Stromateis 1 part 14/42

'For he made the desire in males vigorous and more intense, for the perpetuation of the species -- a desire which neither law, nor custom, nor anything else that exists is able to destroy.'

And how, then, could this man still be examined according to our own reasoning, seeing that by these very statements he overturns outright both the Law and the Gospel? For what the one says:

You shall not commit adultery ... but he says, 'Everyone who looks with desire has already committed adultery.'

For the saying 'You shall not covet,' spoken by the Law, shows the one God who is proclaimed through the Law and the Prophets and the Gospel;

You shall not covet your neighbor's [wife].

Now the 'neighbor,' for a Jew, is not another Jew — for he is a brother, and there is an identity of spirit [between them] — so it remains that by 'neighbor' one who is of another nation is meant.

For how is he not a neighbor who is able to share in the Spirit? For Abraham is father not only of the Hebrews, but also ... of the nations.

But if the woman who commits adultery and the man who fornicates with her are punished with death, then it is surely clear that the commandment which says 'You shall not covet your neighbor's wife' is speaking with reference to the nations, so that one who, according to the Law, abstains from both his neighbor's wife and his own sister, might directly hear from the Lord:

'But I say to you, you shall not covet.'

Now the addition of the word 'I' shows the ... more intensified force of the commandment, and also that both Carpocrates and Epiphanes are fighters against God — Epiphanes, who in that much-talked-of book of his, the one entitled On Righteousness ... I mean, adds the following, word for word:

Hence this phrase must be heard as though the lawgiver had spoken it as a jest: 'You shall not covet' — and he adds something still more laughable — 'your neighbor's [things].'

For he himself, who gave desire as that which holds together the process of generation, commands that it be taken away — yet he has taken it away from no animal at all.

But in forcing 'community' upon that which properly belongs to the neighbor's wife, he spoke something still more laughable.

Such, then, are the doctrines that the noble Carpocratians teach.

They say that these men, together with certain other zealots for the like evils, gather together for dinners — for I myself would not call their assembly a 'love-feast' — men and women together; and after they have taken their fill (for, as they say, 'Cypris comes in satiety'), having put out of the way, by the overturning of the lamp, the light that would put to shame this fornicating 'righteousness' of theirs, they mingle as they please, with whomever they please; and having thus practiced 'community' under the name of such a 'love,' they then, in the light of day, demand of whichever women they wish obedience to the law of Carpocrates — I dare not call it 'divine.'

Such things, I think, Carpocrates ought rather to have legislated for the lusts of dogs and swine and goats.

It seems to me that he has also misheard Plato, who in the Republic says that the women of all are common — common, that is, before marriage, for those who are about to seek them, just as he also says that the theater is common to the spectators; but that once each woman has been claimed beforehand by someone, she ... belongs to him, and the one who has been married is no longer common.

...whenever the other man should wish to marry the [wife] of yet another.

It is with reference to these and similar heresies, I think, that Jude spoke prophetically in his epistle:

'Likewise indeed these men also, dreaming' (for in truth they lay hold of nothing real), even to the point that 'their mouth speaks great swelling words.'

Now, since both Plato himself and the Pythagoreans, as later also the followers of Marcion, had supposed generation to be evil — though it was far indeed from his intention to lay down that wives should be common — the followers of Marcion, for their part, [hold that] its nature is evil, arising both from evil matter and from a just Demiurge;

and for this reason, since they do not wish to help fill up the world that was made by the Demiurge, they wish to abstain from marriage, setting themselves in opposition to their own maker and hastening toward him who has called them — the Good [God] — but not the one whom, as they say, is 'God' in some other sense; hence, wishing to leave nothing of their own behind here, they become continent not out of deliberate choice, but out of enmity toward their Maker, being unwilling to make use of

...the things that have been created by him.

