Stromateis 1 part 36/42

For above all, a divine image, and one most resembling God, is the soul of a righteous man, in which, through obedience to the commandments, is enshrined and enthroned, as in a sanctuary, the ruler of all things both mortal and immortal — king and begetter of all good things, being in very truth law and ordinance and eternal Word, one and the same savior, both privately to each and in common to all.

This is he who is truly the only-begotten, the very stamp of the glory of the Father who is King over all and Almighty, sealing upon the Gnostic perfect contemplation after his own image, so that the divine image now becomes a third, being made like, so far as possible, to the second cause, to him who is truly life, through whom we live the true life — the Gnostic thus becoming, as it were, a transcript, a pattern set before us, occupied with what is stable and wholly unchangeable.

Being, then, ruler of himself and of what is his own, and having acquired a firm apprehension of divine knowledge, he draws near to truth in a genuine way.

For the knowledge and firm apprehension of intelligible things might rightly be called science, whose task, with respect to divine things, is to consider what the first cause is, and what that is through whom all things came into being and apart from whom nothing has come to be.

And again, which things pervade others as running through them, and which contain them, and which are conjoined, and which are separate.

And what order each of these holds ... and what power and what function each contributes.

And again, in the sphere of human affairs, what man himself is, and what belongs to him according to nature or contrary to nature, how it befits him to act or to be acted upon, what his virtues are and what his vices, concerning goods and evils and things indifferent, and all that pertains to courage and prudence and temperance, and to that virtue which is complete and set over all, justice.

But by prudence and justice he has availed himself for the acquisition of wisdom, while by courage he has availed himself not merely in enduring adverse circumstances, but also in <mastering> pleasure and desire, and again grief and anger, and in general in setting himself against everything that seeks to seduce our soul, whether by force or by some deceit.

...evils, but rather to repel them, and to endure what is fearsome.

Pain, then, is found to be useful both in medicine, in education, and in chastisement, ... and through it characters are corrected for the benefit of mankind.

The species of courage are endurance, high-mindedness, greatness of soul, liberality, and magnificence.

And for this reason the Gnostic is affected neither by the censure nor by the ill repute of the many, nor is he swayed by opinions or flatteries; and in enduring hardships, while at the same time accomplishing what is fitting, and manfully rising above all circumstances, he shows himself to be, in truth, a man among other men.

And again, preserving prudence, he is temperate amid the tranquility of his soul, receptive of the promised <goods> as his own, while turning away from base things as alien to him; he has become orderly and supramundane, doing <all things> in order and arrangement, and erring in nothing whatsoever, being richest of all in desiring nothing, since he is a man of few wants, and abounds in every good through his knowledge of the Good.

For the first work of his righteousness is to pass his life in love toward those of the same kindred, and to live in communion with them both on earth and in heaven.

For this reason he is also disposed to share whatever he has acquired, being a lover of mankind, and one who most hates wickedness on account of his complete aversion from every kind of evil-doing.

We must learn, then, to be faithful both to ourselves and to those near us, and obedient to the commandments.

For this man is the servant of God — he who willingly submits himself to the commandments.

But he who now obeys, not for the sake of the commandments, but for the sake of knowledge itself, being pure in heart — this man is a friend of God.

For we are not born already possessing virtue by nature, nor does it accrue to us afterward by nature, as do certain other parts of the body (since in that case it would no longer be voluntary or praiseworthy); nor again is virtue perfected out of the custom arising from what happens to us, in the way that language is acquired (for it is nearly in this way that vice, rather, comes to be).

Nor indeed does knowledge arise from any art whatsoever, whether the money-making arts or those concerned with the care of the body.

But neither does it come from the ordinary [encyclical] education.

It would be a welcome thing indeed, if it could merely prepare the soul and render it service.

For the civic laws are perhaps able to check wicked actions, but not even they, nor persuasive arguments, being but superficial, could furnish a scientific and abiding possession of the truth.

But Greek philosophy, as it were, purges the soul beforehand and habituates it in advance to the reception of faith, upon which truth builds up knowledge.

