indeed grows like the cultivated olives; for the grafted shoot uses the tree in which it is planted in place of soil. And all plants together sprouted at the divine command. Therefore, even though the kotinos is a wild olive, it crowns the Olympic victors; and the elm, raising the vine to a height, teaches it to bear good fruit. We see too that wild trees draw in more nourishment because they cannot digest it. Wild trees, then, digest less well than cultivated ones, and the cause of their wildness is a lack of digestive power.

The grafted olive, then, takes in more nourishment because it is grafted onto a wild stock; and it becomes accustomed, as it were, to digest the food, being made like the richness of the cultivated olive. So too the philosopher, likened to a wild olive, has much that is undigested because he is inquiring, quick to follow, and eager for the richness of the truth; if he takes on the divine power through faith, planted into the good and cultivated knowledge, like the wild olive grafted into the truly good and merciful Word, he both digests the food handed on to him and becomes a fine olive. For grafting makes worthless trees noble and forces barren ones to become fruitful, by the art of husbandry and by the science of knowledge.

They say that grafting is done in four ways. One is that in which the graft must be fitted between the wood and the bark; so the uneducated from the Gentiles are catechized, receiving the Word superficially. The second is when they split the wood and insert the noble shoot into it; this happens with those who have studied philosophy, for when their doctrines are cut through, the knowledge of the truth grows in them. So too with the Jews: when the old Scripture is opened up, the new and noble shoot of the olive is grafted in. The third grafting concerns wild plants and the heretics who are brought over to the truth by force; for, having shaved each piece to a wedge with a sharp pruning knife until the pith is laid bare but not wounded, they bind them to each other. The fourth way of grafting is what is called budding: an eye is removed from a noble stem, with the bark around it cut out in a circle about a palm's breadth long; then the stem to be budded is scraped out at an eye to match the cut-out piece, and so the bud is inserted, bound round with cord and plastered with clay, the eye being kept unhurt and unsoiled. This is a figure of the knower's teaching, which is able to look into things; and indeed this form is most useful with cultivated trees.

The grafting into the good olive spoken of by the apostle can be into Christ himself, the untamed and unbelieving nature being planted into Christ, that is, the nature of those who believe in Christ. But it is better to say that each one's faith is grafted into the soul itself. For the Holy Spirit too is in some way transplanted in this manner, distributed without limit according to each one's limit. And Solomon, discussing knowledge, says this: “Wisdom is radiant and unfading, and is easily seen by those who love her; she is quick to make herself known to those who desire her. Whoever rises early for her will not labor; for to think about her is perfection of prudence, and whoever keeps vigil for her will soon be free from care. For she goes about seeking those worthy of her” (for knowledge does not belong to all) “and appears to them graciously in the paths.” The paths are the conduct of life and the variety according to the covenants. Then he adds:

“and meets them in every thought,” being contemplated in various ways, that is, through all education. Then he goes on, setting forth the perfecting love through a syllogistic argument with true premises, and drawing a most demonstrative and true conclusion somewhat as follows: “For her truest beginning is the desire for instruction” (that is, for knowledge), “and care for instruction is love, and love is the keeping of her laws, and attention to laws is the assurance of incorruption, and incorruption brings one near to God. So the desire for wisdom leads up to a kingdom.” He teaches, I think, that true instruction is a desire for knowledge, and that the practice of instruction consists in love of knowledge. And love is the keeping of the commandments that lead up to knowledge, and keeping them is the confirmation of the commandments, from which incorruption follows; and incorruption brings one near to God. If, then, love of knowledge makes one incorruptible and leads the kingly person near to God the King, knowledge must be sought until it is found. Seeking is an impulse toward grasping, discovering the underlying object through certain signs; finding is the end and rest of seeking, when it has come to grasp, which is knowledge. And this knowledge is finding in the proper sense, being the grasp of what was sought. They say that a sign is what precedes, coexists, or follows.

Of the seeking after God, then, the finding is the teaching through the Son; and the signs that our Savior is that very Son of God are the prophecies that preceded his coming and proclaimed him, the testimonies about him that accompanied his birth in the flesh, and besides these the powers of his that have been proclaimed and plainly shown after his ascension. The proof, then, that the truth is with us is that the Son of God himself taught it. For if in every inquiry these general things are found, a person and a matter, the real truth is shown to be with us alone, since the person of the truth shown is the Son of God, and the matter is the power of faith, which prevails over every opponent whatever and over the whole world set against it. But since this is agreed to have been confirmed in everlasting works and words, and since everyone who does not believe that there is providence has already been shown to deserve punishment rather than refutation, and to be truly godless, what lies before us is this: by doing what, and living in what way, might we arrive at the full knowledge of God Almighty, and how, by honoring the divine, might we become the cause of our own salvation, as we undertake to do what is just and holy, having learned what pleases him not from the sophists but from God himself? Our being saved pleases him, and salvation comes through right conduct and through knowledge, of both of which the Lord is the teacher.

If, then, according to Plato too, it is possible to learn the truth only from God or from the offspring of God, we are right to boast, when we select testimonies from the divine oracles, that we are taught the truth by the Son of God, what was first prophesied being afterward made clear. And the things that contribute to the discovery of the truth are not themselves to be rejected either. Philosophy, at any rate, proclaiming providence, and the reward of the happy life and the punishment of the unhappy, speaks of God in outline, but it does not preserve precision and particulars. For it does not treat of the Son of God as we do, nor of the dispensation according to providence; for it did not know the worship according to God. That is why the heresies within the barbarian philosophy, even if they say that God is one and even if they hymn Christ, speak in outline, not truly; for they invent another God, and they do not understand Christ as the prophecies hand him down. But their false doctrines, insofar as they oppose the teaching that accords with the truth, do not count against us.

For instance, Paul circumcised Timothy because of those who had believed from among the Jews, so that the catechumens from the law might not fall away from the faith if he did away with what they had taken up in a rather fleshly way from the law, though he knew well that circumcision does not justify. For he confessed that he became all things to all, preserving the chief doctrines while accommodating himself, so that he might gain all. And Daniel wore the chain under the king of the Persians, not looking on indifferently while the people were afflicted. Liars in truth, then, are not those who accommodate themselves for the sake of the plan of salvation, nor those who err on some particular point, but those who fall away in the most essential matters, who reject the Lord as far as in them lies and deprive the Lord of his true teaching, who do not speak and hand on the Scriptures in a manner worthy of God and the Lord. For the deposit rendered to God is the understanding and practice of the godly tradition according to the Lord's teaching through his apostles. “And what you hear in the ear” (in a hidden way, clearly, and in mystery; for such things are allegorically said to be spoken in the ear) “proclaim,” it says, “on the housetops,” receiving them magnanimously and handing them on in lofty speech, and explaining the Scriptures according to the rule of truth. For neither prophecy nor the Savior himself uttered the divine mysteries simply, so as to be easily grasped by anyone who comes along; he spoke in parables.

The apostles, at any rate, say of the Lord that he spoke all things in parables and spoke nothing to them without a parable. And if “all things came to be through him, and without him not one thing came to be,” then prophecy and the law too came to be through him and were spoken through him in parables. “But all things are straight before those who understand,” says Scripture; that is, those who receive the interpretation of the Scriptures made clear by him and preserve it according to the church's rule. And the church's rule is the concord and harmony of the law and the prophets with the covenant handed on at the Lord's coming. Knowledge, then, is followed by prudence, and prudence by self-restraint. For let it be said that prudence is divine knowledge and exists in those who are being made divine, while self-restraint is mortal and exists in human beings who philosophize but are not yet wise. For if virtue is divine, so is the knowledge of it; and self-restraint is like an imperfect prudence, desiring prudence but laboriously practical and not contemplative; just as righteousness, being human, is common, but ranks below holiness, which is divine righteousness. For the perfect man, righteousness does not lie in civil contracts or in the prohibitions of law, but comes from doing his own work and from love toward God.

For many reasons, then, the Scriptures conceal their sense: first, so that we may be inquirers and always keep awake for the discovery of the words of salvation; then, because it was not fitting for all to understand, lest they be harmed by taking in another sense what the Holy Spirit said for salvation. That is why the holy mysteries of the prophecies, kept for the chosen among men and for those selected from faith to knowledge, are veiled in parables. For the character of the Scriptures is parabolic, because the Lord too, though not of the world, came to men as one of the world. For he wore the whole of virtue, and he was to lead man, the nursling of the world, up through knowledge to the intelligible and proper realities, from world to world. That is why he used metaphorical writing. For such is the parable: a speech taken from something that is not the proper thing but resembles the proper thing, leading the one who understands to the true and proper thing; or, as some say, a diction that presents vividly through other terms what is meant in the proper sense.

Indeed, the whole dispensation concerning the Lord that was prophesied appears truly a parable to those who have not known the truth, when someone says, and others hear, that the Son of God, of the one who made all things, took flesh and was carried in a virgin's womb, insofar as his sensible flesh was born, and consequently, insofar as it came to be, suffered and rose again—“to Jews a stumbling block, and to Greeks foolishness,” as the apostle says. But the Scriptures, once opened and showing the truth to those who have ears, proclaim that very thing which the flesh the Lord assumed suffered to be the power and wisdom of God. And above all, the parabolic form of Scripture, being most ancient, as we have shown, fittingly abounded most among the prophets, so that the Holy Spirit might show that the philosophers among the Greeks and the wise among the other barbarians were ignorant of the Lord's future coming and of the mystical teaching to be handed on by him. Fittingly, then, prophecy, in proclaiming the Lord, lest it should seem to some to blaspheme by speaking against the assumptions of the many, shaped what it meant in words that can also lead to other ideas. For instance, all the prophets who foretold the coming of the Lord, and with it the holy mysteries, were persecuted and killed; so too the Lord himself, who made their writings clear, and likewise his disciples, who preached the Word, risked their lives after him.

That is why Peter too, in the Preaching, speaking about the apostles, says: “But we, having unrolled the books of the prophets that we had, which name Christ Jesus partly in parables, partly in riddles, and partly authoritatively and in so many words, found his coming, his death, the cross, and all the other punishments the Jews inflicted on him, and his raising and his taking up into heaven before Jerusalem was † founded, as all these things had been written, what he had to suffer and † what would be after him. Recognizing these things, then, we believed God through what had been written about him.” And a little later he adds again, showing that the prophecies came about by divine providence: “For we know that God truly ordained them, and we say nothing without Scripture.”

The Hebrew language, then, has certain other peculiarities too, as each of the others does, containing a certain character that displays the nation's stamp. A dialect, at any rate, is defined as a diction shaped by a national character. But prophecy is not made known by those dialects. For in the Greek dialects the so-called alterations of the tropes produce concealments by design, in imitation of our prophecies, † being referred back; except that the turning aside from the proper sense is shown to happen voluntarily, in metrical or in extempore speech. A trope, at any rate, is a diction carried over from the proper sense to what is not proper, for the sake of elaboration and of usefulness of expression in speech. But prophecy does not cultivate figures of speech at all for the beauty of expression; rather, because the truth does not belong to all, it is hidden in many ways, making the light rise only for those initiated into knowledge, those who seek the truth through love.

