Stromateis 1 part 39/42

In this way he makes use of this present life as of something alien, only insofar as belongs to the portion of necessity.

He himself also knows the hidden meanings of the fasting observed on these days -- I mean the fourth day of the week and the Preparation (Friday).

For the one is named after Hermes, the other after Aphrodite.

Accordingly, in his manner of life he fasts from both love of money and love of pleasure alike, from which all vices spring forth.

For we have already many times set forth, according to the apostle, the three highest kinds of fornication: love of pleasure, love of money, and idolatry.

He fasts, then, both according to the law, from base actions, and according to the perfection of the gospel, from evil thoughts.

... not for his own purification, but, as we have said, for the benefit of those near him -- if, having had experience of toils and pains, he despised them and let them pass.

And the same reasoning applies also concerning pleasure.

For it is the greatest thing to have had experience of something ... and then to abstain from it.

For what great thing is it if one exercises self-control over things one does not even know? This man, by fulfilling the commandment according to the gospel, makes that day the Lord's Day, whenever he casts off a base thought and takes up a Gnostic one, glorifying the Lord's resurrection within himself.

But also, whenever he grasps the apprehension of some scientific contemplation, he considers that he beholds the Lord, guiding his sight by the hand toward things invisible, even if he seems to see what he does not wish to see, chastising his faculty of sight whenever he becomes aware of himself taking pleasure at the impression made upon his vision, since it is this alone he wishes to see and hear -- that which is fitting for him.

Accordingly, when contemplating the souls of the brethren, he beholds even the beauty of the flesh with the soul itself, which is accustomed to observe only the beautiful, apart from carnal pleasure.

And they are brothers in truth, according to the elect creation, and according to likeness of character, and according to the reality of their works -- doing, thinking, and speaking the same holy and good deeds, which the Lord willed them, as being elect, to have in mind.

For faith consists in choosing the same things, knowledge in having learned and thought the same things, and hope in desiring the same things.

And even if, on account of life's necessity, he spends a little of his time occupied with food, he considers himself as being defrauded, distracted as he is by the matter.

For this reason he never even sees in a dream anything unbefitting one of the elect.

For truly, every such man is a stranger and sojourner in all of life -- one who, though dwelling in a city, has despised the things within the city that others admire, and lives in the city as though in a desert, so that it is not the place that compels him, but his own choice that shows him to be righteous.

This Gnostic, to put it briefly, fills up the void left by the absence of the apostles, living rightly, knowing precisely, benefiting those who are fit for it, removing the mountains of those near him and casting off the irregularities of their souls.

And yet each of us is both his own vineyard and his own workman.

And even while doing the best deeds, he wishes to remain hidden from men, persuading at once both the Lord and himself that he lives according to the commandments, preferring these things by which he has come to believe he truly is ('for where a man's mind is,' it says, 'there also is his treasure'); he places himself at a disadvantage so as never to overlook a brother who has fallen into affliction, for the sake of perfection in love, especially if he knows that he himself will bear the brother's want more easily than the brother would.

He considers, then, that man's pain to be his own personal suffering.

And even if, by giving out of his own want for the sake of doing good, he suffers some hardship because of it, he does not resent this, but rather increases his beneficence all the more.

For he has an unmixed faith concerning these matters, praising the gospel both through deeds and through contemplation.

And indeed, he reaps his praise not from men but from God, in performing those very things which the Lord taught.

This man, engrossed by his own hope, does not taste the good things of the world, looking down with lofty disdain upon all things here.

He pities those who, after death, are being disciplined through punishment, confessing involuntarily, while he himself, with a good conscience, is ever ready for his departure.

As one who is a sojourner and a stranger to the things here, mindful only of his own inheritance, and regarding everything here as foreign.

Not only admiring the Lord's commandments, but, so to speak, through knowledge itself becoming a partaker of the divine will, truly belonging to the Lord and to his commandments, chosen as righteous, and, as the Gnostic, ruling and royal -- looking down upon all the gold on earth and beneath the earth, and upon a kingdom stretching from one end of the ocean to the other, so as to cling to the service of the Lord alone.