But these men, having through an impious warring against God departed from thoughts that accord with nature, and despising the longsuffering and goodness of God — even though they refuse to marry, they nevertheless make use of created foods and breathe the air of the Demiurge, being themselves his works and dwelling among the things that are his; and they preach abroad the 'strange' knowledge, as they call it, even though on this very account they ought to acknowledge gratitude to the Lord of the world, inasmuch as it was here that they came to receive the good news.

But as for these men, whenever we take up the discussion concerning first principles, we shall dispute against them with the utmost precision.

As for the philosophers we have mentioned — from whom the followers of Marcion impiously learned that generation is evil, and now vaunt themselves in it as though it were their own peculiar doctrine — they do not hold that it is evil by nature, but [evil] to the soul that has clearly discerned the truth;

for they bring the soul down here — though it is divine — into the world as though into a place of punishment, and it is fitting, according to them, that souls which become embodied should be purified,

And this doctrine no longer belongs to the followers of Marcion, but is proper to those who hold that souls become embodied, and reclothed, and transmigrated [from one body to another] — against whom it will be a fitting occasion to speak whenever we take up the discussion concerning the soul.

Heraclitus, at any rate, evidently disparages birth, when he says:

'Having been born, they wish to live and to meet their fated deaths — or rather, to find rest — and they leave behind children to meet [in their turn] their fated deaths.'

And Empedocles is clearly in agreement with him when he says:

'I wept and I wailed when I beheld the unfamiliar place.'

'For out of the living he was making dead forms, changing their shapes.'

'Alas, O wretched race of mortals, O ill-starred one,'

'from what strifes and what groanings you were born.'

...mortal men, made of flesh, being nothing — like [what is said by] the poet who writes:

'Earth nurtures nothing feebler than man.'

Indeed, Theognis too shows that birth is an evil, speaking somewhat as follows:

'Best of all things for those who dwell upon the earth is never to have been born at all, nor to have looked upon the piercing rays of the sharp sun;'

'but, having been born, to pass through the gates of Hades as swiftly as possible.'

And in accord with these, the tragic poet Euripides also writes:

'For we ought, gathering together in assembly, to lament for the one who is born, [considering] into how many evils he comes;'

'but the one who, on the other hand, has died and ceased from his labors — him we ought to send forth from his house with rejoicing and words of good omen.'

And again he will say similar things thus:

'Who knows whether to live is really to die, and to die is to live?' ... And Herodotus appears to say the very same thing as these men, representing Solon as saying:

'O Croesus, every man is wholly a calamity.'

And clearly his tale about Cleobis and Biton means nothing else than this: to censure birth, and to praise death.

'As is the generation of leaves, so also is that of men' ... says Homer.

But Plato in the Cratylus attributes to Orpheus the doctrine concerning the soul's being punished in the body, and he speaks as follows:

'For indeed some say that this [body] is a tomb (sēma) of the soul, on the ground that the soul is at present buried in ... it;'

'and because it is by means of this that the soul signifies whatever it signifies, on this ground too it is rightly called a sēma.'

It is worth recalling also the saying of Philolaus:

For the Pythagorean speaks as follows:

'The ancient theologians and seers also bear witness that the soul has been yoked to the body on account of certain punishments ... and has been buried in it as in a tomb.'

But Pindar too, speaking of the mysteries at Eleusis, adds:

'Blessed is he who, having seen those things, goes beneath the earth [to the common lot of all];'

'for he knows the end of life, and he knows its god-given beginning.'

And Plato, in accord with this, does not hesitate to write something like the following in the Phaedo:

'And those who established these initiatory rites for us were no ordinary men, but ... [taught that after death the purified soul] will dwell together with the gods.'

'As long as we possess the body, and our soul is contaminated together with such an evil, shall we never sufficiently obtain that which we desire?' Does he not here hint that generation is the cause of the greatest evils? And he bears witness to this again in the Phaedo:

'For it is likely that those who happen rightly to have laid hold of philosophy have escaped the notice of everyone else in this: that they themselves practice nothing other than dying and being dead.'