In the barbarian philosophy, then, the proverb is said to be a kind of prophecy, and so is the parable, and the riddle besides these. Moreover, wisdom too is spoken of, and instruction as something different from it, and again words of prudence, turns of speech, true righteousness, and teaching how to direct judgment, and shrewdness that comes to the innocent through instruction, and perception and understanding that come to the newly instructed. “The one who hears these,” it says—the prophets—“being wise will become wiser, and the one who understands will acquire guidance, and will understand a parable and a dark word, and the sayings of the wise and riddles.” And if the Greek dialects came to be so named from Hellen, the son of Zeus, who was called son of Deucalion, it is easy to see from the dates we set out earlier by how many generations the dialects among the Greeks are later than the Hebrew language.

As Scripture proceeds, we will note the figures mentioned by the prophet passage by passage and set them out, carefully displaying the knower's way of life according to the rule of truth. For did not the power that appeared to Hermas in the vision, in the form of the church, give him the book to copy, which she wished to be announced to the elect? And this he copied, he says, letter by letter, not finding how to complete the syllables. This indicated, then, that Scripture is plain to all when taken in its bare reading, and that this is faith, which has the rank of the elementary letters; that is why reading letter by letter is used as an allegory. But the knower's unfolding of the Scriptures, when faith is already advancing, we understand to be likened to reading by syllables. And Isaiah the prophet too is commanded to take a new book and write certain things in it, the Spirit prophesying that the holy knowledge would come afterward through the interpretation of the Scriptures, knowledge that at that time was still unwritten because it was not yet known; for from the beginning it had been spoken only to those who understood. So when the Savior taught the apostles, the unwritten tradition of the written word was handed down now to us too, written on new hearts by the power of God, according to the renewal of the book.

In this way the most learned among the Greeks dedicate the fruit of the pomegranate to Hermes, who they say is speech, because of interpretation; for speech has many hiding places. Fittingly, then, Joshua the son of Nun saw Moses, when he was taken up, as double: one with the angels, and the other being honored with burial on the mountains, in the ravines. Joshua saw this sight below, lifted up by the Spirit, together with Caleb. But the two did not see alike: one came down more quickly, bearing much weight, while the other, coming down afterward, described the glory he had seen, having been able to discern more than the other, since he had become purer. The story shows, I think, that knowledge does not belong to all, since some look at the body of the Scriptures, the words and the names, as at the body of Moses, while others see through to the meanings and to what the names signify, searching after the Moses who is with the angels. Indeed, of those who called upon the Lord himself, the many said, “Son of David, have mercy on me,” but few knew him as the Son of God, like Peter, whom he also called blessed because flesh and blood had not revealed the truth to him, but his Father who is in heaven; this shows that the one who knows recognizes the Son of the Almighty not through his flesh that was conceived but through the Father's power itself. Not only, then, for those who happen upon it simply as it comes is the acquisition of the truth difficult; the story of Moses teaches that even to those to whom understanding is proper, contemplation is not given all at once, until, having grown used to looking straight at it, as the Hebrews at the glory of Moses and the saints of Israel at the visions of angels, so we too can look straight at the flashing rays of the truth.

As an example, in passing, for the knower's clarity, let the Decalogue be set before us. That ten is a holy number it is superfluous to say at present. If the tablets that were written are the work of God, they will be found to display natural creation. For the finger of God is understood as the power of God, through which the creation of heaven and earth is completed, and the tablets will be understood as symbols of both. For God's writing and forming of shapes set in the tablet is the creation of the world. And the Decalogue, as a heavenly image, includes sun and moon, stars, clouds, light, wind, water, air, darkness, and fire. This is the natural decalogue of heaven. And the image of the earth includes men, cattle, reptiles, wild beasts, and, of creatures in the water, fishes and sea monsters; likewise, of birds, those that eat flesh and those that use gentle food; and of plants likewise the fruit-bearing and the fruitless. This is the natural decalogue of the earth. And the ark that contains these would be the knowledge of things divine and human, and wisdom. Perhaps these two tablets are a prophecy of two covenants.

They were renewed, then, in a mystical way, as ignorance and sin increased together. The commandments, it seems, are written twice, for two spirits, the ruling one and the subject one, since “the flesh desires against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh.” There is also a certain decad in man himself: the five organs of sense, the power of speech, and that of reproduction; and eighth, the spiritual element that comes with his formation; ninth, the ruling part of the soul; and tenth, the distinctive mark of the Holy Spirit that comes to him through faith. Besides these, the legislation appears to give orders to ten human parts: to sight, hearing, and smell, to touch and taste, and to the organs that serve them, which are double, hands and feet. For this is how man is formed.

The soul is introduced afterward, and the ruling part, by which we reason, is introduced in addition; it is not generated with the casting of the seed, so that even without it the number ten is made up, through which all the activity of man is carried out. For man, as soon as he is born, receives in due order the beginning of life from the passive parts. We say, then, that the reasoning and ruling part is the cause of the living creature's constitution, and also of the irrational part's being ensouled and being a portion of it. For instance, the vital power, in which are contained the nutritive, the growing, and in general the motive powers, has fallen to the fleshly spirit, which is quick-moving and passes everywhere through the senses and the rest of the body and is the first to be affected through the body. But the ruling part has the power of choice, the sphere of inquiry, learning, and knowledge. Yet the reference of all these is ordered toward the one ruling part, and through it man lives, and lives in a certain way.

Through the bodily spirit, then, man perceives, desires, feels pleasure, becomes angry, is nourished, and grows; and indeed through it he proceeds to actions in accordance with thought and reasoning; and when it masters the desires, the ruling part reigns. The commandment “You shall not desire,” then, says: you shall not be a slave to the fleshly spirit, but shall rule over it; since “the flesh desires against the spirit” and rises up to disorder contrary to nature, “and the spirit against the flesh” prevails, for the conduct of man according to nature. Is it not, then, fitting that man is said to have been made in the image of God, not in the shape of his constitution, but because God creates all things by the Word, and man, when he has become a knower, accomplishes good actions by his reasoning faculty? Fittingly, then, the two tablets are said elsewhere to indicate the commandments given to the two spirits, to the one that was formed and to the ruling one, those handed down before the law; and the movements of the senses are both imprinted in thought and made manifest in the activity that comes from the body; for apprehension comes from both.

And again, as sensation is to the sensible, so intellection is to the intelligible. And actions too are twofold, some in thought, others in deed. The first commandment of the Decalogue shows that there is one only God Almighty, who led the people out of Egypt through the desert to their ancestral land, so that they might grasp his power, as far as they could, through the divine works, and withdraw from the idolatry of created things, putting all their hope in the true God. The second word indicated that we must not take or apply the majestic might of God (which is the name; for this alone they were able to learn, as the many still are now)—must not apply its invocation to created and vain things, which human craftsmen have made, among which “He who is” is not ranked; for He who is, himself alone, is in unbegotten sameness. The third word is the one that indicates that the world was made by God and that he gave us the seventh day as rest because of the hardship of life. For God is untiring, impassible, and without need, but we who bear flesh need rest.

The seventh day, then, is proclaimed as rest, preparing by abstention from evils for the primal day, our true rest, which is indeed truly the first creation of light, in which all things are seen together and all things are inherited. From this day the first wisdom and knowledge shine upon us. For the light of truth is true light, without shadow, the Spirit of the Lord divided without division among those sanctified through faith, holding the place of a lamp for the knowledge of what exists. Following it, then, through our whole life, we become free from passion; and that is to rest. That is why Solomon too says that wisdom came into being for the Almighty before heaven and earth and all things that exist; participation in it (by power, I mean, not by essence) teaches one to understand things divine and human with a firm grasp. Having come to this point, we must mention these things too in passing, since the discussion has turned to the seven and the eight. For the eight may well be the seven in the proper sense, and the seven, to all appearance, a six; the one properly the Sabbath, the seven a working day. For the creation of the world is completed in six days, and the sun's motion from solstice to solstice is completed in six months, in which plants shed their leaves at one time and sprout at another, and seeds come to maturity.

They say too that the embryo is completed precisely in the sixth month, that is, in one hundred and eighty-two and a half days, as Polybus the physician relates in his work On the Eighth-Month Child, and Aristotle the philosopher in his work On Nature. And the Pythagoreans, I think, taking their start from here, from the creation of the world according to the prophet, consider six a perfect number and call it “mid-straight” and “marriage,” because it is in the middle of the straight line, that is, of ten and two; for it appears equally distant from both. And as marriage generates from male and female, so six is generated from three, the odd number, called male, and two, the even number, considered female; for twice three makes six. So many again are the most general motions, according to which all generation moves: up and down, to the right and to the left, forward and backward.

Fittingly, then, they regard the number seven as motherless and childless, interpreting the Sabbath and allegorizing the form of the rest in which “they neither marry nor are given in marriage” any longer. For seven neither comes from any number multiplied by another, nor, multiplied by any, produces another number within the decad. And they call the eight a cube, counting the fixed sphere together with the seven planets, through which the great year comes about, as a kind of period of the recompense of the promises. In this way the Lord, who went up the mountain as the fourth, becomes the sixth and is illumined all around with spiritual light, laying bare the power that comes from him as far as it was possible for those chosen to see it, and is proclaimed through the seventh, the voice, to be the Son of God; so that they might rest, persuaded about him, while he, through birth, which the six signified, being the episemon, might appear as the eight, showing forth God in flesh, numbered as a man but hidden as to who he was. For in the order of numbers the six is counted among the rest, but the sequence of the letters recognizes the episemon, which is not written.

Here, according to the numbers themselves, each unit keeps its order up to seven and eight; but according to the count of the letters, zeta becomes the sixth and eta the seventh. And since the episemon has somehow slipped into the writing, if we follow it this way, the seven becomes sixth and the eight seventh. That is why man is said to have been made on the sixth day, the man who became faithful to the episemon, so as at once to receive the rest of the Lord's inheritance. Something of this kind the sixth hour of the saving dispensation also shows, the hour at which man was perfected. Moreover, of eight terms the intervals between them are seven, and of seven the intervals appear to be six. For that is another account, when the seven glorifies the eight and “the heavens declare to the heavens the glory of God.” The sensible types of these are our vowels. So too the Lord himself is called Alpha and Omega, beginning and end, “through whom all things came to be, and without him not one thing came to be.” God, then, has not ceased making, as some understand the rest of God. For since he is good, if he were ever to cease doing good, he would also cease to be God, which it is not lawful even to say.

To have rested, then, is to have ordained that the order of things created be kept inviolate for all time, and to have brought each of the creatures to rest from the ancient disorder. For the creations on the different days followed in the greatest sequence, so that all things created would have their honor from priority, and their order, though created together in a single thought, yet not equally honored. Nor could the generation of each have been shown in speech if creation had been said to have been made all at once; for it was necessary to name something first. That is why the first things were proclaimed first, from which came the second, all things having come into being together from one substance by one power; for the will of God, I think, is one, in one sameness. How could creation come to be in time, when time itself came into being together with the things that exist? And already the whole world of all living and growing things revolves in sevens.

