The Instructor (Paedagogus) 1 part 13/15

But those women who are not so utterly past blushing shut out strangers, yet bathe with their own servants and strip naked before slaves, and are rubbed down by them, granting to him who cowers under desire the fearless freedom of touch;

for those brought in alongside the naked mistresses at the baths gain practice in stripping themselves for the boldness of lust, circumscribing fear by an evil habit.

And the athletes of old, ashamed to show a man naked, accomplished their contests in loincloths, preserving their modesty;

but these women wish, by their tunic, to appear beautiful along with their modesty, yet against their will they are nonetheless proved to be wicked;

for through it especially is the lasciviousness of desire in the body made manifest, just as in those who suffer from dropsy the fluid penned up beneath the surface;

and the diseased state in both cases is recognized from the appearance.

Men, therefore, becoming a noble example of truth to women, ought to be ashamed of stripping in their company, and to guard against slippery glances;

for "he who looks too curiously," it says, "has already sinned."

At home, then, one must respect parents and servants; in the streets, those one meets; in the baths, the women; in solitude, oneself; and everywhere the Word, who is everywhere, and "without Him was not anything made."

For only thus will one remain unfallen, if he always reckons that God is present with him.

That the Christian alone is rich.

Wealth, then, must be partaken of worthily and shared humanely, not in a vulgar or boastful way, nor must the love of the beautiful be perverted into self-love and want of taste, lest perhaps someone say to us:

"His horse is worth fifteen talents, or his estate, or his servant, or his gold, but he himself is worth three coppers."

At any rate, strip away the women's adornment and the masters' servants, and you will find the masters differing in nothing from the slaves bought with silver—not in gait, not in look, not in voice;

thus, then, they resemble their slaves.

But they actually differ from their servants by being weaker and by having been reared in a more sickly fashion.

It is best, then, to chant this among the doctrines at every turn: that the good man, being self-controlled and righteous, lays up his treasures in heaven;

this is he who has sold his earthly possessions and given to the poor, and has found the imperishable treasure, where neither moth nor robber comes;

this man is truly blessed, even if he be small and weak and obscure, and is truly rich with the greatest wealth;

but if a man be richer than Cinyras and Midas, yet be unjust and arrogant, like the one who reveled in purple and fine linen and despised Lazarus, he is wretched and lives miserably and shall not truly live.

Wealth, then, seems to me to resemble a serpent: unless one knows how to grasp it harmlessly, hanging the creature up from afar without danger by the very tip of its tail, it will coil about his hand and bite;

and wealth, too, is dangerous, gliding along the experienced or inexperienced grasp of it to cling fast and bite, unless one, despising it greatly, uses it knowingly, so that, by the incantation of the Word, the creature may be scraped tame, while he himself remains unharmed.

But, as it seems, the man who possesses things of greater worth, though he was truly the only rich man, remained unrecognised;

and the things of great worth are not stone, nor silver, nor raiment, nor bodily beauty, but virtue, which is the Word handed down through the Instructor for our practice;

this Word it is that forswears luxury, exhorts to self-service, and extols the frugality that is the offspring of self-control: "Receive instruction," it says, "and not silver, and knowledge rather than tested gold;"

"for wisdom is better than precious stones, and nothing of value is worthy of it."

"That I may be reaped as fruit above gold and precious stone and silver;

for my produce is better than choice silver."

And if one must also distinguish: let the rich man be the one who possesses much, stuffed with gold like a filthy money-bag; but let the well-ordered man be the righteous one, since good order is an arrangement, in due fashion, of disposals and bestowals, measured according to need;

for there are those who sow and gather yet more, concerning whom it is written:

"He has scattered abroad, he has given to the poor; his righteousness abides for ever."

It is the one who shares who is rich, and it is the sharing, not the possessing, that shows the blessed man;

and the fruit of the soul is liberality in giving.

Moreover, let good things be possessable only by the good, and the good are the Christians;

but a foolish or unchaste man could neither have perception of the good nor obtain its possession;

therefore good things are possessable by the Christians alone.

And nothing is richer than these good things;

for true wealth is righteousness, and the Word, more precious than any treasure, is increased not from flocks and lands but is bestowed by God—an inalienable wealth (the soul alone is His treasure)—the best possession for its possessor, in truth rendering man blessed.

For whoever has it in him to crave nothing of the things not in our power, and to attain those things which he does craves, and moreover to receive from God what he piously desires by asking for it—how is this man not abundantly and wholly rich, having God as an eternal treasure? "To him who asks," it says, "it shall be given, and to him who knocks it shall be opened."

If God denies nothing, all things belong to the God-fearing man.