This is he, this is the athlete, truly he who, in the great stadium — this beautiful world — is crowned with the true victory over all the passions.

For the president of the games is God the Almighty, and the umpire is the only-begotten Son of God, and the spectators are angels and gods; and the all-embracing, all-out contest is not against blood and flesh, but against the spiritual powers of the passions that work through the flesh — and having prevailed over these mighty antagonists, and having overcome, as it were, certain contests set before him by the tempter, he has laid hold of immortality.

For the judgment of God cannot be deceived, and issues in the most righteous verdict.

The theater, then, is summoned to the contest, but it is in the stadium that the athletes engage in the all-out combat.

And indeed, out of these things, there comes to be one who is obedient to his trainer.

For all things are set equally before all by God, and he himself is without blame; but it is the one who is able that chooses, and it is the one who is willing that shall prevail.

For this reason we have received our mind, that we may know what we do; and the 'know thyself' spoken of here means to know for what purpose we have come to be.

But we have come into being <in order> to be obedient to the commandments, should we choose the will to be saved.

This, I suppose, is Adrasteia, according to whose law it is impossible to flee from God.

The proper work of man, then, is ready obedience to God, who has proclaimed salvation in manifold ways through the commandments, while well-pleasing him consists in agreement.

and, as far as lies in his power, repaying through love the good that has been done him, he thereby becomes a friend.

But the one repayment most proper from men is to do those things that are pleasing to God.

And just as though it were his own offspring, and in some sense a kindred achievement, the Teacher and Savior takes to himself the benefits and improvements wrought in men as his own grace and honor — even as he also reckons the harms done to those who have believed in him as his own dishonor and ingratitude.

(For what other dishonor could touch God?) Wherefore there exists no other repayment of such magnitude worthy of that benefit which comes from the Lord, in proportion to the salvation he has given.

But just as those who abuse property thereby insult its masters, and as those who abuse soldiers insult their commander, so the mistreatment of those consecrated to the Lord is a disregard shown toward the Lord himself.

For just as the sun not only illumines heaven and the whole world, shining upon earth and sea, but also sends its ray through windows and even through a tiny chink into the innermost chambers of houses, so the Word, being poured out everywhere, looks upon even the smallest of life's actions.

But the Greeks suppose the gods to be, just as they are anthropomorphic, so also subject to human passions; and just as each people paints their forms after their own likeness, as Xenophanes says — 'the Ethiopians black and snub-nosed, and the Thracians ruddy and blue-eyed' — so too they fashion their souls after their own likeness: barbarians, for their part, portraying them as beast-like and savage in character, while the Greeks make them gentler, yet still subject to passion.

Wherefore it stands to reason that the wicked must necessarily hold base opinions about God, while the virtuous hold the best; and for this reason he who is truly royal in soul, and is at once Gnostic, God-fearing, and free from superstition, is persuaded that the one and only God alone is honorable, august, magnificent, beneficent, a doer of good, the author of all good things and responsible for no evil.

And concerning Greek superstition, I think we have set forth sufficient matter — indeed abundantly so — in the discourse entitled by us the Protrepticus, drawing there upon the history that our urgent purpose required.

There is no need, then, to relate again in mythic detail what has already been clearly stated.

But so far as it is fitting, having come to this topic, to point out a few examples out of many, these too suffice to demonstrate the godlessness of those who liken the divine to the most wicked of men.

For either the gods are harmed by men, and are thereby shown to be inferior to the men who harm them; or, if this is not the case, how is it that, over matters by which they are not even harmed, they become embittered, like some sharp-tempered old woman provoked to anger — as they say Artemis was enraged against the Aetolians because of Oeneus?

For how did she, being a goddess, fail to reckon that Oeneus had not despised her, but had either simply forgotten, or, having already offered sacrifice, was merely negligent? And Auge, too, argues her case well against Athena, who was angry with her for having given birth in the sanctuary, when she says:

'You rejoice to look upon spoils that have destroyed mortals, and upon the wreckage of the dead, and these things are not deemed unclean by you;'

'yet if I have given birth, you deem this a terrible thing.'