Seven are the first-born rulers of the angels, who have the greatest power; seven too, say the mathematicians, are the planets, stars that carry out the government of the region around the earth, by which the Chaldeans think everything in mortal life comes about through sympathy, and on that ground they also promise to foretell something of the future. Of the fixed stars, the Pleiades are seven, and the Bears have seven stars each, by which agriculture and navigation are carried out; and the moon undergoes its changes of shape in periods of seven days. In the first week it becomes a half-moon, in the second full, in the third, after waning, half again, and in the fourth it disappears. Moreover, as Seleucus the mathematician relates, it changes its shape seven times. For from being without light it becomes crescent, then half, then gibbous and full; and in waning, gibbous again, and likewise half and crescent.

“With the seven-toned lyre we shall sing new hymns,” writes a poet of no obscurity, teaching that the ancient lyre had seven notes. Seven too are the organs of the senses set on our face: two of the eyes, two of the ear passages, two of the nostrils, and seventh that of the mouth. And that the changes of life's ages happen by sevens the elegies of Solon show, somewhat as follows: “A child, still an infant and not yet grown, sheds the fence of teeth he first grew within seven years. When God completes another seven years, he shows the signs of coming youth. In the third, while his limbs are still growing, his chin grows downy, the bloom of his skin changing. In the fourth seven every man is at his best in strength, which men hold as the signs of excellence. In the fifth it is time for a man to be mindful of marriage and to seek a line of children after him. In the sixth a man's mind is trained in all things, and he no longer wishes to do foolish deeds as before. In seven sevens he is at his best in mind and tongue, and in eight, fourteen years in both together. In the ninth he still has power, but his body and strength are weaker for great excellence. When God completes the tenth seven years, he would not be untimely if he met his portion of death.”

Again, in illnesses the seventh and the fourteenth days are critical, on which nature struggles against the causes of disease. And Hermippus of Berytus, in his work On the Number Seven, cites countless such things, hallowing the number. But the blessed David plainly hands on to those who know the mystical account of the seven and the eight, singing thus: “Our years were spent like a spider's web. The days of our years in them are seventy years; and if in strength, eighty years. † May it be that we reign.” So that we may be taught that the world was created, but not suppose that God makes in time, the prophecy added: “This is the book of the generation, also of the things in them, when they came to be; on the day on which God made the heaven and the earth.” For “when they came to be” indicates an indefinite and timeless production, while “on the day on which God made,” that is, in which and through which he made all things, without which “not one thing came to be,” shows the activity through the Son, of whom David says: “This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it,” that is, let us feast at the divine banquet handed on according to the knowledge given through him. For the Word who illumines hidden things is called day, the one through whom each created thing came into light and into being. And in general the Decalogue, through the letter iota, shows the blessed name, presenting Jesus as the Word.

The fifth word, next, is about honoring father and mother. It clearly calls God father and lord. That is why it also proclaims those who have come to know him sons and gods. The Maker of all, then, is lord and father; and the mother is not, as some say, the substance from which we have come, nor, as others have explained it, the church, but divine knowledge and wisdom, as Solomon says, calling wisdom the mother of the righteous. And it is to be chosen for its own sake. And again, all that is good and holy is known from God through the Son. Next comes the word about adultery. Adultery is when someone, abandoning the church's true knowledge and his understanding of God, goes over to a false opinion that is not fitting, either deifying some created thing or making an idol of something that does not exist, in excess—or rather departure—from knowledge. False opinion is alien to the one who knows, just as true opinion is his own and his spouse.

That is why the noble apostle calls idolatry one of the forms of sexual immorality, in agreement with the prophet who says: “She committed adultery with wood and stone. To the wood she said, ‘You are my father,’ and to the stone, ‘You gave me birth.’” Then follows the word about murder. Murder is a violent removal. The one, then, who wishes to remove the true word about God and his eternity so as to put falsehood in its place, saying either that the universe is without providence, or that the world is uncreated, or anything else against the firm points of the true teaching, is most destructive. After this is the word about theft. As, then, the one who steals what belongs to others does great wrong and rightly meets the evils he deserves, so the one who appropriates God's works through the art of sculpture or painting and says that he is the maker of animals and plants; and likewise those who imitate the true philosophy are thieves. Whether someone is a farmer or the father of a child, he is a servant of the sowing of seed; but God, who provides the growth and completion of all things, brings what comes into being to its natural state.

Most people, together with the philosophers, attribute growth and change to the stars as the primary cause, depriving the Father of the universe, as far as lies in them, of his tireless power. But the elements and the stars, that is, the administering powers, were commanded to carry out what is suited to the divine ordering, and they obey and are led by those set over them, wherever the word of the Lord leads, since the divine power by its nature works all things in a hidden way. The one, then, who says that he has devised or made any of the things that belong to creation will be called to account for his impious daring. The tenth is the word about all desires. As, then, the one who desires what is not fitting is called to account, in the same way it is not permitted to desire false things, nor to suppose that, among things that come to be, animate things of themselves are able, and inanimate things are not able at all, to save or to harm. And if someone says that the antidote cannot heal or that hemlock cannot destroy, he is unknowingly a sophist. For none of these acts without the one who uses the herb or the drug, just as the axe does not act without the one who cuts, nor the saw without the one who saws. And as they do not act of themselves, yet have certain natural qualities that contribute, with the craftsman's activity, to accomplishing the proper work, so by the universal providence of God, through the things moved more immediately, the effective activity is passed down by degrees to the particulars.

But, it seems, the philosophers of the Greeks, though they name God, do not know him, since they do not worship God as God. And what is philosophized among them, as Empedocles says, “having come through the tongues of many, has been vainly poured out of mouths, of those who have seen little of the whole.” For as art directs the light from the sun through a glass vessel full of water to produce fire, so philosophy too, having taken its spark from the divine Scripture, shows itself in a few. And indeed, as all animals breathe the same air, but some in one way and some in another and for different ends, so also most people pursue the truth, or rather the account about truth. For they say nothing about God, but explain their own passions, attributing them to God. For their life has been spent seeking the plausible, not the true. Truth is taught not by imitation but by learning. For we do not believe in Christ so as to seem good, just as we do not go into the sun only in order to appear to be in the sun: in the one case we go to be warmed, in the other we force ourselves to be Christians in order to be noble and good; since the kingdom belongs above all to the violent, who reap the fruit of becoming kings from inquiry, learning, and perfect training together.

The one who merely imitates, then, falsifies opinion and preconception. But when someone, taking a spark of the matter, kindles it within his soul by longing and learning, he sets everything in motion on this basis toward full knowledge. For what one does not grasp one neither longs for nor embraces the benefit that comes from it. Last of all, then, the one who knows, at the end of his right actions, imitates the Lord as far as is attainable by human beings, having taken on a certain lordly quality for likeness to God. But those who do not understand knowledge cannot measure truth by its rule either. It is not possible, then, to share in the contemplations of knowledge unless we empty ourselves of our former notions. For “truth” is said, simply and in general, of everything intelligible and sensible. For instance, one can observe truth in painting as distinct from the vulgar kind, and dignity in music as distinct from the licentious kind. There is also, then, a certain truth of philosophy as distinct from the other philosophers, and a true beauty as distinct from the counterfeit. We must, then, never busy ourselves with the partial truths, of which truth is predicated, but with truth itself, not seeking to learn names. For the matter concerning God is not one but countless; and seeking God is different from seeking the things concerning God. And, to speak generally, in each thing the accidents must be distinguished from the essence.

And it is enough for me to say that God is the Lord of all. I say “the Lord of all” absolutely, with nothing left out as an exception. Since, then, there are two forms of truth, names and things, some speak of names—those who spend their time on the beauties of words, the philosophers among the Greeks—but the things are with us, the barbarians. For instance, the Lord deliberately chose to use a mean bodily form, so that no one, praising his comeliness and admiring his beauty, might turn away from what was said, and, devoting himself to what is left behind, be cut off from the intelligible things. We must, then, be occupied not with the diction but with what is signified. To those who grasp only the diction and are not moved toward knowledge the word is not entrusted, since ravens too imitate human voices without having any notion of what they are saying; but intellectual apprehension is bound up with faith. So Homer too said “father of men and gods,” not knowing who the Father is and how he is Father.

As it is natural for one who has hands to take, and for one who has healthy eyes to see the light, so it is natural for one who has received faith to share in knowledge, if he longs to build upon the foundation laid gold, silver, and precious stones. He does not, then, promise that he wishes to share in it, but begins; nor does he intend to be, but it befits him to be kingly, luminous, and a knower; and it befits him to wish to lay hold of realities not in name but in deed. For God, being good, for the sake of the ruling part of the whole creation, wishing to save it, turned to making the rest too, giving them from the beginning this first benefaction, existence. For anyone would admit that to be is much better than not to be. Then each thing, as far as its nature allowed, came to be and comes to be, advancing toward what is better for itself.

So it is not absurd that philosophy too was given by divine providence as a preparatory training for the perfection that comes through Christ, if philosophy is not ashamed to become a disciple of barbarian knowledge and so advance toward truth. The hairs are numbered, and trivial movements too; how then is philosophy not taken into account? Indeed, to Samson too strength was given in his hair, so that he might understand that even the despised arts of life, which lie on the ground and remain there after the soul's departure, are not given without the divine power. For, it says, providence reaches all from above, from the things that lead, as from the head, “like the ointment,” it says, “that goes down on the beard of Aaron and on the border of his garment” (that is, of the great high priest, through whom all things came to be and without whom not one thing came to be); not onto the adornment of the body; but outside the people philosophy is like a garment.

The philosophers, then, who have been trained to self-awareness by a spirit of perception, when they busy themselves not with a part of philosophy but with philosophy as a whole, bearing witness to the truth lovingly and without conceit, even when it is found among those of other opinions in what they have said well, advance to understanding, in keeping with the divine administration, the ineffable goodness which always brings the nature of existing things toward the better as far as possible. Then, having associated not only with Greeks but also with barbarians, they are led from common training to a special understanding, to faith. And having received the foundation of truth, they receive in addition the power to go forward to inquiry; and from this point they love, having become disciples, and, reaching out for knowledge, they hasten toward salvation. In this way Scripture says that a spirit of perception was given by God to the craftsmen, which is nothing other than prudence, a power of the soul that contemplates existing things and discerns what follows and what is like and unlike, and is able also to combine, to command and forbid, and to conjecture the future. And it extends not only to the arts but also to philosophy itself.