Therefore, even while eating and drinking and marrying, if reason so dictates, and even while seeing dreams, he does and thinks holy things.

In this way he is always pure for prayer.

Being now even equal to the angels, he is never outside the holy guard.

And even if he prays alone, he has the choir of the saints standing together with him.

He knows faith to be twofold: on the one hand, the activity of the one who believes, and on the other, the surpassing worth, according to merit, of the one who is believed in; since righteousness too is twofold -- the one through love, the other through fear.

'The fear of the Lord is pure, enduring for ever and ever.'

For those who turn from fear to faith and righteousness abide forever.

Accordingly, fear produces abstinence from evils, while love, building further toward the voluntary, urges one to do good, so that one may hear from the Lord:

'I call you servants no longer, but friends'; and now, with confidence already, he approaches his prayers.

And the very form of his prayer is thanksgiving -- for things past, for things present, and for things to come, as being already present through faith.

And what leads to this is the having received knowledge.

And indeed he also asks to live out the appointed span of life in the flesh as a Gnostic, as though without flesh, and to attain the best things while fleeing the worse.

And he also asks for relief concerning the sins we have committed, and for a turning back to full knowledge.

Following so promptly at his departure the One who calls, just as He calls, going forward, so to speak, on account of a good conscience, hastening to give thanks there as well, having come to be with Christ, and, by presenting himself worthy through purity, to have, through commingling, the power of God supplied through Christ.

For he is not warm by participation in warmth, nor luminous by participation in fire, but wishes to be wholly light himself.

This man knows precisely what has been said:

'Unless you hate father and mother, and moreover your own soul as well, and unless you bear the sign ...'

For he has come to hate the fleshly attachments that possess a great allurement of pleasure, and he looks down with lofty disdain upon all things proper to the generation and nourishment of the flesh; moreover, he rises up against the bodily soul, casting a bit into the mouth of the unruly, irrational spirit, since the flesh lusts against the spirit.

And to bear the sign is to carry death about with oneself, having, while still living, renounced all things, since the love owed to him who begot the flesh is not equal to that owed to him who created the soul unto knowledge.

This man, having come into a settled habit of doing good, does good more quickly than he can even speak of it well, praying to share in the sins of the brethren so as to bring about confession and conversion of his kindred, and being eager to share his own goods with those dearest to him -- and to him, in this same way, are his friends.

Thus, increasing the seeds deposited within him, according to the husbandry which the Lord commanded, he remains sinless, becomes self-controlled, and passes his life in spirit together with those like him, among the choirs of the saints, even while he is still held on earth.

This man, throughout the whole day and night, speaking and doing the commands of the Lord, exceedingly rejoices -- not only when rising in the morning and at midday, but also while walking, and while sleeping, and while dressing and undressing.

And he teaches his son, if the child be a son, being inseparable from the commandment and from hope, always giving thanks to God, like those doxological living creatures spoken of allegorically through Isaiah, enduring patiently every trial.

'The Lord,' it says, 'gave, and the Lord has taken away.'

Such indeed was Job also, who, even before being deprived of his external goods along with the health of his body, had already renounced them all beforehand, out of love toward the Lord.

For he was, it says, righteous and holy, abstaining from all wickedness.

And 'holy' signifies the things that are righteous toward God according to the whole dispensation, and it was by knowing these that he was a Gnostic.

For one must neither, if things are good, cling fast to them, since they are merely human, nor again, if they are bad, be hostile toward them, but be above both, on the one hand treading down

and on the other passing on [the good things] to those in need.

The Gnostic is secure in his accommodation to others, lest unawares that accommodation become a fixed disposition.

He never remembers those who have sinned against him, but forgives.

Wherefore he also rightly prays, saying, 'Forgive us...'

'...for we also...forgive.'

For this too is one of the things God wills: to desire nothing, to hate no one.