And yet other animals too, when they give birth within the sacred precincts, do no wrong.

Reasonably, then, the superstitious, being quick to anger, regard everything that happens as an omen, and as a cause of evil.

If a mouse should burrow through an altar that happens to be made of clay, or, having nothing else to gnaw, should gnaw through a sack, or if a cock kept for feeding should crow in the evening, they take this as a sign of something.

Menander mocks just such a person in his play 'The Superstitious Man':

'May some good come to me, O most honored gods — for as I was putting on my sandal, I tore the strap of my right shoe.'

'For it was rotten — but you were being stingy, unwilling to buy new ones.'

Charming is the remark of Antiphon:

When someone was drawing an omen from the fact that a sow had eaten her piglets, Antiphon, observing that she had been reduced to leanness through hunger by the stinginess of her keeper, said, 'Rejoice at the omen — that, being so famished, she did not eat your own children.'

It would be astonishing if, as Arcesilaus once jestingly proposed, the sack should eat the mouse.

Well said, indeed, was Diogenes also to the man marveling that he had found the snake coiled around the pestle: 'Do not marvel,' he said;

for that would have been more astonishing, had you seen the pestle wound around an upright snake.

For irrational animals too must run and race, fight, give birth, and die; and these things, being according to nature for them, could never become contrary to nature for us;

And many birds pass to and fro beneath the rays of the sun.

And the comic poet Philemon likewise mocks such things:

'Whenever I see,' he says, 'a man watching to see who sneezed or who spoke, or peering to see who is passing by, I sell him at once in the marketplace.'

Each of us walks and talks and sneezes for himself, not for the people in the city.

Things happen just as they are naturally constituted to happen.

Then, while sober they ask for health, but by gorging themselves to excess and wallowing in drunkenness during the festivals they bring diseases upon themselves.

Many also are terrified of the inscriptions set up on houses.

Very wittily indeed did Diogenes, upon finding inscribed on the house of a certain wicked man:

'Here dwells the glorious conqueror Heracles;'

'let nothing evil enter' -- and how, he said, will the master himself get into the house? ... These very same people, while worshipping every stock and every stone that is, as the saying goes, glistening with oil, are afraid of red wool, lumps of salt, torches, squill, and sulphur, having been utterly bewitched by sorcerers through certain unclean purifications.

But God -- he who is truly God -- knows as holy only the character of the righteous man, just as he knows the unjust and wicked as accursed.

One may indeed observe that eggs taken from those who have been ritually purified, if kept warm, hatch into life.

But this would not happen, if the eggs took on the evils of the one who was purified.

Wittily indeed does the comic poet Diphilus also mock the sorcerers in the following lines:

purifying the daughters of Proetus, and their father Proetus, son of Abas, and an old woman as a fifth besides these -- with a single torch and a single squill, so many bodies of men -- with sulphur, with bitumen, and with the loud-roaring sea from the gently-flowing, deep-flowing Ocean.

But, O blessed Air, send hellebore through the clouds from Anticyra, that I may turn this bedbug into a drone.

'If you had some real ailment, Phidias, you would need to seek a real remedy for it;'

but since it is an empty ailment, find also an empty remedy for the empty thing;

let the women wipe you round about in a circle, and run around you;

sprinkle yourself with water from three springs, throwing in salt and lentils.

Everyone is pure who is conscious within himself of no evil.

'Orestes, what disease destroys you?' 'My own conscience, because I am conscious of having done terrible deeds.'

For in truth, purity is nothing other than abstinence from sins.

Rightly, then, does Epicharmus also say:

'If you keep your mind pure, your whole body is pure.'

Accordingly we say that souls too must first be purified from base and wicked opinions by right reason, and only then turn in this manner to the recollection of the preceding chapters, since even before the handing on of the mysteries the priests think it fitting to apply certain purifications to those about to be initiated, on the ground that one ought to lay aside godless opinion and turn to the true tradition.