Why, then, is the serpent called prudent? Because even in wicked deeds one can find a certain sequence, discernment, combination, and conjecture of the future. And most wrongdoings escape notice for this reason, that the wicked contrive for themselves to escape punishment by every means and entirely. Prudence, being manifold, extended through the whole world and through all human affairs, changes its name according to each of them. When it applies itself to first causes, it is called intellection; when it confirms this by demonstrative reasoning, it is named knowledge, wisdom, and scientific understanding; when it occurs in matters that tend to reverence and accepts the primary Word without contemplation, by keeping the working-out that lies in it, it is called faith; in sensible things, when it trusts what appears, as in these, most true, it is right opinion; again, in actions done by handiwork, it is art; and where, without contemplation of first causes, by observation of similar cases and by transition, it produces a certain impulse and structure, it is called experience. But what is proper, and truly principal and ruling, is that which the one who has believed receives in addition to all these, after firm faith: the Holy Spirit, by divine visitation.

Philosophy, then, having received a superior kind of perception, as has been shown from what was said before, shares in prudence. The rational working-through of what has been conceived, with choice and assent, is called dialectic, which confirms by demonstration what is said about truth and repels the difficulties brought against it. Those, then, who say that philosophy did not come here from God are in danger of saying that God cannot know each particular thing and is not the cause of all good things, even though each of them is particular. But nothing that exists would have come into being at all if God were unwilling; and if he was willing, philosophy is from God, since he willed it to be such as it is, for the sake of those who would not otherwise than in this way abstain from evils. For God knows all things, not only what is but also what will be and how each thing will be; foreseeing the particular movements, he “oversees all and hears all,” seeing the soul naked within, and he has from eternity the thought of each particular thing. And what happens in theaters, and with the parts of each thing, in looking at, looking around, and looking together, this happens with God. For he looks at all things at once and at each in its part with a single glance, though not all according to his primary intention.

Indeed, many things in life come into being through some human reasoning, having received their kindling from God. For instance, health through medicine, good condition through physical training, and wealth through business come into being and are present according to divine providence, but with human cooperation. Understanding too is from God. For the choice of good men obeys God's will above all. That is why many advantages are common to good and bad men, yet they are beneficial only to the good and excellent, for whose sake God made them; for the power of God's gifts is by nature for the use of good men. Moreover, the thoughts of virtuous men also come about by divine inspiration, the soul being disposed in a certain way and the divine will being passed on into human souls, with particular divine ministers assisting in such services. For the governorships of the angels are distributed among nations and cities; and perhaps some are also assigned to particular individuals.

The shepherd, at any rate, cares for each of the sheep individually, and closer oversight attends especially those who are outstanding in nature and able to benefit the multitudes. These are those fitted to lead and to teach, through whom the activity of providence is shown clearly, whenever God wishes to benefit men either through education or through some rule and administration. And he wishes it always. That is why he moves those who are suitable to the useful working-out of what contributes to virtue, to peace, and to doing good. Everything virtuous comes from virtue and refers back to virtue, and it is given either so that people may become good or so that those who are good may use their natural advantages. For it cooperates both in general and in particular.

How, then, is it not absurd, while ascribing disorder and injustice to the devil, to make him the giver of a virtuous thing, philosophy? For then he would seem to have been kinder to the Greeks, in making them good men, than divine providence and purpose. On the contrary, I think, it belongs to law and to all right reason to render to each what is fitting, what is his own, and what is due. For as the lyre belongs only to the lyre-player and the pipe to the piper, so advantages are the possessions of good men; and it is the nature of the beneficent to do good, as it is of fire to warm and of light to give light. A good man would not do evil, just as light will not darken nor fire chill. So, conversely, vice would not do anything virtuous; for its activity is doing evil, as darkness's is to confound the sight. Philosophy, then, is not a work of vice, since it makes men virtuous. It remains, then, that it is from God, whose only work is to do good; and all that is given by God is given and received well. Moreover, the use of philosophy does not belong to bad men; but if it was given to the best of the Greeks, it is clear from where it was bestowed: from providence, which assigns to each what is fitting according to worth. Fittingly, then, the law was given to the Jews and philosophy to the Greeks until the coming; and from then on came the universal calling, into a people for his own possession of righteousness, according to the teaching that comes from faith, as the one God, the only God of both, Greeks and barbarians, or rather of the whole human race, gathers them through the one Lord.

We have often said that by philosophy we mean whatever, in accordance with philosophy, attains the truth, even if it is partial. And indeed the good things in the arts, as such, have their beginning from God. For as doing something skillfully is contained in the theorems of the art, so acting prudently falls under prudence. Prudence is a virtue; and it is its property to know other things and, much earlier, the things concerning itself. And wisdom, being a power, is nothing other than scientific knowledge of divine and human goods. “The earth is God's, and its fullness.” Scripture has said this to teach that good things come to men from God, the distribution reaching down by divine power and might for human help. For instance, there are three ways of every benefit and imparting from one to another: one by close attendance, as the trainer shapes the boy; another by likeness, as one who urges another to progress by making progress first; the first cooperates with the learner, the second helps the one who receives. The third is the way by command, when the trainer no longer shapes the learner nor demonstrates the hold himself for the boy to imitate, but, as to one now more practiced, orders the hold by name.

The one who knows, then, having received from God the power to benefit others, helps some by shaping them through close attendance, urges others on by their becoming like him, and trains and teaches others by command. Indeed, he himself too has been benefited by the Lord in the same ways. So too the benefit that extends from God to men becomes known, with angels also giving encouragement; for through angels too the divine power provides good things, whether they are seen or not. Of this kind too was the way of the Lord's appearing. And sometimes the power also breathes something into men's thoughts and reflections and places in their minds strength and more exact perception, providing the vigor and daring of eagerness both for inquiries and for works. Yet there are set before us for imitation and assimilation the truly wonderful and holy examples of virtue in the recorded deeds. And indeed the form of command is most evident both in the Lord's covenants and in the laws of the Greeks, and also in the precepts of philosophy. And, to sum up, every benefit in life, according to the highest account, is accomplished from God Almighty, the Father who leads all things, through the Son, who for this reason is also “Savior of all men,” says the apostle, “especially of believers”; but according to the proximate account, it is accomplished by those nearest to each, according to the injunction and command of the Lord, who is nearest to the first cause.

The one who knows among us always spends his time on the most important things; but if there is ever leisure and a time of rest from the principal things, instead of other idleness he also takes up Greek philosophy, eating it like a dessert after dinner, not neglecting the better things, but taking these too, as far as is fitting, for the reasons I stated before. But those who have hankered after the unnecessary and superfluous parts of philosophy and devoted themselves only to eristic sophisms have been left behind in the necessary and most important things, simply chasing the shadows of words. It is good, then, to know everything; but a person whose soul is too weak to stretch itself to wide learning will choose only the principal and better things. For true scientific knowledge, which we say only the one who knows has, is a firm grasp through true and firm reasons, leading up to the knowledge of the cause; and the one who knows the truth scientifically about anything whatever at once knows scientifically the falsehood about the same thing. And indeed that argument seems to me to be sound: “If one must philosophize, one must philosophize; for it follows from itself. And if one must not philosophize, one must still philosophize; for no one could condemn a thing without first coming to know it. Therefore one must philosophize.”

Since this is so, the Greeks must learn through the law and the prophets to worship one only God, the one who is truly Almighty; then be taught by the apostle this: “But to us there is no idol in the world,” since no likeness of God can exist among created things; and be further taught that the statues of those whom they worship would not be images of them either. For the race of souls is not at all of such a shape as the Greeks mould their wooden images. For souls are invisible, not only the rational ones but also those of irrational animals; and their bodies never become parts of the souls themselves, but instruments: for some, seats; for others, vehicles; for others, possessions of some other kind.

But neither is it possible to imitate vividly the likenesses even of the instruments; otherwise let someone model the sun as it is seen, and represent the rainbow in its colors. And when they abandon idols, then they will hear the Scripture: “Unless your righteousness exceeds more than that of the scribes and Pharisees”—who are justified by abstention from evils—“together with perfection in these things and with the ability to love and do good to one's neighbor, you will not be kingly.” For the intensifying of righteousness according to the law shows the one who knows. So a person who has been ranged with the ruling part of his own body, the head, having advanced to the summit of faith, knowledge itself, around which are all the organs of sense, will likewise obtain the highest inheritance. The apostle plainly shows the ruling place of knowledge to those able to see through things, writing to those Corinthians of Greece somewhat as follows: “And having hope that, as your faith increases, we may be magnified among you according to our rule to abundance, to preach the gospel in the regions beyond you”—not speaking of the extension of preaching in place (for he himself says that faith had increased in Achaia too,

and it is recorded in the Acts of the Apostles that he preached the word in Athens too); rather, he teaches that knowledge, being the perfection of faith, goes abundantly beyond catechetical instruction, in keeping with the majesty of the Lord's teaching and the church's rule. That is why, going on, he adds: “But even if I am unskilled in speech, yet not in knowledge.” But let those of the Greeks who boast of having grasped the truth tell us from whom they learned what they boast of. They would not say from God; they admit that it was from men. And if so, either they learned it late from themselves, as indeed some of them boast in their conceit, or from others like themselves. But men are not trustworthy teachers when they speak about God, insofar as they are men. For one who is a man is not competent to speak the truth even about God: the weak and perishable about the unbegotten and incorruptible, the work about its maker.

Then will not the one who cannot speak the truth about himself be even less to be believed about God? For as far as man falls short of the power of God, so far his speech too is weak, even if he speaks not of God himself but about God and the divine Word. For human speech is by nature weak and unable to express God—I do not mean his name (for naming it is common not only to philosophers but also to poets), nor his essence (for that is impossible), but the power and the works of God. And yet those who claim God as their teacher scarcely come to a conception of God, grace assisting them to some measure of knowledge, as they accustom themselves to contemplate will by will and the Holy Spirit by the Holy Spirit; for “the Spirit searches the depths of God, but the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit.” Only our wisdom, then, is taught by God, and on it all the springs of wisdom depend, as many as aim at the truth. Indeed, when the Lord who was to teach us was coming to men, there were countless heralds, proclaimers, preparers, and forerunners from above, from the foundation of the world, announcing beforehand through works and words, prophesying that he would come, and where, and how, and what the signs would be.

Indeed, the law and the prophets rehearsed beforehand from afar; then the forerunner points to him as present; after him the heralds make known the power of his appearing, teaching it fully. The philosophers pleased only their own, and not even all of these: Socrates pleased Plato, and Plato Xenocrates, Aristotle Theophrastus, and Zeno Cleanthes, who persuaded only their own followers. But the word of our Teacher did not remain in Judea alone, as philosophy did in Greece, but was poured out over the whole inhabited world, persuading Greeks and barbarians alike, nation by nation, in village and every city, whole households and each one who has heard it individually, and already bringing over to the truth not a few of the philosophers themselves. And if any chance magistrate forbids Greek philosophy, it vanishes at once; but our teaching, from its very first proclamation, kings and tyrants and local rulers and governors, with all their mercenaries and besides with countless men, forbid, waging war on us and trying as far as they can to cut it out; yet it flourishes all the more. For it does not die like a human teaching, nor wither like a weak gift (for no gift of God is weak); it remains unhindered, though it was prophesied that it would be persecuted to the end.