'Is it not, then, true also here, that the soul of the philosopher above all dishonors the body and flees from it, ... and seeks to come to be by itself alone?'

And does this perhaps not accord with the divine apostle, who says:

'Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from the body of this death?' — unless indeed he speaks figuratively, calling the 'body of death' the concord of those who have been dragged down into vice.

And even before Marcion, Plato appears, in the first book of the Republic, to turn away from sexual intercourse as being the origin of generation.

For, praising old age, he adds: 'Know well that, for my own part, the more the other pleasures that concern the body wither away, the more the desires and pleasures that concern discourse increase;'

and, having called to mind the use of the pleasures of love:

'Hush, my good man! Indeed I have most gladly escaped from it, as one who has fled from some raging and savage master.'

And again, in the Phaedo, disparaging generation, he writes:

'Now the account given about these matters in the secret teachings — that we men are in a kind of guard-post [prison] ...'

'but those who are judged to have lived with exceptional holiness — these are the ones who are set free from these regions here upon the earth, and released as from prisons, and who arrive above at ... the pure dwelling place.'

But nevertheless, even in such a condition, he perceives that the [divine] governance is good, and he says:

Indeed, one ought not release oneself from ... this, nor run away.

And, to sum it up in a word, he gave Marcion no occasion for reckoning matter to be evil, having himself spoken piously ... concerning the cosmos, as follows:

For from him who put it together it has acquired all its good things;

but from its former condition, whatever things harsh and unjust occur in heaven—these it both has of itself from that condition and works into the ... living creatures.

And still more plainly he adds:

The cause of these things for it is the bodily element of its mixture, the fellow-nurtured companion of its once ancient nature, because it partook of much disorder before it arrived at ... the present world.

No less also in the Laws he laments the race of men, speaking thus:

But the gods, taking pity on the toil-born nature of the human race, appointed for them rests from their labors ... the recurring rounds of festivals.

And in the Epinomis he also goes through the causes of this pity, and says as follows:

that from the beginning, coming into being is hard for every living creature: first, to share in the condition of those still being carried in the womb; then again, to be born, and further to be nourished and educated—all this comes about through ... countless toils, as we all say.

But what of this? Does not Heraclitus too call birth death, in a manner resembling both Pythagoras and the Socrates of the Gorgias, when he says, 'Death is all that we see when awake; and all that we see when asleep is sleep'? ... But enough of these things.

But when we come to treat of the first principles, then we shall also examine these oppositions which the philosophers hint at and which the followers of Marcion set forth as doctrine.

Let our discourse on continence now proceed.

We were saying that the Greeks, suspecting the hardship of life, uttered many sayings against the begetting of children, but that the followers of ... Marcion, taking these up in a godless manner, are ungrateful to the Demiurge.

Not to be born at all is better for mortals than to be born.

then I bear children amid bitter pangs;

and having borne them, if I bear fools, I groan in vain, seeing them base; and good ones I lose; but even if they are kept safe, I, wretched one, melt my heart with dread.

What good, then, is this? Is it not enough for a single soul to be distressed, and to have troubles on that account? ... And still likewise:

It seems to me, now as of old, that men ought never to beget children, seeing into how many troubles we beget them.

And in what is said afterward, he plainly traces the cause of evils back to the first principles, speaking as follows:

O you who were born to misfortune and to fare ill: you became a man, and from that very source you took the misfortune of life, whence this aether began to nourish all, giving mortals breath;

Do not, then, being mortal, be ungrateful for mortal things.

And again, in turn, he renders similar sentiments as follows:

Of mortals none is blessed, nor happy;

Alas, alas, how many are the fortunes of mortal sufferings, how many the forms, and no one could tell their limit.

For among mortal things there is nothing that is happy all the way through to the end.

For this reason, they say, the Pythagoreans also abstained from sexual intercourse.

But to me, on the contrary, it seems that they married for the sake of begetting children, but wished, after the begetting of children, to master the pleasure that comes from ... intercourse.