For all men are the work of one will.

And does not our Savior, in wishing the Gnostic to be perfect as the heavenly Father—that is, as himself—he who says, 'Come, children, hearken to me, learn the fear of the Lord,' wish that such a one no longer stand in need of the help that comes through angels, but, having become worthy by his own doing, receive it directly from Himself, and have his protection from Himself through his own obedience? ...such a one, so to speak, exacts it from the Lord, rather than merely asking for it.

And in the case of poor brethren, the Gnostic himself will not ask for an abundance of money to distribute, but he will pray that provision of what they need come to be for them.

For thus the Gnostic gives even his prayer to those in need, and that which is granted through prayer is bestowed both without being known and without conceit.

Poverty, then, and sickness, and such trials, are often brought upon us for admonition, both for the correction of past sins and for the turning away from those to come.

Such a one, asking relief for these sufferers, inasmuch as he possesses the special excellence of knowledge, does the good work himself, not for vainglory but simply because he is a Gnostic, having become an instrument of God's goodness.

They say that in the Traditions the apostle Matthias constantly said that if the neighbor of one of the elect sins, the elect one has sinned.

For if he had conducted his own life as reason dictates, his neighbor too, out of reverence for his manner of living, would have been kept from sinning.

What then should we say concerning the Gnostic himself? 'Or do you not know,' says the apostle, 'that you are a temple of God?' The Gnostic, then, is divine and already holy, bearing God and being borne by God.

For instance, Scripture, in representing sin as something alien to us, sells those who have fallen away to foreigners;

and in saying, 'Do not look with desire upon another's wife,' it plainly declares sin to be something alien and contrary to nature for the temple of God.

Now a temple is on the one hand great, as the church; on the other hand small, as the man who preserves the seed of Abraham.

He, then, who has God resting within him will not desire anything else.

At once, having left behind everything that hinders him and having risen above all the matter that distracts him, he cuts through the heaven by means of knowledge, and, having passed through the spiritual essences and every rule and authority, he touches upon the highest thrones, pressing on toward that alone which he has known.

Having thus united the serpent with the dove, he lives at once perfectly and with a good conscience.

Having mingled faith with hope for the expectation of what is to come.

For he perceives the gift which he has received, having become worthy to obtain it, and having been transferred from slavery into adoption as a son; and he performs only what accords with knowledge, since he has known God—or rather, has been known by Him—thus displaying works worthy of the grace given.

For works follow knowledge as the shadow follows the body.

He is not, then, reasonably troubled at any of the things that happen, nor does he suspect any of those things that occur by the dispensation for his benefit, nor is he ashamed to die, being conscious in himself that he may be seen by the powers, having, so to speak, cleansed himself of well-nigh every stain of the soul, well knowing that it will be better for him after his departure.

Hence he never prefers the pleasant and the merely expedient to the dispensation, training himself through the commandments, that he may become well-pleasing to the Lord in all things and praiseworthy in the eyes of the world as well, since all things depend upon the one almighty God.

'He came,' it says, 'unto his own, the Son of God, and his own did not receive him.'

Wherefore also, with regard to the use of worldly things, he not only gives thanks and admires creation, but in using it as is fitting he is also to be praised, since for him the end, through gnostic activity in accordance with the commandments, is brought to completion in contemplation.

And having magnanimously taken upon himself the greatness of knowledge, he advances toward the holy reward of translation.

For he has heard the psalm saying:

'Go around Zion and encompass her; tell of her towers.'

For this hints, I think, that those who have received the Word in a lofty manner will themselves become lofty as towers, and will stand firmly both in faith and in knowledge.

And let these things, then, be said concerning the Gnostic to the Greeks as briefly as possible, in seed-like fashion.

But it must be known that even if the believer succeeds in one of these things, or even a second, he does not succeed in all of them at once, nor indeed with the utmost knowledge, as the Gnostic does.