Then, about poetry, Plato writes: “For a poet is a light and holy thing, and is not able to compose until he becomes inspired and out of his mind.” And Democritus likewise: “Whatever a poet writes with inspiration and a holy spirit is very beautiful.” And we know what sort of things poets say. Will no one, then, be astonished at the prophets of God Almighty, who became instruments of the divine voice? Having, then, as it were, modelled a statue of the one who knows, we have now shown what he is like, indicating in outline the greatness and beauty of his character. What he is like in contemplation in natural science will be shown afterward, when we begin to treat of the creation of the world.

It is now time for us to show the Greeks that the one who knows is alone truly pious, so that the philosophers, learning what sort of person the true Christian is, may condemn their own ignorance: they persecute the name rashly and at random, and in vain call atheists those who have known the true God. With the philosophers, I think, it is fitting to use clearer arguments, so that, already exercised by their own education, they may be able to understand, even if they have not yet shown themselves worthy to share in the power of believing. The prophetic sayings we will not mention for the present, since we will use the Scriptures later at the fitting places; but what they show we will indicate in summary, sketching Christianity, so as not to break the continuity of the argument by bringing in the Scriptures, and that for people who do not yet understand their words. When we have pointed out what they mean, then the testimonies too will be made plain to them, abundantly, once they believe. (And even if what we say seems to some of the many different from the Lord's Scriptures, let it be known that it breathes and lives from them, and, taking its starting points from them, it professes to set out their sense only, not their wording.) For further elaboration, out of season, would reasonably seem superfluous, while not to consider what is urgent at all would be quite careless and deficient. “Blessed,” truly, “are those who search out the testimonies of the Lord; with their whole heart they will seek him.” And the law and the prophets bear witness about the Lord.

Our task, then, is to show that the one who knows alone is holy and pious, worshiping the true God in a manner worthy of God; and on what is worthy of God follow being dear to God and loving God. He considers everything that excels to be honorable according to its worth. Among things perceived by the senses, one should honor rulers, parents, and everyone older; among things taught, the most ancient philosophy and the oldest prophecy; and among things grasped by the mind, what is oldest in origin, the timeless and unbeginning beginning and firstfruits of all that exists, the Son. From him it is possible to learn the Cause beyond, the Father of the universe, the most venerable and most beneficent of all, no longer handed on by voice, but revered with worship and silence and holy awe, and venerable in the fullest sense; spoken of by the Lord so far as the learners could understand, and understood by those chosen by the Lord for knowledge, “those whose faculties,” says the apostle, “have been exercised.”

The service of God, then, for the one who knows, is the continual care of his soul and his occupation with the divine in unceasing love. For of the service rendered to human beings, one kind improves, the other ministers: medicine improves the body, philosophy the soul; while to parents from children and to rulers from subjects a ministering benefit accrues. Likewise in the church the presbyters preserve the image of the improving kind, and the deacons that of the ministering kind. Both these ministries the angels render to God in the administration of earthly affairs, and so does the one who knows himself, serving God and showing human beings the improving contemplation, in whatever way he has been appointed to educate them for the correction of human beings. For he alone is godly who serves God well and blamelessly in human affairs. For as the best care of plants is that by which the fruits grow and are gathered by agricultural skill and experience, providing their benefit to human beings, so the godliness of the one who knows, taking to itself the fruits of those who have believed through him, as more come to full knowledge and so are saved, works the best harvest through experience. And if fitness toward God is the disposition that preserves what befits God, he who is fit for God is alone dear to God. He would be the one who knows what is fitting, both in knowledge and in life: how one must live who is to become like God, and indeed is already becoming like him.

In this way, then, he is a lover of God. For as the one who honors his father is a lover of his father, so the one who honors God is a lover of God. Hence it appears to me that there are three effects of the power of knowledge: first, to know things; second, to carry out whatever reason dictates; and third, to be able to hand on, in a manner worthy of God, what is hidden in the truth. The one, then, who is persuaded that God is almighty, and has learned the divine mysteries from his only-begotten Son, how is he an atheist? For the atheist is the one who does not think there is a God, and the superstitious person is the one who fears the daemons, who makes everything divine, wood and stone alike, and has enslaved his spirit, a human being who does not live according to reason.

Faith, then, is the first step toward knowing God; and with it, through the Savior's teaching, comes the conviction that one must in no way do what is unjust: this one should consider fitting for the knowledge of God. In this way the best thing on earth is the most godly human being, and the best in heaven is an angel, which is nearer in place and already purer in its share of eternal and blessed life. But most perfect, most holy, most sovereign, most commanding, most royal, and most beneficent is the nature of the Son, which is closest to the only Almighty. This is the supreme excellence, which orders all things according to the Father's will and steers the universe in the best way, working all things with untiring and unwearied power, and looking upon hidden thoughts through what it works. For the Son of God never departs from his watchtower; he is not divided, not cut off, does not pass from place to place, but is always everywhere and contained nowhere, all mind, all paternal light, all eye, seeing all things, hearing all things, knowing all things, searching the powers with power. To him the whole army of angels and gods is subjected, to the Father's Word, who has taken on the holy administration “on account of the one who subjected it”; through him all human beings are his too, but some “according to knowledge,” others not yet; some as friends, others as faithful servants, others simply as servants. This Teacher trains the one who knows by mysteries,

the believer by good hopes, and the hard-hearted by corrective discipline through action they can perceive. Hence providence works in private, in public, and everywhere. That there is a Son of God, and that he is the one we call Savior and Lord, the divine prophecies show directly. So the Lord of all, Greeks and barbarians, persuades those who are willing; for he does not compel the one who is able to receive salvation from him by choosing and by fulfilling all that is required of him to lay hold of the hope. He it is who gave philosophy to the Greeks too, through the lower angels; for by an ancient divine ordinance angels have been distributed among the nations. But “the Lord's portion” is the glory of those who believe. For either the Lord does not care for all human beings (and this would happen to him either through being unable, which it is not lawful to say, for that is a sign of weakness, or through being unwilling though able, but such a feeling does not belong to one who is good; and surely he who for our sake took on flesh capable of suffering is not lazy through luxury), or he cares for all together, which is fitting for him who has become Lord of all. For he is not Savior of some and not of others; but according to each one's fitness he distributed his benefaction, to Greeks and barbarians, and to those among them who were predestined and in their proper time called, the faithful and elect.

Neither, then, would he who has called all equally ever envy anyone, though he has assigned exceptional honors to those who have believed exceptionally; nor could the Lord of all ever be hindered by another, especially since he carries out the will of the good and almighty Father. Envy does not even touch the Lord, who is without passion, being without beginning; nor are human affairs such that the Lord could envy them. The one who envies is another, one whom passion has touched. Nor indeed can one say that the Lord does not wish to save humanity out of ignorance, not knowing how each person is to be cared for. For ignorance does not touch the Son, who was the Father's counselor before the foundation of the world. For this was the wisdom “in which” God Almighty “delighted”; for the Son is the “power of God,” as the Father's most sovereign Word before all things that came into being, and he might properly be called his “wisdom” and the teacher of those formed through him. Nor would he ever abandon his care for human beings, drawn away by some pleasure, he who took on flesh, by nature subject to passion, and trained it into a state of freedom from passion. How could he be Savior and Lord, unless Savior and Lord of all? But he is Savior of those who have believed, because they wished to know, and Lord of the disobedient, until, having become able to confess him, they obtain the benefaction through him that is proper and suited to them. All the Lord's activity has reference to the Almighty, and the Son is, so to speak, a certain activity of the Father.

So the Savior would never hate human beings, he who, because of his surpassing love for humanity, did not disdain the tender sensitivity of human flesh but put it on, and came for the common salvation of human beings; for faith is common to those who choose it. Nor would he ever neglect his own work, the human being, the only living creature into whom, at creation, a notion of God was instilled. Nor could there be any other better and more harmonious government of human beings for God than the one appointed. It is fitting, at any rate, for what is better by nature always to lead what is worse, and for the government of anything to be given to the one who can manage it well. And what truly rules and leads is the divine Word and his providence, overseeing all things and neglecting the care of none of its own. And these would be those who have chosen to be his own, those made perfect through faith. Thus, by the will of the almighty Father, the Son is established as the cause of all good things, the first-working power of motion, beyond the grasp of sense. For he was not seen as what he was by those unable to receive him because of the weakness of the flesh; but, taking on flesh that could be perceived, he came to show what is possible for human beings in obedience to the commandments. Being, then, the Father's power, he easily prevails over whatever he wishes,

leaving not even the smallest part of his government uncared for; for then the whole would no longer have been well made by him. It belongs, I think, to the greatest power to examine with precision all the parts, down to the smallest, all of them looking to the first administrator of the universe, who by the Father's will steers the salvation of all, some ranked under others as their leaders, until one reaches the great High Priest. For from one first principle above, working according to the will, the first, second, and third ranks depend; then, at the uppermost edge of the visible, is the blessed order of angels; and so, down to ourselves, some are ranked under others, being saved and saving from one and through one. As, then, even a very long chain of iron is moved together by the spirit of the Heraclean stone, extending through many iron rings, so too, drawn by the Holy Spirit, the virtuous are joined to the first dwelling place, and others in turn down to the last; but those who are bad through weakness, having fallen into an evil condition through unjust greed, neither mastering nor mastered, fall away, whirled about by their passions, and drop to the ground. For this is the law from above: that whoever wishes should choose virtue.

Therefore the commandments, both those under the law and those before the law, given to people not under law (“for law is not laid down for the righteous”), ordained that the one who chooses should receive eternal life and a blessed reward, and allowed the one who delights in vice to be with what he chose; and again, that the soul which is improving at each stage in the knowledge of virtue and growth in righteousness should receive a better place in the universe, “straining forward” with each advance toward a state of freedom from passion, until it “attains to the perfect man,” the pre-eminence of knowledge and inheritance together. These saving revolutions are apportioned according to the order of change, by times, places, honors, kinds of knowledge, inheritances, and ministries, each in its turn, up to the contemplation that is highest and nearest to the Lord, in eternity. And what is lovable draws to the contemplation of itself everyone who has given himself wholly to contemplation through love of knowledge.

Therefore the Lord, drawing from one spring the commandments that he gave, both the former and the latter, neither overlooked those before the law, leaving them lawless, nor allowed those who did not understand the barbarian philosophy to run wild. For by giving commandments to the one and philosophy to the others, he “shut up” unbelief until his coming, so that everyone who has not believed is without excuse. For he leads from either kind of progress, Greek and barbarian, to the perfection that comes through faith. And if any of the Greeks, passing over the preliminary training of Greek philosophy, has rushed straight to the true teaching, he has outstripped the rest, even if he is unlearned, having chosen the short way of salvation, through faith to perfection.