For this reason they mystically forbid the use of beans—not because this legume produces flatulence and is hard to digest and makes dreams troubled, nor indeed because the bean is likened to a human head according to that little verse, 'to eat beans is equal to eating the heads of one's parents,' but rather because beans, when eaten, render women barren.

Theophrastus, at any rate, in the fifth book of his Causes of Plants, records that the shells of beans, when placed around the roots of newly-planted trees, wither the growing plants; and domestic fowl too, which feed continually on them, become barren.

Now, among those led astray by heresy, we have already made mention of Marcion of Pontus, who, out of opposition to the Demiurge, refuses ... the use of worldly things.

But the very cause of his continence—if indeed this ought to be called continence—turns out to be the Demiurge himself, against whom this god-fighting giant, supposing that he stands in opposition, is unwittingly ... continent, even as he runs down both the creation and the thing formed.

And even if they make use of the Lord's saying to Philip:

'Leave the dead to bury their own dead, but follow me'—let them consider this: that Philip too bore a like fashioning of flesh, and yet ... had no defiled corpse.

How then, having a bit of flesh, did he have no corpse? Because he had risen from the tomb, the Lord having put his ... passions to death, and he lived to Christ.

We have also made mention of the lawless community of women according to Carpocrates; but although we discussed the saying of Nicolaus, we passed over the following.

This man, they say, having a wife who was fair to look upon, was reproached by the apostles for jealousy after the Savior's ascension; so he brought his wife into their midst and permitted whoever wished ... to marry her.

For they say that this deed accords with that saying, that one must abuse the flesh; and indeed, following both what was done and what was said, simply and without examination, those who pursue his heresy fornicate without any restraint.

But I myself am informed that Nicolaus had intercourse with no woman other than the one he married, that the female children born to him grew old as ... virgins, and that his son remained undefiled.

This being so, the bringing forward of the wife who was the object of jealousy into the midst of the apostles was a casting away of passion, and 'abusing the flesh' taught continence with regard to the pleasures so eagerly pursued.

to be a slave—to pleasure ... and to God.

At any rate, they say that Matthias too taught in this way: to make war on the flesh and to abuse it, granting it nothing toward unrestrained pleasure, but to increase the soul through faith and knowledge.

There are some who proclaim the common Aphrodite as a mystical communion, thereby doing outrage even to the very name:

For 'to work' is used even of doing something evil, just as 'to work' is likewise used of doing something good—the same word applied to different things; and in like manner 'communion' is a good thing when it consists in the sharing of money, food, and clothing—but these men have impiously called even any sort of ... sexual coupling whatsoever a 'communion.'

They say, at any rate, that one of them approached a virgin of ours who was fair in appearance and said:

'It is written, Give to everyone who asks of you'—but she, not understanding the man's lewdness, answered him with great modesty:

'But concerning ... marriage, speak with my mother.'

And these companions of lewdness, these brothers of lust, falsify even the very sayings of the Lord—a disgrace not to philosophy alone, but to all of life—men who counterfeit the truth, or rather demolish it as far as ... they are able:

For these thrice-wretched men make a hierophantic mystery of both fleshly and sexual communion, and imagine that this leads them up into the kingdom of God.

Such 'communion,' then, leads into brothels; indeed, swine and goats would be their fellow-partakers in it; and, by their own grander hopes, the prostitutes presiding over the brothel roof, receiving without restraint all who wish, would rank among them.

But you did not so learn Christ, if indeed you heard him and were taught in him, as truth is in Jesus Christ, that you put off, with reference to your former manner of life, the old man that is being corrupted according to the desires of deceit;

and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new man, which was created according to God in righteousness and holiness of truth—according to the likeness of the Divine.

Become, then, imitators of God, as beloved children, and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling fragrance.

But fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness, let it not even be named among you, as is fitting for saints; nor filthiness, nor foolish talk.

For indeed, teaching us to practice chastity even in our speech, the apostle writes:

'For this you know for certain, that no fornicator...' and so forth, down to 'but rather even expose them.'