And indeed, regarding what may be called, so to speak, the Gnostic's freedom from passion, according to which the perfection of the believer, advancing through love unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness, arrives there, being made like unto God, having truly become equal to the angels—there are many other testimonies from Scripture that one might go on to cite; but I think it better to defer such an ambitious undertaking on account of the length of the discourse, leaving it to those who wish to labor and to work out the doctrines further by selecting from the Scriptures.

I will, then, make brief mention of one testimony, so as not to leave the passage unremarked.

For the divine apostle says in the first epistle to the Corinthians:

'Does any of you, having a matter against another, dare to go to law before the unrighteous, and not before the saints? Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world?' and so forth.

Since the passage is very extensive, using the apostle's own timely words, and, so to speak, briefly paraphrasing the statement in cursory fashion, we shall set forth the sense of the apostle's saying, according to which he describes the perfection of the Gnostic.

For he does not merely establish that the Gnostic should be wronged rather than do wrong, but he also teaches that he should bear no grudge, not even permitting him to pray against the one who has wronged him;

for he knows that the Lord expressly commanded us to pray for our enemies.

He says, then, that for the one who has been wronged to go to law before the unrighteous seems to indicate nothing other than wishing to render tit for tat, and to desire, in turn, to commit a second wrong—which amounts equally to his having wronged another himself.

But wishing to go to law before the saints, he says, indicates those who through prayer ask that the greed of those who wronged them be requited; and these are better than the former, yet are not yet free from passion, unless, having become entirely free of resentment according to the Lord's teaching, they also pray for their enemies.

It is good, then, that they too should come, through repentance, to share in the good sense that leads to faith.

For even if truth seems to have as enemies those who are provoked to jealousy against it, yet truth itself is not at enmity with anyone.

For just as God makes his sun rise upon the just and the unjust, and sent the Lord himself to the just and the unjust, so too the one who strives to be made like God, forgiving seventy times seven through abundant freedom from resentment (signifying, as it were, the whole span of life and the entire cosmic cycle, reckoned in weeks), shows kindness to everyone, even if someone should wrong the Gnostic for the whole time he lives in the flesh.

For he does not think it fitting that the earnest man should merely entrust the judgment of those who have wronged him to others, but he wishes the righteous man to ask even of those very judges the forgiveness of sins for those who have offended against him—and rightly so;

since those who attempt to do wrong gain the advantage only in what is external and concerns the body, even should it proceed as far as death—none of which properly belongs to the Gnostic.

For how could one judge even the apostate angels, if he himself has become an apostate from that gospel freedom from resentment? 'Why do you not rather suffer wrong?' he says;

not only [of these], but also meaning the proselytes.

For whether the one who is now at enmity will later come to believe, we do not yet know.

From which it is clearly gathered that, even if they are not all so, they ought at least to seem to us to be brothers.

Moreover, that all men, being the work of one God and clothed with one image upon one substance, even though some happen to be more sullied than others—this only the one possessed of knowledge recognizes; and through created things he worships that activity through which, again, the will of God is made known.

'Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?' The one who returns wrong for wrong, then, does wrong—whether in deed, or in word, or in the very intention of the will—which, after the tutelage of the law, the gospel proscribes.

'And such were some of you'—evidently such as those still are, whom you yourselves do not forgive.

'But you were washed'—not simply as the rest of men are, but you have washed away the passions of the soul with knowledge, so as to be made like, as far as possible, to the goodness of God's providence, both through patient endurance and through freedom from resentment, shining forth, like the sun, the kindliness of word and deed upon both the just and the unjust.

Whether, then, the Gnostic acquires this through greatness of mind or through imitation of the Better;

a third reason is: 'Forgive, and it will be forgiven you'—the commandment, as it were, urging one by force toward salvation on account of the excess of God's goodness.

For to the one who has arrived at this habitual state, it happens that he is holy, falling into none of the passions in any way whatsoever.

but he has become, as it were, already without flesh and holy, above this earth.

'Wherefore you were justified,' he says, 'in the name of the Lord.'