All things, then, that did not prevent a human being's choice from being free, he made and showed to be helps toward virtue, so that somehow, even to those able to see only dimly, the one who alone is truly the one almighty good God may be revealed, saving from age to age through the Son, and in every way wholly without responsibility for evil. For all things have been ordered by the Lord of the universe toward the salvation of the whole, both in general and in part. It is the work, then, of saving justice always to lead each thing to what is better, so far as possible. For toward the salvation and permanence of the better, even the lesser things are governed in proportion to their own characters. So everything virtuous changes to better dwellings, having as the cause of the change the choice of knowledge, which the soul possessed with sovereign power. And the necessary disciplines, through the goodness of the great Judge who oversees all, through the angels close at hand, through various preliminary judgments, and through the final judgment, compel those who have become more “callous” to repent.

“The rest I pass over in silence,” glorifying the Lord. But I say this of those knowing souls: surpassing, by the grandeur of their contemplation, the way of life of each holy order, according to which the blessed dwellings of the gods have been marked out and allotted; reckoned holy among the holy, and carried over wholly from wholes, arriving at better places from better places, no longer embracing the divine contemplation in mirrors or through mirrors, but feasting on the vision, as clear as can be and precisely pure, of which souls that love beyond nature never have their fill; enjoying everlastingly an everlasting gladness to endless ages, they remain, all honored alike with the same pre-eminence. This is the comprehending contemplation of the “pure in heart.” This, then, is the activity of the perfected one who knows: to converse with God through the great High Priest, being made like the Lord as far as possible through all his service toward God, which extends to the salvation of human beings, by care in the benefaction toward us, by public ministry, by teaching, and by doing good through works. Yes indeed, the one who knows creates and fashions himself, and moreover adorns those who listen to him, being made like God: as far as possible he makes what has been disciplined into freedom from passion by training like the one who has freedom from passion by nature, and he does this while conversing and being with the Lord “without distraction.” Gentleness, I think, love for humanity, and magnificent godliness are the rules of the likeness that belongs to knowledge.

These virtues, I say, are “an acceptable sacrifice” with God, since Scripture calls the humble heart joined with right understanding “a whole burnt offering to God,” as every human being taken up into holiness is enlightened into inseparable union. For both the gospel and the apostle command us to take ourselves captive and to put ourselves to death, killing “the old man that is being corrupted according to its desires” and raising “the new” from the death of the old perversion, laying aside the passions and becoming sinless. This, then, is what the law too was hinting at when it commanded that the sinner be put to death: the passing from death to life, the freedom from passion that comes from faith. Not understanding this, the teachers of the law, who took the law in a contentious sense, have given occasions to those who try in vain to slander it. For this reason we reasonably do not offer sacrifice to God, who lacks nothing and has provided all things to all; but we glorify him who was sacrificed for us, sacrificing ourselves, from what is without need toward what is without need, and from what is without passion toward what is without passion. For God takes pleasure only in our salvation. Reasonably, then, we do not bring sacrifice to one who is not overcome by pleasures, since the vapor of the smoke rises only somewhere down below, not even as high as the densest clouds, but far even from them, reaching only those whom it does reach.

The divine, then, is neither needy nor fond of pleasure, of gain, or of money. Being full, and supplying all things to everything that has come into being and is in need, it is not charmed by sacrifices or offerings, nor again by glory and honor, nor led astray by any such things, but it appears like good and noble men, who would never betray justice either for fear of a threat or at the promise of greater gifts. But those who have not perceived the self-determination of the human soul and its freedom from slavery in choosing a way of life, being vexed at what is done by uneducated injustice, think there is no God. Equal to these in opinion are those who, falling into incontinence in pleasures, into extraordinary griefs and unwelcome misfortunes, and giving up in the face of calamities, say that there is no God, or that if there is, he does not oversee everything. And there are others who are persuaded that those thought to be gods can be won over by sacrifices and gifts, as if they were, so to speak, accomplices in their licentiousness; and they will not believe that the only one who truly is God is he who is constant in just goodness.

Pious, then, is the one who knows, who cares first for himself and then for his neighbors, so that we may become as good as possible. For a son pleases a good father by showing himself worthy and like his father, and so does a subject please a ruler; for believing and obeying are in our power. As the cause of evils one might suppose the weakness of matter, the involuntary impulses of ignorance, and the irrational compulsions that come from lack of learning. The one who knows, having risen above these through learning, as above wild beasts, imitates the divine purpose and does good, as far as he can, to those human beings who are willing. And if he is ever appointed to rule, like Moses, he will lead for the salvation of those he rules, and will tame what is savage and unpersuadable by honoring the best and punishing the wicked, with punishment rationally enlisted in the service of education. For the soul of a righteous human being is above all a divine statue, resembling God; in it, through obedience to the precepts, the leader of all, mortals and immortals, is enshrined and set up, king and begetter of good things, who is truly law, ordinance, and eternal Word, the one Savior both for each individually and for all in common. He is the truly only-begotten, the “imprint of the glory” of the Father, King of all and Almighty, who stamps on the one who knows the perfect contemplation according to his own image, so that there is now a third divine image, made as far as possible like the second cause, like the true Life, through which we live the true life; as though we were describing the pattern of the one who knows as it comes to be in us, occupied with things that are firm and wholly unchangeable.

Ruler, then, of himself and of what is his, possessing a firm grasp of divine understanding, he approaches the truth genuinely. For the knowledge and firm grasp of things grasped by the mind may rightly be called understanding. Its task in divine matters is to consider what the first cause is, and what that is “through which all things came into being and without which nothing came into being”; which things pervade and which contain, which are joined and which are separate, what rank each of these holds, and what power and what function each contributes. And again in human matters: what the human being himself is, what is according to nature or against nature for him, how he ought to act or be acted upon, what his virtues and his vices are, about goods and evils and things indifferent, and all that concerns courage, prudence, self-restraint, and justice, the virtue complete over all. He makes use of prudence and justice for the acquisition of wisdom, and of courage not only in enduring hardships but also in mastering pleasure and desire, grief and anger, and in general in resisting everything that leads us astray, whether by force or by some deceit. For vices and evils must not be endured but repelled, while what is fearful must be endured. Pain too, then, is found useful, in medicine, in education, and in punishment, and through it characters are corrected for the benefit of human beings.

The kinds of courage are endurance, high-mindedness, greatness of soul, liberality, and magnificence. For this reason the one who knows does not take notice of blame or of ill repute from the many, and he is not subject to opinions or to flatteries. In enduring toils, while accomplishing at the same time something fitting and rising courageously above all hardships, he shows himself truly a man among other human beings. And again, keeping prudence, he is self-restrained in the calm of his soul, receptive of the promised good things as his own, just as he turns away from shameful things as alien to him; he becomes orderly and above the world, doing everything in order and rank and in no way ever going wrong; rich as much as can be in desiring nothing, since he needs little and has an abundance of every good through his knowledge of the Good. For the first work of his justice is to love to spend his life with those of his own kind and to be with them both on earth and in heaven.

In this way he is also generous with whatever he possesses and loving toward humanity, while hating wickedness intensely in his complete turning away from all wrongdoing. One must learn, then, to be faithful both to oneself and to one's neighbors, and obedient to the commandments. For this is “the servant of God,” the one who willingly submits to the commandments. But the one who is “pure in heart,” no longer because of the commandments but because of knowledge itself, is a “friend of God.” For we are not born with virtue by nature, nor does it grow on us naturally after birth, as some parts of the body do (since then it would no longer be voluntary or praiseworthy); nor is virtue perfected from circumstances and the habit that follows them, in the way language is (for it is roughly in this way that vice comes in). Nor again is knowledge acquired from some art, either from those that provide a livelihood or from those that care for the body; nor even from the ordinary round of education, for it is enough if that can only prepare the soul and serve it.

For civil laws are perhaps able to restrain wicked actions; but neither they nor persuasive arguments, being superficial, could provide a firm scientific hold on the truth. Greek philosophy, however, as it were purifies the soul in advance and accustoms it beforehand to receive faith, on which the truth builds knowledge. This is he, this is truly the athlete, who in the great stadium, the beautiful world, is crowned with the true victory over all the passions. For the president of the games is God Almighty, the umpire is the only-begotten Son of God, and the spectators are angels and gods; and the all-out contest, embracing every kind of fighting, is “not against blood and flesh,” but against the “spiritual powers” of impassioned passions that work through the flesh. Overcoming these great adversaries, and having fought through, as it were, the contests that the tempter sets up, he has won immortality; for God's vote in the most just judgment cannot be misled. The spectators have been summoned to the contest, and the athletes compete in the stadium; and of them the one who has obeyed his trainer prevails. For all things are set out equally for all by God, and he himself is blameless; the one who is able chooses, and the one who has willed will be strong. For this reason too we have received a mind, so that we may know what we do; and here “Know yourself” means to know for what we were born. And we were born to be obedient to the commandments, if we choose to will to be saved. This, I suppose, is Adrasteia, by which it is not possible to escape God.

The human task, then, is ready obedience to God, who has proclaimed a manifold salvation through commandments; and pleasing him is agreement with him. For the benefactor takes the lead in doing good, and the one who has received it eagerly, with the right reasoning, and has kept the commandments is faithful; while the one who also repays the kindness through love, as far as he can, is already a friend. And the one most proper repayment from human beings is to do what is pleasing to God. And as if it were his own offspring and a work in some way akin to himself, the Teacher and Savior receives the benefits and improvements of human beings as a favor and honor to himself, just as he regards injuries done to those who have believed in him as ingratitude and dishonor to himself. (For what other dishonor could touch God?) Therefore there is no other repayment one can make worthy of so great a salvation for the benefit received from the Lord. And as those who damage property insult its masters, and those who harm soldiers insult their commander, so ill-treatment of those consecrated to the Lord is disregard of him. For as the sun not only lights heaven and the whole world, shining on land and sea, but also sends its ray through windows and a small opening into the innermost rooms, so the Word, poured out everywhere, looks upon even the smallest actions of life.

The Greeks suppose the gods to have human passions, just as they suppose them to have human forms. And as each people paints their forms like themselves, as Xenophanes says, “the Ethiopians black and snub-nosed, the Thracians red-haired and grey-eyed,” so they also mold their souls like their own: the barbarians, for example, make them savage and wild in character, the Greeks gentler, yet subject to passion. It is reasonable, then, that the wicked should have poor notions of God and the good the best. And for this reason the one who is truly “royal in soul” and knowing is also pious and free from superstition, persuaded that the only God is alone honorable, venerable, magnificent, beneficent, the doer of good, the author of all good things, and not the cause of evil. About Greek superstition, I think, we have shown enough in the work we entitled the Exhortation, where we made full use of the history that pressed upon us. So there is no need “to tell again a tale already clearly told.”

Having come to this topic, just to point out a few things out of many, these are enough to show that those who liken the divine to the worst of human beings are godless. For either their gods are harmed by human beings, and so, being harmed by us, are shown to be worse than human beings; or, if not, how is it that they grow bitter over things by which they are not harmed, like an irritable old woman provoked to anger, as they say Artemis was angry with the Aetolians because of Oeneus? For how did she, a goddess, not reckon that Oeneus neglected her not out of contempt but either through forgetting or thinking he had already sacrificed? And Auge too speaks well, pleading her case against Athena, who was angry with her for giving birth in the temple: “Spoils that destroy mortals you delight to see, and the wreckage of the dead, and these are not polluted in your eyes; but if I gave birth, you think this dreadful.” And yet the other animals too give birth in temples and do no wrong.