That frugality is a good provision for the journey for the Christian.

But luxury, wandering off into pleasures, becomes a grievous shipwreck to men;

for this pleasant and inglorious life of the many is alien to true love of the beautiful and to refined pleasures.

For by nature man is a lofty and proud creature, a seeker after the beautiful, inasmuch as he is the creation of the only Beautiful One; but a life bent over the belly is for him ignoble, reproachful, hateful, and ridiculous.

Most alien to the divine nature is the love of pleasure—to feed like sparrows and to mate like swine and goats;

for to deem pleasure a good is the mark of utter want of taste, and the love of wealth drives a man out of right living, persuading him to lose all shame before shameful things, provided only he have the power, like a beast, to eat all manner of things and likewise to drink, and to give to every lust a full surfeit.

On this account he most rarely inherits the kingdom of God.

Where, then, are all those delicacies prepared, or for what but to fill one belly? The cesspools convict the uncleanness of gluttony, into which our bellies spit out the leavings of the feast.

And where do they gather together so many cup-bearers, when they can be satisfied with a single cup? And where the chests of garments? And the gold, where? And the trinkets, where? They are prepared for clothes-thieves and evildoers and for greedy eyes.

"Let not mercy and faith forsake you," says the Scripture.

Behold, then, we have also Elijah the Tishbite as a fair example of frugality, when he sat down under the broom-tree and the angel brought him food;

it was a barley cake baked on coals and a cruse of water.

Such was the meal the Lord provided him.

We, then, journeying toward truth, must of necessity be well-girt;

for "do not carry," the Lord said, "a purse, nor a wallet, nor sandals"—that is, do not acquire wealth that is treasured up in a purse alone, do not fill your own storehouses as though laying up the seed in a wallet, but share also with the needy; do not busy yourselves with beasts of burden and servants, who, like sandals, bear the burdens for the journeys of the rich—these things being spoken allegorically.

We must therefore cast away the multitude of vessels, the silver and gold drinking-cups, and the throng of servants, taking up instead, as fair and dignified companions provided by the Instructor, self-service and frugality;

and indeed one must walk in due harmony with the Word, even if a wife and children accompany one;

the household is no burden when it has learned to follow along with a self-controlled wayfarer.

—those who carry frugality, together with self-controlled dignity, as their provision for the journey to heaven;

and just as the foot is the measure of the sandal, so each one's body is the measure of his possessions;

but the superfluous things, which they indeed call adornments, and the furnishings of the rich, are a burden, not an adornment of the body.

He who strives to ascend into the heavens must carry about beneficence as a noble staff, and, having shared with the afflicted, must partake of the true rest;

for the Scripture agrees that a man's own wealth is the ransom of his soul—that is, if he be rich, he shall be saved by his sharing.

For just as those wells that are naturally apt to gush forth, when drawn off, well up again to their former measure, so sharing, being a good fountain of love for mankind, when it gives a share of its drink to the thirsty, increases again and is filled—in the way that milk is wont to flow into the breasts that are suckled or milked.

For he who has God the Almighty as the Word is in want of nothing, and never lacks any of the things he needs;

for the Word is a possession in want of nothing and the cause of all abundance.

But if anyone should say that he has often seen a righteous man in want of bread—this is rare, and occurs where no other righteous man is present; nevertheless let him also read this:

"For the righteous man shall not live by bread alone, but by the word of the Lord," who is the true bread, the bread of the heavens.

The good man, then, is never destitute, so long as he keeps sound his confession toward God;

for it is possible for him to ask and to receive from the Father of all whatsoever he may need, and to enjoy his own portion, if he keeps the Son;

and this too is possible: to feel no want whatsoever.

This pedagogical Word of ours gives us wealth, and there is no grudging that those should be rich who acquire freedom from want through Him;

he who has this wealth shall inherit the kingdom of God.

That images and examples are a most important part of right teaching.

If any one of you shall flee luxury to the end, being nourished in frugality, he will the more easily practise the enduring of involuntary toils, by continually making the voluntary afflictions exercises against persecutions, so that when he comes to necessary toils and fears and griefs, he is not unpractised in steadfast endurance.

For this reason, indeed, we have no homeland upon earth, that we may despise earthly possessions.

And frugality is most rich, being a settled disposition that is not deficient in expenditures upon the things one ought, and as far as one ought, when paid out fittingly;

for outlays are payments [of dues].

Now how a wife ought to live together with her husband, and concerning self-service, housekeeping, and the use of servants, and moreover about the season of marriage and all the things that befit women—these we shall treat in the discourse on marriage;

but those things that are suitable to instruction, these alone must now be set forth by us, as we sketch in outline the life of Christians.