This doctrine of theirs flowed from some apocryphal book; and I shall now set forth the very passage that is the mother of their lewdness:

And whether they themselves were the authors of the book (behold their madness, if they even falsify God on account of their intemperance!), or whether, having come across it among others, they conceived this fine ... doctrine, having heard it in a distorted way—

The passage runs as follows:

'Since it seemed good to his Unity not to be alone, there went forth from him an emanation, and he had union with her and made the Beloved.'

'And from this there went forth from him an emanation, with which he had union and made powers that could be neither seen nor heard, down to ... each one under its own name.'

For if these men too, like those of Valentinus, were positing spiritual communions, perhaps someone might have accepted their supposition;

but to trace back a communion of fleshly outrage to holy prophecy belongs to one who has despaired of salvation.

Such things also are set forth as doctrine by the followers of Prodicus, who falsely style themselves 'Gnostics,' calling themselves sons by nature of the first God;

and, abusing their nobility and freedom, they live as they please—and what they please is to live for pleasure—having reckoned that they are held fast by nothing, as being lords of the Sabbath and, being by nature royal ... children, set above every race; and for a king, they say, there is an unwritten law.

fearing indeed, and shunning being condemned, and dreading being punished.

But how is intemperance and foul speech a mark of freedom? For, it is said, 'everyone who sins is a slave'—so the apostle says.

But how does one who has surrendered himself to every desire live according to God, when the Lord has said, 'But I say to you, do not desire'? Yet someone willingly wishes to sin, and lays down as doctrine that one may commit adultery, indulge in pleasure, and violate the marriages of others—when we show pity even to others who sin unwillingly! And if they have come into a world foreign to them, unless they prove faithful ... in that which belongs to another, they will not have what is true.

Does some stranger insult the citizens and wrong them—or rather, as a sojourner, using only what is necessary, does he live inoffensively among the citizens? And how can those who do the very same things as those hated by the nations for not doing what the laws prescribe—that is, the unjust, the intemperate, the covetous, and adulterers—how can they alone claim to have known God? For they ought, even while present amid things belonging to others, to live honorably, ... so that they might in truth display their royal character.

Indeed, they are already at enmity both with human lawgivers and with the divine law, having chosen to live lawlessly.

At any rate, he who ran the fornicator through is shown, being blessed by God, in the book of Numbers.

"And if we say," John says in his epistle, "that we have fellowship with him," that is, with God, "and yet 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 men, being like the worst of worldly men? For those who are alike in their deeds are, I think, alike also in their natures.

Those whom they claim to surpass in nobility of birth, these they ought also to surpass in character, so that they may escape being shut up in prison.

For truly, as the Lord said, "Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter the kingdom of God."

Concerning abstinence from foods, it is shown in the book of Daniel.

To sum it up, concerning obedience David says in his psalm:

"By what shall a young man keep his way pure?" And straightway he hears the answer:

"By guarding your word with the whole heart."

"You shall not walk according to the ways of the nations."

Moved by this, certain others - vile and worthless men - say that man was formed by different powers, and that the parts as far as the navel are of a more godlike craftsmanship, while the parts below it are of the inferior power, on whose account, indeed, he desires intercourse.

But it escapes their notice that the upper parts also crave food and are lustful for certain things; and they also set themselves against Christ, who said to the Pharisees that the same God made both our outer man and our inner man.

Moreover, desire itself does not belong to the body, even though it comes about through the body.

Certain others, whom we also call Antitactae, say that God, the Father of all, is by nature our Father, and that all he has made is good;

but one of those made by him sowed the tares, having generated the nature of evils, with which he indeed clothed us all, setting us in opposition to the Father.

Therefore we ourselves also set ourselves in opposition to this one, to avenge the Father, acting contrary to the will of the second [power].

Since, then, this one said, "You shall not commit adultery," let us, they say, commit adultery, to overthrow his commandment.