Is it not right and true that we do not circumscribe the Uncontainable within any place, nor shut up within handmade shrines that which contains all things? What holy work, indeed, could belong to builders, stonecutters, and a vulgar craft? Are not those better than these, who have deemed the air and the encompassing atmosphere -- or rather the whole cosmos and universe -- worthy of the transcendence of God? It would indeed be ridiculous, as the philosophers themselves say, for man, who is a plaything of God, to fashion God, and for God to become the plaything of a craft.

since that which comes to be is the same and similar to that from which it comes to be, just as what comes from ivory is ivory, and what comes from gold is golden;

but the statues and shrines fashioned by vulgar craftsmen come from inert matter, so that they too must be inert, material, and profane.

as soon as you complete the craftwork upon it, it has partaken of vulgarity;

the works of the craft, then, are no longer sacred and divine.

And what indeed could be enshrined, if nothing happened to be un-enshrined, since all things exist in some place? Surely that which is enshrined is enshrined by someone, having previously been un-enshrined.

If then God is enshrined by men, he was at some time un-enshrined, and did not exist at all.

for that which is un-enshrined would be that which does not exist;

since indeed everything that does not exist is what comes to be enshrined.

But that which exists could not be enshrined by that which does not exist; nor indeed by another existing thing;

for how would a thing beget itself? Or how would that which exists establish itself in being? Was it, being un-enshrined, that it first enshrined itself? But then it would not even have existed, since that which does not exist is un-enshrined;

And how could that which was thought to have been enshrined -- which already possessed being beforehand -- later make itself into this same thing? And that being to whom all things that exist belong, how then could this one be in need of anything? But if indeed the divine has human form, it will need the very same things man needs: food, shelter, a house, and all that follows from these.

for those alike in form and alike in passions will require the same manner of life.

But if 'temple' is understood in two senses -- both God himself and the structure built in his honor -- how should we not rightly call the church, which has come into being holy, in true knowledge, for the honor of God, the temple of God -- a thing of great worth, constructed not by vulgar craft, nor wrought even by the hand of a charlatan, but made into a shrine by the will of God? For it is not the place, but the assembly of the elect, that I now call 'church.'

This temple is better suited to receive the greatness of God's worth.

For the living being of great worth is consecrated, on account of the surpassing excellence of its holiness, to him who is worthy of the whole universe -- or rather, to him with whom nothing else can be compared in worth.

And this one of great worth, precious to God, in whom God is enshrined, would be the Gnostic -- that is, the one in whom the knowledge concerning God has been consecrated.

Here too we might find the image, the divine and holy statue, in the righteous soul, whenever it happens to be blessed -- having been purified beforehand -- and performs blessed works.

Here too we find both that which is already enshrined and that which is being enshrined -- the former in the case of those already Gnostics, the latter in the case of those capable of becoming so, even though they are not yet worthy to receive the knowledge of God.

For everyone who is going to believe is already faithful to God, and is a virtuous statue set up in his honor, dedicated to God.

Just as, then, God is not circumscribed by place, nor is he ever depicted in the shape of a living creature, so too he is neither subject to like passions nor in need, as created things are -- as, for instance, needing sacrifices by way of food, out of hunger.

All things touched by passion are corruptible, and it is vain to offer food to that which is not in need of nourishment.

And that comic poet Pherecrates, in his Deserters, has wittily represented the gods themselves as reproaching men over their sacrifices:

'Whenever you sacrifice to the gods, first of all you set apart for the priests what is customary, then for yourselves; then -- it is shameful even to say it -- after stripping the two thighs quite bare, all the meat right down to the groin, and the loin completely bare, and after filing down the very backbone as with a rasp, you dole out to us what remains, just as you would to dogs; and then, ashamed before one another, you hide it under a heap of incense-offerings.'

And Eubulus, likewise a comic poet, writes somewhat as follows concerning sacrifices:

'But to the gods themselves you sacrifice only the tail and the thigh, as though to pederasts.'

And having introduced Dionysus in his Semele making a distinction, he has him say:

'First, whenever some people sacrifice something to me, they sacrifice blood, bladder, liver, heart, and the outer membrane;'

'for I myself do not eat sweetmeats nor thigh-offerings.'