And indeed most things have already been said and brought under instruction; but what yet remains, we shall now lay down;

for examples are no small impetus toward salvation.

The tragedy says: "Telemachus did not slay the wife of Odysseus;

for she did not wed husband to husband, but the wedded couch remained whole in the house."

Someone, reproaching lewd adultery, displayed a fair image of self-control—love of one's husband;

and the Lacedaemonians, forcing the Helot servants—Helots is a name for servants—to get drunk, showed to themselves the works of drunkenness, by way of treatment and correction for the self-controlled.

Guarding, then, against the unseemliness of those men, lest they themselves should fall into the same condemnations, they were instructed by the reproach of the drunkards, profiting toward their own blamelessness.

For of men, some have been saved by being taught, while others, self-taught, have either emulated or sought after virtue.

"That man is altogether best who of himself perceives all things;"

this is Abraham, who sought after God;

these are the disciples, who were persuaded by the Word;

for this reason the one was called "friend," and the others "apostles"—one and the same God: the one inquiring diligently, the others proclaiming.

And both are peoples, and of both these the hearers: the one profited through inquiry, the other saved through finding.

"But he who neither perceives of himself nor, hearing from another, lays it up in his heart—that man, again, is a useless man."

There is yet another people, the heathen—this useless people that does not follow Christ;

but the loving Instructor, profiting them nonetheless in manifold ways, in some things exhorted, in others reproached, and in yet others pointed out to us the shame of others who sinned, and revealed the punishment that followed thereon, at once charming and admonishing the soul, devising a loving turning-away from vice through the demonstration of those who had suffered before;

by which images He most clearly both stopped those who were ill-disposed and restrained those who ventured the like, established others in patient endurance, made others cease from vice, and even healed some, who by the contemplation of the like were turned toward the better.

For who, following someone along the road, when the one ahead then fell into a pit, would not turn aside from the equal danger, guarding against the path of sin? And who again, being an ascetic, having learned the road of vainglory and seen the prize—that the contestant before him has received it—does not himself also speed toward the crown, imitating the elder? Many such are the images of divine wisdom;

but I will recall one example and set it forth in brief;

the calamity of the Sodomites was judgment to those who sinned, but instruction to those who hear of it.

The Sodomites, having through much luxury run aground into wantonness—committing adultery without fear and madly inflamed for boys—the all-seeing Word looked upon them, He whom it is impossible to escape while doing unholy deeds, nor did the sleepless Guardian of mankind let their wantonness go unchecked;

and, turning us away from imitating them, instructing us toward His own self-control, casting punishment upon the sinners lest the unpunished impunity of their licentiousness should gain an influx of license, He commanded Sodom to be burned up, pouring out a little of that wise fire upon their licentiousness, so that their lust, becoming unbridled, might not throw wide open broad gates for those rushing into voluptuousness.

The just punishment of the Sodomites, therefore, became an image of the well-reasoned salvation of mankind;

for those who have not sinned in like manner with the punished would never undergo a punishment like that of the sinners, being preserved from suffering by not sinning.

"For I wish you to know," says Jude, "that God, having once saved a people out of the land of Egypt, the second time destroyed those who did not believe; and the angels who did not keep their own dominion, but abandoned their own habitation, He has kept in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day."

And little by little, most instructively, he sets forth the images of those being judged:

"Woe to them, for they have gone in the way of Cain, and have rushed headlong into the error of Balaam for reward, and have perished in the gainsaying of Korah."

For fear preserves from waxing insolent those who are not able to bear the freedom of adoption.

For on this account are the chastisements and the threats, that, fearing the penalties, we may abstain from sinning.

I could relate to you punishments for love of adornment, and penalties for vainglory—not only for incontinence, but moreover set before you the malicious blasphemies attending wealth, by which the Word, through inspiring fear, holds men back from wrongdoing.

But indeed, sparing the length of the treatise, I bring to you the following commandments of the Instructor, that you may keep His threats.

For what reason the bath is to be used.

—I turned aside while speaking—there are four reasons on account of which we resort to it:

either for the sake of cleanliness, or for warmth, or for health, or lastly for pleasure.

Bathing for the sake of pleasure, then, must be rejected;

for the shameless pleasure must be utterly cut out.

The bath is to be used by women for the sake of cleanliness and health, but by men for the sake of health alone.

And as for warmth, that is superfluous, since it is possible to relieve in other ways the body stiffened by cold.

The continual use of the bath wears down the powers and slackens the natural tensions, and often brings on faintings and swoons.