We would say to these men also that we have received the teaching that false prophets, and all who feign the truth, are known by their works.

But your works stand accused;

Let them tell us, then, whether they say that the commandments given concerning righteousness, concerning self-control, concerning endurance, concerning forbearance of wrongs, and things like these, are base or excellent.

And if the commandment which forbids the doing of most shameful things should be base, then evil will have legislated against itself for its own destruction - which is impossible;

but if it is good, then by opposing the good commandments they confess that they are opposing the good and doing evil things.

Moreover, the Savior himself, whom alone they claim to obey, forbade hating and reviling, and said, "While going with your adversary, try to be freed from him as his friend."

So then, either they will deny even Christ's exhortation by continuing to oppose the one set against them, or, becoming his friends, they will no longer be his adversaries.

What then? Do you not know, noble sirs (for I would speak as though to men present), that by fighting against commandments so rightly given, you resist your own salvation? For you do not overturn what was profitably proclaimed; rather, you destroy yourselves.

And the Lord said, "Let your good works shine"; but you make your acts of licentiousness manifest.

Besides, if you wish to overthrow the commandments of the Lawgiver, why is it that, on account of your own lack of self-restraint, you attempt to overthrow "you shall not commit adultery" and "you shall not corrupt children" and whatever contributes to self-control, yet you do not overthrow the winter that he made, so as to bring on summer while winter is still in its midst, nor do you make the land navigable and the sea passable on foot, as the historians say the barbarian Xerxes wished to do? And why do you not set yourselves against all the commandments alike? For when he said, "Increase and multiply," you who claim to be his opponents ought not to have intercourse at all; and when he said, "I have given you all things for food and enjoyment," you ought to enjoy nothing at all.

Moreover, since he said, "an eye for an eye," you ought not to return opposition for opposition; and since he commanded the thief to repay fourfold, you ought to give even more besides to the thief;

and likewise again, being opposed to the commandment "You shall love the Lord," you ought not even to love the God of the universe; and again, since he said, "You shall not make a carved or a molten image," it would follow that you also worship carved images.

How then are you not impious, opposing, as you say, the Demiurge, while yet you have zealously imitated the ways of fornicators and adulterers? ... And how do you not perceive that you make greater the one you consider weak, if what he wills comes to pass, and not that which the Good [Father] willed? For on the contrary, your own father, as you call him, is shown by your very selves to be weak.

These men also gather up phrases culled from certain prophetic passages and, patching them together crudely, take literally what was in fact spoken allegorically.

"They resisted God and were saved."

And some even add "to the shameless God," and they accept this saying as counsel that has been enjoined, and they reckon that resisting the Demiurge is salvation for themselves.

Now it is not written, "to the shameless God."

But even if it were so, understand, O foolish men, that the one called shameless is the devil - either as slandering man, or as accuser of sinners, or as apostate.

The people, then, concerning whom this passage is spoken, being disciplined for the sins they had committed, bore it heavily and, groaning, murmured this saying: that the other nations, though breaking the law, are not punished, while they alone are cut short at every turn - as also Jeremiah said, "Why does the way of the ungodly prosper?" Similar to this is the saying, mentioned above, in Malachi: "They resisted God and were saved."

For when the prophets receive oracles, they say not only that they hear certain things from God, but they themselves, in their proclaiming, are also shown, by way of anticipated objection, to report what was being murmured by the people, as though bringing forward certain questions raised by men; and from these the saying now before us happens to arise.

And is it not perhaps against these men that the apostle, in his epistle to the Romans, writes with these words directed at them:

"...evil, that good may come"? - men whose condemnation is just.

These are the ones who, by the tone of voice in reading, twist the Scriptures to suit their own pleasures, and by shifting certain accents and punctuation marks, force what was enjoined soberly and for our benefit to serve their own indulgence in pleasure.

"You who weary the Lord with your words;"

so says Malachi, and then adds: "and you said:"

"'In what have we wearied him?' In that you say:"

"Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and he delights in them;"