And Menander too has spoken of the very tip of the loin, and the gall: 'having placed before the gods,' he says, 'the inedible bones, they themselves consume all the rest.'

For is not the reek of whole burnt-offerings something even wild beasts shun? But if the reek is indeed a prerogative of honor among the gods of the Greeks, they might as well go on to deify the cooks too, who are deemed worthy of the same happiness, and to worship the very oven, which comes into closer contact with that highly-prized savor.

They say that Zeus, by the deceitful art of Prometheus, received the white bones of the ox, covered with gleaming fat;

'and from that time onward, the tribes of men upon the earth burn white bones to the immortals upon smoking altars.'

But they say that God is by no means nourished, being afflicted by a desire arising from want.

They will therefore make him like a plant, nourished without appetite, and like the beasts that lie dormant in their dens.

For they say that these creatures grow without harm, being nourished either by the thickness of the surrounding air, or again by the very exhalation of their own body.

And yet, if the divine is nourished by them without any need, what further need is there of nourishment for that which is without need? But if, being by nature without need, it nevertheless rejoices in being honored, then it is not unreasonable that we honor God through prayer, and offer up this sacrifice, the best and holiest, together with righteousness -- honoring him with the most righteous Word, through whom we receive knowledge, and through whom we glorify him whom we have come to know.

Our altar here, then, on earth, is the gathering of those devoted to prayer, having, as it were, one common voice and one mind.

But the offerings that come through the sense of smell, even if more divine than those through the mouth, are not true nourishment, but are indicative of respiration.

What then do they say concerning God? Is he breathed through, like the race of daemons? Or is he only breathed into, like water creatures by the dilation of their gills? Or is he breathed around, like insects by the compression of the incision through their wings? But they could not liken God to any of these, if indeed they were of sound mind;

for whatever creature breathes draws in the air by the reciprocal expansion of the lung against the chest.

Then, if they were to give to God entrails and arteries and veins and sinews and members, they would be introducing offerings no different from these.

But concord is properly said of the church.

For indeed the sacrifice of the church is the word that rises up like incense from holy souls, the whole mind being unveiled to God together with the sacrifice.

But they have repeated it so often that the most ancient altar in Delos is pure — the only one, they say, that Pythagoras himself approached, since 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 that the incense rising from it is holy prayer? Sacrifices, I think, have been devised by men as a pretext for eating flesh.

But it was possible, in yet another way, without such idolatry, for anyone who wished to partake of meats.

For the sacrifices prescribed by the law allegorize the piety incumbent upon us — just as the turtledove and the dove, offered for sins, signify that the cleansing of the irrational part of the soul is acceptable to God.

But if one of the righteous does not burden his soul with the eating of flesh, he employs a certain reasonable principle — not the one that Pythagoras and his followers use, dreaming of the transmigration of the soul.

Xenocrates, in his special treatise On the Nourishment Derived from Animals, and Polemon in his works On Life According to Nature, appear to state clearly that nourishment by flesh is disadvantageous, since flesh, already having been wrought into that form, assimilates one to the souls of irrational creatures.

For this reason especially the Jews abstain from pork, since this animal is regarded as unclean, chiefly because, more than others, it roots up and destroys the crops.

But if they say that the animals have been given to men, we too agree — except that they were not given entirely for food, nor indeed all of them, but only those that are of no use for labor.

Wherefore not badly does the comic poet Plato say, in his drama The Festivals:

'For of the four-footed beasts we ought henceforth to kill none — except swine.'

'For they have the sweetest meat; and nothing comes of a pig except bristles, and mud, and grunting for us.'

Whence Aesop, too, well said that pigs cry out loudest when they are being dragged off:

'For they are conscious that they are useful for nothing else except sacrifice.'

Wherefore Cleanthes also says that they have a soul instead of salt, so that their flesh may not rot.

For this reason the law does not sacrifice the he-goat except solely for the sending away of evils, since pleasure is the mother-city of vice.

Indeed they even say that the eating of goat's flesh contributes to epilepsy.