For in a way the bodies drink, like the trees, not only through the mouth, but also, in the bath, through the porousness throughout the whole body, as they say.

Men have often, when thirsty, then, on stepping into the water, slaked their thirst.

Therefore, if the bath is of some benefit, one must not on that account give oneself up wholly to it;

the ancients used to call them "men's fulling-mills," since they tatter the bodies sooner than is fitting and compel them to age prematurely, boiling them down in the same way as iron, the flesh being softened by the heat;

hence we need, as it were, the dipping and tempering of the cold.

Nor indeed should one bathe on every occasion, but if anyone be too empty, or again too full, the bath must be declined;

yes, and also according to the time of life of the body and the season of the year;

for it does not benefit all, nor always, as those wise in such matters agree.

For us, moderation suffices, which we everywhere call upon as a helper for our life;

for one ought neither to linger so long in the bath as to need a hand to lead one out, nor to bathe continually and many times a day, like those who frequent the marketplace.

Moreover, to be drenched by a multitude of servants is an outrage against one's neighbours, since such persons take more than their share through luxury and are unwilling to understand that the bath ought to be common on equal terms to all who bathe.

But one ought above all to wash the soul with the cleansing Word, and the body too at times, on account of the dirt that grows upon it, and indeed at times also to relax one's fatigues.

"For woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites," says the Lord, "for you are like whitewashed tombs;

outwardly the tomb appears beautiful, but within it is full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness."

And again to the same men He says:

"Woe to you, for you cleanse the outside of the cup and of the dish, but within they are full of uncleanness."

"Cleanse first the inside of the cup, that the outside also may become clean."

The best bath, then, is that of the soul, which wipes off the filth and is spiritual, concerning which the prophecy expressly says:

"The Lord shall wash away the filth of the sons and daughters of Israel, and shall purge the blood from their midst—the blood of lawlessness and the murders of the prophets."

And the Word added the manner of the cleansing, saying:

"by the spirit of judgment and by the spirit of burning."

But the fleshly washing of the body is accomplished even by water alone, as often happens in the country, where there is no bath-house.

That exercises also are to be approved for those who live according to reason.

For lads, exercise suffices, even if a bath be at hand;

for indeed, to approve these for men above all things before the baths is perhaps no mean thing, since they have something useful for the young toward health, instilling diligence and ambition to care not only for good bodily condition, but also for good courage of soul;

and this, when done without being torn away from the works of higher things, is graceful and not unprofitable.

Nor here are women to be exempted from bodily exertion; but they are not to be called to wrestling and running, but to be exercised in wool-working and weaving and, if need be, in attending to the woman at the mill.

Women ought to fetch with their own hands from the storeroom whatever we need, and it is no shame for them to go to the mill;

nor indeed is it a reproach for a wife who keeps house and is a helper to busy herself about the cooking, so that it may be pleasing to her husband.

And if she should shake up the bed-coverings by herself, and offer drink to her thirsty husband, and set food before him, she would be most decorously exercised toward a temperate health;

such a woman the Instructor approves, who "stretches forth her arms to useful tasks, and lays her hands to the spindle;

she opens her hands to the poor, and reaches out her wrist to the needy," and was not ashamed to emulate Sarah in that noblest service, ministering to the wayfarers.

"Hasten and knead three measures of fine flour, and make cakes baked in the ashes."

"And Rachel, the daughter of Laban, came," it says, "with her father's sheep."

And it did not suffice to say this, but, teaching freedom from vanity, it added:

"For she was tending her father's sheep."

And the Scriptures hold out countless examples of frugality together with self-service, and moreover of exercises.

Of men, let some, being naked, take part in wrestling, and let others play with the small ball the game of phaininda, especially in the sun;

for others the walk is sufficient, as they go out to the country or come down into the city.

And if they should also take to the spade, this is no ignoble side-occupation—an economical exercise of farming.

But indeed I almost forgot to mention that famous Pittacus, that the king of the Mitylenaeans used to grind grain, employing it as an active exercise.

It is good, too, to draw water for oneself and to chop the wood that one will use oneself.

And Jacob tended the sheep of Laban that were left, holding a royal sign—a rod of storax-wood—practising to change nature for the better by means of the wood.

And for many, at times, even reading aloud is an exercise.

And indeed let wrestling, which we have approved, be taken up not for the sake of useless contentiousness, but for the secretions of manly sweat;

and one must by no means labour at the technical, ostentatious side of it, but at those things that come from upright wrestling—from the unwinding of necks and hands and sides;

for such labour, undertaken for the sake of useful and beneficial health with graceful strength, is more orderly and more manly, while the other toils of athletics, professing the practice of postures unbefitting free men, [are to be rejected].