Naturally, then, people who become superstitious about gods quick to anger think that everything that happens is a sign and a cause of evils: if a mouse digs through an altar made of clay, or, having nothing else, chews through a sack; if a rooster being raised crows in the evening, they take this as a sign of something. Such a man Menander mocks in The Superstitious Man: “May some good befall me, O most honored gods! For in tying on my right sandal I broke the strap.” “Naturally, you fool; it was rotten, and you are a skinflint who won't buy new ones.” Antiphon's remark is charming. When someone took it as an omen that a sow had eaten her piglets, he saw that she was wasted with hunger because of the stinginess of her keeper and said, “Rejoice at the sign: hungry as she is, she did not eat your children.” “And what is surprising,” says Bion, “if the mouse chewed through the sack when it found nothing to eat? What would have been surprising is if, as Arcesilaus jokingly proposed, the sack had eaten the mouse.”

Diogenes too spoke well to someone who was amazed at finding a snake coiled around a pestle: “Don't be amazed,” he said; “it would have been more surprising if you had seen the pestle coiled around an upright snake.” For irrational animals too must run and race and fight and give birth and die; and these things, being natural to them, could never be against nature for us. “And many birds wander beneath the rays of the sun.” The comic poet Philemon also mocks such things: “When I see someone watching,” he says, “who sneezed or who spoke, or looking to see who is walking ahead, I sell him at once in the market. Each of us walks and talks and sneezes for himself, not for those in the city; things happen as their nature is.” Then, when sober, they ask for health; but gorging themselves and wallowing in drunkenness at the festivals, they bring diseases on themselves.

Many also fear the inscriptions set up on houses. Diogenes, very wittily, finding written on the house of some scoundrel, “Heracles, the glorious victor, lives here; let no evil enter,” said, “Then how will the master of the house get in?” These same people, who worship every piece of wood and every stone, “the anointed ones,” as the saying goes, are afraid of red wool, grains of salt, torches, squill, and sulfur, bewitched by sorcerers in certain impure purifications. But God, the true God, recognizes as holy only the character of the righteous, just as he recognizes as accursed what is unjust and wicked. One can see, at any rate, that eggs used in purifying people hatch if they are kept warm; this would not happen if they took on the evils of the person purified. Charmingly, then, the comic poet Diphilus mocks the sorcerers in these words: “Purifying the daughters of Proetus and their father Proetus, son of Abas, and an old woman as a fifth besides, with one torch and one squill, so many human bodies, with sulfur and asphalt and the loud-roaring sea, from gently flowing, deep-flowing Ocean. But, blessed Air, send Anticyra down through the clouds, so that I may turn this bug into a drone.”

For Menander also says well: “If you had some real ill, Phidias, you would need to seek a real remedy for it. But now you do not; so find an empty remedy for the empty ill, and imagine that it does you some good. Let the women wipe you around in a circle and fumigate you with sulfur; sprinkle yourself with water from three springs, throwing in salt and lentils. Everyone is pure who is conscious of no evil in himself.” Indeed, the tragedy says: “Orestes, what sickness is destroying you?” “Conscience, because I know I have done terrible things.” For in truth purity is nothing else than abstaining from sins. Epicharmus, then, says well: “If you have a pure mind, you are pure in all your body.” So we say that souls too must first be purified from worthless and wicked opinions through right reason, and only then turn to the recollection of the principal heads of doctrine; since also before the handing on of the mysteries they think it right to apply certain purifications to those who are about to be initiated, because one must put off godless opinion before turning to the true tradition.

Or are we not right and true in not confining in any place the one who cannot be contained, and in not shutting up in temples “made with hands” the one who contains all things? What work of builders and stonecutters and mechanical craft could be holy? Are not those better than these who have thought the air and the surrounding heaven, or rather the whole world and the universe, worthy of God's pre-eminence? It would surely be ridiculous, as the philosophers themselves say, for a human being, who is “God's plaything,” to make God, and for God to become the plaything of a craft. For what is made is the same as, and like, that from which it is made: what is made from ivory is ivory, and what is made from gold is golden. But the statues and temples built by workmen are made from inert matter, so that they too would be inert, material, and profane; and even if you perfect the craft, the work shares in the mechanical. So the works of craft are no longer sacred and divine. And what could be set up and established, when nothing is unestablished, since all things are in place? Indeed, what is established is established by someone, having previously been unestablished. If, then, God is established by human beings, he was once unestablished and did not exist at all. For what would be unestablished is what does not exist, since it is what does not exist that gets established. But what exists could not be established by what does not exist, nor even by another existing thing, for that too exists.

It remains, then, that it is established by itself. And how will anything beget itself? Or how will what exists establish itself in being? Did it, being previously unestablished, establish itself? But then it would not even have existed, since what does not exist is unestablished. And how could what is thought to have been established later make itself into what it already was, existing beforehand? And that to which all existing things belong, how could it need anything? But if the divine has human form, it will need the same things as a human being: food, shelter, a house, and everything that goes with them; for those of the same shape and the same passions will need the same way of life. But if “temple” is taken in two senses, both God himself and the structure built in his honor, how should we not properly call the church, made holy for the honor of God according to knowledge, a temple of God, worth much and built not by mechanical craft, nor fashioned by the hand of a charlatan, but made into a shrine by the will of God? For I now call not the place but the assembly of the elect the church. This temple is better for receiving the greatness of God's dignity. For the living being worth much is consecrated, through its surpassing holiness, to the one who is worth everything, or rather to him with whom nothing is of equal worth. And this would be the one who knows, worth much, precious to God, in whom God is enshrined, that is, in whom knowledge of God is consecrated. Here too we might find the likeness, the divine and holy statue, in the righteous soul, when it is itself blessed, having been purified beforehand, and does blessed works. Here too is both what is established and what is being established: the one in those who already know, the other in those who are able to become so, even if they are not yet worthy to receive the understanding of God. For everyone who is going to believe is already faithful to God, a virtuous statue set up for his honor and dedicated to God.

Just as God is not circumscribed by place, nor ever represented by the shape of a living creature, so neither is he subject to the same passions, nor in need, as created things are, so as to crave sacrifices out of hunger, as if they were food. Things that passion touches are all perishable, and to bring food to one who is not nourished is futile. And that comic poet Pherecrates, in The Deserters, has charmingly made the gods themselves reproach human beings over their sacrifices: “When you sacrifice to the gods, first you set aside the customary portion for the priests, and then for yourselves; then (it is a shame to say it) you strip the two thighs clean right down to the groin, all the meat, and leave the loin quite bare, and the backbone that is left, filed down as with a rasp, you hand out to us as to the dogs; and then, ashamed before one another, you hide it under a heap of sacrificial cakes.” Eubulus, himself also a comic poet, writes somewhat like this about sacrifices: “To the gods themselves you sacrifice only the tail and the thigh, as to pederasts.” And bringing on Dionysus in Semele, laying down the terms, he has him say: “First, when people sacrifice anything to me, they sacrifice blood, bladder, liver, heart, the outer membrane; for I do not eat the sweet parts or the thigh.”

And Menander has written of “the tip of the loin and the gall, the inedible bones,” which, he says, “they set before the gods, while they consume the rest themselves.” For is not the smoking fat of whole burnt offerings something even wild beasts would flee from? But if the savor is truly the prize of the gods of the Greeks, they should lose no time in making gods of the cooks too, who are thought worthy of the same happiness, and in worshiping the oven itself, which comes even closer to the much-prized savor. And Hesiod says somewhere that Zeus, deceived by Prometheus in a division of meat, received “the white bones of an ox, by crafty art,” covered “with shining fat”: “and from that time the tribes of human beings on earth burn white bones for the immortals on fragrant altars.” But they say that God could by no means be nourished, as though afflicted with a desire arising from need. They will make him, then, like a plant that is fed without appetite, and like animals that hibernate in dens; for they say that these grow unharmed, nourished either by the density of the air or else by the vapor of their own body. And yet if, as they hold, the divine is nourished without needing it, what further need of food has what needs nothing? But if, being by nature without need, it rejoices in being honored, not unreasonably do we honor God through prayer, and send up this sacrifice, the best and holiest, with righteousness, revering him with the most righteous Word, through whom we receive knowledge, glorifying through him the one whom we have learned to know. Our altar here, the earthly one, is the assembly of those devoted to prayer, having as it were one common voice and one mind. And nourishment through the sense of smell, even if it is more divine than nourishment through the mouth, still implies breathing. What, then, do they say about God?

Does he breathe through his whole body, like the race of daemons? Or does he only take in breath, like water creatures, by opening the gills? Or does he breathe around himself, like insects, by the pressure of the wings on their segments? But if they are sensible, they would not liken God to any of these. And whatever breathes draws in the air by the expansion of the lungs against the chest. Then, if they give God entrails, arteries, veins, sinews, and members, they will be introducing a God no different from these creatures. But “breathing together” is properly said of the church. And indeed the sacrifice of the church is speech rising like incense from holy souls, while together with the sacrifice the whole mind is laid open to God. They have made much of the most ancient altar at Delos as pure, the only one, they say, that Pythagoras approached, because it was not defiled by slaughter and death; will they then disbelieve us when we say that the truly holy altar is the righteous soul, and the incense from it is holy prayer? Sacrifices, I think, were invented by human beings as a pretext for eating flesh. But even without such idolatry it was possible for anyone who wished to partake of meat. For the sacrifices according to the law are an allegory of the piety that concerns us: as the turtledove and the pigeon offered for sins indicate that the cleansing of the irrational part of the soul is acceptable to God. And if one of the righteous does not burden his soul by eating meat, he has a sound reason for it, not the reason of Pythagoras and his followers, who dream of the soul's passing into other bodies. Xenocrates, treating the subject on its own in On Food from Animals, and Polemon in his treatises On the Life according to Nature, seem to say clearly that food from flesh is unprofitable, being already worked over, and makes one like the souls of irrational animals.

In this way the Jews above all abstain from pork, as though this animal were unclean, since more than the others it roots up and destroys crops. And if they say that animals have been given to human beings, we too agree, but not at all for eating in every case, nor all of them, only those that do no work. That is why the comic poet Plato says not badly in his play The Festivals: “Of four-footed beasts we ought henceforth to kill none but pigs; for they have the sweetest meat, and nothing comes to us from a pig except bristles, mud, and squealing.” Hence Aesop too said, not badly, that pigs squeal loudest when they are dragged off, for they know they are useful for nothing except sacrifice. That is why Cleanthes too says that they have their soul instead of salt, to keep the meat from rotting. Some, then, eat it as useless, others do not eat it because it destroys crops, and others because the animal is much given to intercourse. In this way the law does not sacrifice the goat either, except only for sending away evils, since pleasure is the mother city of vice. Indeed, they say that eating goat's meat contributes to epilepsy. And they say that the most nourishment comes from pork; so it is useful for those who train the body, but no longer for those who try to strengthen the soul itself, because of the sluggishness that comes from eating meat. Perhaps one of those who know might abstain from eating flesh for the sake of discipline, and so that the flesh may not swell with sexual desire. “For wine,” says Androcydes, “and gorging on meat make the body strong but the soul more sluggish.” Such food, then, is unfit for precise understanding. That is why the Egyptians too, in their purifications, do not allow their priests to eat flesh; they use birds as the lightest food and do not touch fish, partly because of certain myths, but chiefly because such food makes the flesh flabby.