They say that the greatest nourishment comes from pork, wherefore it is useful to those who exercise the body, but no longer to those who endeavor to develop the soul itself, because of the sluggishness that arises from eating flesh.

Perhaps, then, one of the gnostics might also abstain from eating flesh for the sake of discipline, and so that the flesh might not become too vigorous with regard to sexual desire.

'For wine,' says Androcydes, 'and gorging on flesh make the body robust, but the soul more sluggish.'

Such food, then, is unfit for exact understanding.

Wherefore the Egyptians too, in their rites of purification, do not permit their priests to eat flesh; and they use fowl as the lightest food, and do not touch fish — both for certain other legendary reasons, and especially because such food renders the flesh flabby.

Now land animals and birds are nourished by breathing the same air that our souls breathe, possessing a soul akin to the air; but fish, they say, do not even breathe this air, but that other air which was mixed into the water from the very first origin, just as it was with the remaining elements as well — which is also evidence of the persistence proper to matter.

We must, then, offer to God sacrifices that are not costly but pleasing to God — that composite incense spoken of in the law, compounded of many tongues and voices according to prayer; or rather, that incense prepared from different nations and natures through the gift given according to the covenants unto the unity of the faith, and gathered together according to hymns of praise — with a pure mind, and with a righteous and upright manner of life, out of holy deeds and righteous prayer.

For who is so foolish — to use the poet's own turn of phrase — and so utterly loosely credulous among men, as to hope that the gods all rejoice, together, in fleshless bones and burning gall, which are not even fit food for hungry dogs, and that they receive this as their due honor, and repay favor for it to those who perform it — even should these happen to be pirates, or robbers, or tyrants? But we say that it is not the flesh that fire sanctifies, but sinful souls — meaning not the all-devouring, vulgar fire, but the intelligent fire that penetrates through the soul that passes through that fire.

We are commanded to revere and honor this same Word, being persuaded that he is Savior and Leader, and through him the Father — not on certain set-apart days, as some others do, but doing this continually, our whole life through, and in every possible way.

Indeed, the chosen race says, 'Seven times a day have I praised thee,' being justified according to the commandment.

Hence, neither a fixed place, nor a special sanctuary, nor indeed certain feasts and appointed days — but throughout his whole life, in every place, whether he happens to be by himself alone or wherever he has with him some who have likewise believed, the gnostic honors God; that is, he confesses gratitude for his knowledge and his manner of life.

But if the presence of some good man, through the reverence and shame it inspires, always shapes for the better the one who meets him, how much more reasonable is it that the one who is always accompanied — through knowledge, through his manner of life, and through unceasing thanksgiving — by God, should in every instance be better than his former self, in all things: in deeds, in words, and in disposition? Such is the one who is persuaded that God is present everywhere, and does not suppose him shut up within certain fixed places, so that, thinking himself at some point to be apart from him, he might then act licentiously, whether by night or by day.

Keeping, then, our whole life as a festival, persuaded that God is present everywhere and on every side, we till the soil while praising, we sail the sea while singing hymns, and in the rest of our conduct we comport ourselves according to that same art.

More closely still, the gnostic makes himself at home with God, being at once dignified and cheerful in all things — dignified because of his conversion toward the divine, cheerful because of his consideration of the human blessings that God has given us.

The prophet reveals the excellence of knowledge, presenting it in this way:

'Teach me goodness, and discipline, and knowledge.'

By way of ascent... having increased the ruling faculty unto perfection.

This one, then, is truly the kingly man; this one is the holy priest of God — a thing which even to this day is preserved among the most learned of the barbarian nations, who advance the priestly race to kingship.

This man, then, in no way surrenders himself to that mob-rule which is mistress of the theaters; nor does he admit, even in a dream, the things said and done and seen for the sake of dissolute pleasure.

Neither, then, does he yield to these pleasures of spectacle, nor to the varied delights that come through other enjoyments — such as the extravagance of incense that bewitches the sense of smell, or the elaborate combinations of foods, and the pleasures derived from various wines that entice the taste — nor indeed to those richly-flowered and fragrant garlands that, through sensation, effeminate the soul.