And everywhere one must aim at measure.

For just as it is best to make toils precede meals, so to toil beyond measure is both worst and wearisome and productive of disease.

One ought, then, neither to be altogether idle, nor yet wholly given over to toil.

For just as we went through concerning food, similarly in all things and everywhere one ought not to be turned toward voluptuousness and an unchaste mode of life, nor again toward its opposite, the austere extreme, but toward the mean between these—the harmonious and self-controlled, pure of either vice, of luxury and of stinginess.

And indeed, as we have also said before, self-service is a humble exercise—both shoeing oneself by oneself, and washing one's own feet, and moreover rubbing oneself down when anointed with oil;

and to render the equal recompense in return to the one who has rubbed one, taking turns—this too is an exercise of communal justice; and to sleep beside a sick friend, and to minister to one who is unable, and to wait upon one in need.

"And Abraham set before them," it says, "the three, a meal under the tree, and stood by while they ate."

Fishing, too, is good, as for Peter, if we have leisure from the necessary studies that are in the Word.

But better is this catch which the Lord granted to the disciple, having taught him to fish for men through water, as for fish.

A summary survey of the best life.

For this reason, the wearing of gold and the use of softer clothing is not to be cut off altogether, but the irrational impulses are to be bridled, lest they, sweeping us along, hurl us into luxurious living and snatch us away through excessive indulgence;

for luxury, when run aground into excess, is terrible—prone to kick and rear and to shake off both the charioteer and the Instructor, who, checking the reins from afar, leads and bears the human horse toward salvation—the irrational part of the soul, that part which is concerned with pleasures and blameworthy appetites and stones and gold and embroidered raiment and the rest of effeminacy, and which becomes savage.

having most of all in mind that saying: "Maintaining your conduct among the Gentiles in a holy and good way, so that, whereas they speak against you as evildoers, beholding your good works, they may glorify God."

The Instructor, then, gives us leave to use plain clothing, and white in colour, as we have said before, so that, accustoming ourselves not to that which is variegated by art but to that which is begotten by nature, and putting away all that is deceitful and that lies against the truth, we may embrace the single and single-faced colour of truth.

Sophocles, reproaching a luxurious youth, says:

"You are conspicuous in womanish garments."

For just as there is a fitting garb of the soldier, the sailor, and the ruler, so too is there a proper attire of the self-controlled man—one that is unfussy, decorous, and clean.

Wherefore also the law concerning leprosy laid down in the Law through Moses rejects the variegated and the much-spotted as not holy, resembling the variegated scales of the serpent.

It wishes, then, that he who is no longer flowered over with a variety of colours, but wholly whitened throughout, from the top of the head to the very feet, should be clean, so that, by the transition from the body, putting away the variegated and crafty passion of the mind, we may love the unvariegated, undoubting, and simple colour of truth.

And he too who in this matter is an emulator of Moses—the altogether excellent Plato—approves that weaving in which no more work is bestowed than is fitting for a chaste woman;

and elsewhere he says that white colours would be becoming to dignity, both in other respects and in weaving;

and that dyes are not to be applied except for the adornments of war.

White, then, is suited to men who are peaceable and full of light.

As, then, the signs that are nearest to the causes, when present, signify—or rather, demonstrate—the existence of that which produced them (as smoke signifies fire, and good colour and good pulse signify health), so too among us such attire indicates the state of the character.

Self-control is clean and simple, since cleanliness is a disposition apt to prepare a way of life that is pure and unmixed with shameful things, while simplicity is a disposition apt to take away superfluities.

And firm clothing, especially that which is unfulled, keeps in the heat that is in the body—not because the clothing has heat in itself, but because it turns back the heat going out of the body and gives it no passage, and if any [external cold] should fall upon it, the clothing, catching it up, holds it in itself, and being warmed by it, warms the body in return; wherefore this is to be used especially in winter.

And contentment is a disposition free from excess, apt to admit those things that are sufficient for the unfailing supply toward a life lived according to reason—the healthy and blessed life.

And let the woman too make use of the plain and dignified garment, but somewhat softer than is fitting for a man, yet not utterly past blushing, nor flowing in softness.

And let the garments be suited to age, to person, to place, to nature, to pursuits.

For the divine Apostle most excellently counsels us to "put on Christ Jesus, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfil its lusts."

And the Word forbids those who do violence to nature to bore through the lobes of their ears.

For why not the nose too? So that that saying might also be fulfilled:

For, in general, if anyone thinks himself adorned by gold, he is inferior to the gold, and he who is inferior to gold is not its master.