Now land animals and birds are nourished by breathing the same air as our souls, since they possess a soul akin to the air. But fish, they say, do not even breathe this air, but the air that was mixed into the water directly at its first creation, as it was into the other elements too, which is also evidence of the permanence of matter. One must, then, “offer to God sacrifices not costly but dear to God.” And that compound incense in the law is the one composed of many tongues and voices in prayer, or rather the one prepared from different nations and natures, by the gift given in the covenants, “into the unity of the faith,” and gathered together in hymns of praise, with a pure mind and a righteous and upright way of life, from holy deeds and righteous prayer. For, to borrow the poet's grace, “Who is so foolish, and so utterly credulous among men, as to hope that the gods, all of them, delight in fleshless bones and burnt gall, which not even hungry dogs would eat, and receive this as their prize, and repay the favor to those who offer it, even if they happen to be pirates, robbers, or tyrants?” But we say that fire sanctifies not flesh but sinful souls, meaning not the all-devouring fire of the workshop but the wise fire, which “penetrates through the soul” that passes through the fire.

We are commanded to worship and honor the Word, persuaded that he is Savior and Leader, and through him the Father; not on special days, as some others do, but continually, doing this throughout our whole life and in every way. Certainly “the chosen race,” justified according to the commandment, says, “Seven times a day I have praised you.” Hence the one who knows honors God not in a fixed place … nor in a special temple, nor on certain festivals and appointed days, but throughout his whole life, in every place, whether he happens to be alone by himself or wherever he has some of those who have believed as he has; that is, he gives thanks for his knowledge and his way of life. And if the presence of some good man always shapes the one who meets him toward the better, through respect and reverence, how should not the one who is always in God's presence, unceasingly, through knowledge, life, and thanksgiving, reasonably become better than himself in every respect, in deeds, words, and disposition? Such is the one who is persuaded that God is present everywhere, and does not suppose him shut up in certain fixed places, so that, thinking himself at some time to be without him, he might behave licentiously by night or by day. So, keeping festival our whole life, persuaded that God is present everywhere and on every side, we farm while praising, we sail while singing hymns, and in the rest of our conduct we live by rule. The one who knows is more intimately joined to God, being at once grave and cheerful in all things: grave because of his turning toward the divine, cheerful because he reckons up the human goods that God has given us.

The prophet appears to set forth the excellence of knowledge in this way: “Teach me goodness and discipline and knowledge,” building up by a climax to what governs perfection. This, then, is truly the royal man; this is the holy priest of God. This is still preserved even now among the most learned of the barbarians, who promote the priestly class to kingship. This man, then, never gives himself up to the mob-rule that is mistress of the theaters, and does not admit even in a dream what is said, done, and seen there for the sake of dissolute pleasure. So he admits neither these pleasures of spectacle nor the varieties of other enjoyments: costly perfumes that bewitch the sense of smell, concoctions of dishes and the pleasures of various wines that entice the taste, or garlands of many flowers and sweet scents that make the soul effeminate through the senses. Instead, referring the dignified enjoyment of all things to God, he always offers the firstfruits of food, of drink, and of ointment to the Giver of all, giving thanks both for the gift and for its use through the Word given to him. He rarely goes to drinking parties, unless the friendly and harmonious character that the gathering promises persuades him to come. For he is persuaded that God knows and hears all things, not only the voice but also the thought; since even hearing in us, working through bodily passages, has its perception not through the bodily power, but through a kind of perception of the soul and the understanding that distinguishes voices that signify something.

God, then, does not have human form for this reason, in order to hear; nor does he need senses, as the Stoics held, especially hearing and sight, on the ground that he could never perceive otherwise. But the sensitivity of the air, the keenest perception of the angels, and the power of conscience that touches the soul know all things, by some unspeakable power and without sensible hearing, at the instant of thought. And even if someone says that the voice does not reach God, since it rolls about down in the air, yet the thoughts of the holy cut not only through the air but through the whole world. And the divine power, like light, is quick to see through the whole soul. What then? Do not our choices also reach God, sending forth their own voice? And are they not also carried across by conscience? And what voice should he wait for who, according to his purpose, has known the elect even before birth, and what will be as though it already were? Or does not the light of the power shine everywhere into the depth of the whole soul, the lamp of the power “searching the inner chambers,” as Scripture says? For God is all ear and all eye, if one may use these names.

In general, then, an unfitting conception of God preserves no piety, whether in hymns or in speeches, nor even in writings or doctrines, but turns aside into low and unseemly notions and suspicions. Hence the praise of the many differs in no way from blasphemy, because of their ignorance of the truth. Now prayers are for the same things that appetites and desires and, in a word, impulses are for. That is why no one desires a drink, but to drink the drink; nor an inheritance, but to inherit; and in the same way not knowledge, but to know; nor right conduct, but to live rightly. Prayers, then, are for the things that requests are for, and requests for the things that desires are for. And praying and longing occur correspondingly, for having good things and the benefits that come with possessing them. The one who knows, therefore, always makes his prayer and request for the things that are truly good, the goods of the soul; and he prays, while he himself also works together with God, to come into a settled state of goodness, so as no longer to have good things like lessons laid up beside him, but to be good.

Therefore it befits these above all to pray: those who know the divine as one should and have the virtue that suits it, who know what things are truly good, what should be asked for, and when and how each thing should be asked. It is the height of ignorance to ask from those who are not gods as though they were gods, or to ask for things that are not beneficial, asking evils for themselves under the appearance of goods. Hence, reasonably, since the good God is one, both we and the angels pray to him alone that some good things may be given and others may remain. But not in the same way; for it is not the same to ask that a gift may remain as to strive to receive it in the first place. The averting of evils too is a form of prayer. But one must never use such a prayer to harm human beings, unless the one who knows arranges his request as a means of turning to righteousness those who have become “callous.” Prayer, then, to speak rather boldly, is converse with God. Even if we only whisper, then, and speak to him in silence without so much as opening our lips, we cry out from within; for God hears all inward converse unceasingly.

In this way too we lift up our head and raise our hands to heaven and rise on tiptoe at the closing words spoken together in the prayer, following the eagerness of the spirit toward the intelligible realm; and, trying to lift the body from the earth together with our words, having made “the soul, winged” with longing for better things, soar aloft, we press on to enter “the holy place,” scorning the bond of the flesh. For we know very well that the one who knows willingly makes his departure from the whole world, just as the Jews did from Egypt, showing clearly, above all, that he will be as near to God as possible. And if some also assign fixed hours to prayer, such as the third, the sixth, and the ninth, yet the one who knows prays throughout his whole life, eager to be with God through prayer and, in short, to have left behind everything that is of no use to one who has arrived there, as having already received from here the perfection of what is done in love. But the distribution of the hours too, divided in three and honored with an equal number of prayers, is understood by those who know the blessed triad of the holy dwelling places.

Having come to this point, I was reminded of the doctrines introduced by certain heterodox people, namely those of the sect of Prodicus, about there being no need to pray. So that they may not puff themselves up over this godless wisdom of theirs as though it were a novel sect, let them learn that they were anticipated by the philosophers called Cyrenaics. The unholy knowledge of these people who are falsely so called will meet its refutation in due time, so that it may not slip into these notes now and, since the attack on them is no small matter, break off the argument in hand. For we are showing that the one who truly knows according to the church's rule is alone truly holy and pious; to him alone is the request granted according to God's will, both when he asks and when he merely thinks it. For as God can do all that he wills, so the one who knows “receives whatever he asks.” For in general God knows who are worthy of good things and who are not; hence he gives to each what befits them. Therefore he would often not give to the unworthy, even when they ask, but would give to the worthy, clearly, when they are such. Yet asking is not superfluous, even if good things are given without the request. Indeed, thanksgiving and asking for the conversion of one's neighbors are the work of the one who knows. So too the Lord prayed, giving thanks that he had completed his ministry, and praying that as many as possible might come to full knowledge, so that in those who are saved God might be glorified through salvation according to knowledge, and that he who alone is good and alone is Savior might be recognized through the Son from age to age. And indeed faith that one will receive is itself a kind of prayer, laid up in a knowing way.

But if prayer is an occasion of converse with God, no occasion of approaching God should be passed over. Certainly the holiness of the one who knows, intertwined with blessed providence, shows by his voluntary confession that God's benefaction is complete. For the holiness of the one who knows is, as it were, an answering turn toward providence, the responding goodwill of the friend of God. For neither is God good involuntarily, in the way that fire gives heat (his sharing of good things is voluntary, even if it comes before the request), nor will the one who is saved be saved against his will; for he is not lifeless, but will above all hasten to salvation voluntarily and by deliberate choice. That is why the human being received the commandments: as one able of himself to move toward whichever he wishes of the things to be chosen and the things to be avoided. So God does not do good by necessity; by choice he does good to those who turn of their own accord. For the providence that comes to us from God is not servile, as though it proceeded from inferiors to superiors; rather, out of mercy for our weakness, the close-at-hand dispensations of providence are at work, like the care of shepherds for their sheep and of a king for his subjects, while we ourselves are obedient to those who lead us, who govern in good order according to the rank entrusted to them by God. Servants and worshipers of the divine, then, are those who offer the freest and most royal service, the service that comes through a godly mind and knowledge.

Every place, then, is truly sacred in which we receive the thought of God, and so is every time. And when the one whose purpose is good and who is also thankful makes his requests in prayer, he contributes something in some way toward receiving, gladly receiving what he longs for through the things he prays. For when the Giver of good things receives our readiness, all good things follow together at the very moment of conception. Certainly a person's character, how it stands toward what is fitting, is tested through prayer. And if voice and speech have been given to us for the sake of thought, how can God not hear the soul itself and the mind, since even among us soul hears soul and mind hears mind? Hence God does not wait for the many-voiced tongues, as human interpreters do, but simply knows the thoughts of all; and what the voice signifies to us, our thought speaks to God, the thought which he knew, even before creation, would come to be thought. It is possible, then, to send up prayer even without voice, only gathering together from within all that is spiritual into the intelligible voice, in an undistracted turning toward God. And since the east is an image of the day of birth, and from there the light increases, having first “shone out of darkness,” and since for those rolling about in ignorance the day of the knowledge of the truth has risen like the sun, prayers are made facing the sunrise. Hence also the most ancient temples looked west, so that those who stood facing the images might be taught to turn toward the east. “Let my prayer be directed like incense before you, the lifting up of my hands an evening sacrifice,” say the Psalms.