You were made, so to speak, by him to be righteous as he is, and you have been mingled, as far as possible according to your capacity, with the Holy Spirit.

'For are not all things lawful for me?'—but, he says, 'I will not be brought under the power' of doing, thinking, or speaking anything contrary to the gospel. 'Foods are for the belly, and the belly for foods, and God will bring to nothing' both—that is, he will bring to nothing those who reason and live as though they existed for the sake of eating, and not rather eat in order that they may live, living indeed in a manner consequent upon it, but adhering, as their foremost concern, to knowledge.

And is he not perhaps saying that these are, as it were, the flesh of the holy body? Now the church of the Lord is allegorically called the body—the spiritual and holy choir—of which those who merely bear the name, but do not live according to the Word, are the flesh.

But this spiritual body, that is, the holy church, must in no way whatsoever be made akin to fornication, nor to apostasy from the gospel toward a pagan manner of life.

For the one who conducts himself in a pagan manner within the church commits fornication against the church and against his own body alike—whether in deed, or in word, or even in intention itself.

He who cleaves to this harlot—that is, to activity contrary to the covenant—becomes a different, unholy body, joined into one flesh, one pagan way of life, and another hope.

But he who cleaves to the Lord is one spirit [with him] — a spiritual body, the distinct kind belonging to that communion.

This one is wholly a son — a holy man, free from passion, a knower (gnostic), perfect, formed by the teaching of the Lord — so that, having become devoted to the Lord in deed and word and in the very spirit itself, he may receive that abiding place owed to one who has thus attained full manhood.

The example is sufficient for those who have ears.

For it is not right to wheel out the mystery on display, but only to disclose as much as serves as a reminder to those who have already shared in knowledge — and they will understand how it was spoken by the Lord.

'Become perfect as your Father [is perfect],' perfectly forgiving sins and bearing no grudge for wrongs done, and living out your life in the settled state of freedom from passion.

For just as we speak of a perfect physician and a perfect philosopher, so too, I think, do we speak of a perfect gnostic.

But none of these [attainments], though very great, is taken as constituting likeness to God.

For we do not say, as the Stoics do — quite impiously — that the very same virtue belongs to man as to God.

Ought we not, then, to become perfect as the Father wills? For it is impossible and utterly beyond contrivance for anyone to become perfect as God is.

[But it is possible] to become perfect blamelessly according to obedience to the gospel.

If, then — since the saying is expressed elliptically — we supply in thought what is wanting to complete the passage, leaving what has been omitted to be grasped by those capable of understanding, we shall come to know the will of God, and shall order our lives, worthily of the commandment, both piously and nobly.

Since it is next in order to make our defense against the charges brought against us by the Greeks and the Jews, and since, in some of the perplexities, the heresies concerning the true teaching add to the difficulty in the same way as those already mentioned, it will be well, having first cleared away the obstacles and being thus well prepared for resolving the difficulties, to proceed to the next Stromateus.

First, then, they bring this very charge against us, saying that we ought not to believe, because of the disagreement among the heresies.

'For with whom, then, does the truth lie, since different men teach different doctrines?' To this we reply that among you Jews as well, and among the most esteemed of the Greek philosophers, very many sects have arisen — yet you surely do not say that one should therefore hesitate either to philosophize or to Judaize, on account of the disagreement among your own sects with one another.

Furthermore, it was foretold prophetically by the Lord that heresies would be sown alongside the truth, just as the tares among the wheat, and it is impossible that what was thus foretold should not come to pass.

And the reason for this is that blemish follows upon everything that is beautiful.

Shall we, then, if someone transgresses agreements and departs from the confession made toward us, ourselves also abstain from the truth on account of the one who falsified the confession? No — rather, just as the reasonable man must not lie and must nullify none of what he has promised, even if certain others transgress their agreements, so also it is fitting that we, in no way whatsoever, transgress the rule of the Church.

And above all, we keep the confession concerning the greatest things, while they transgress it.

One must, therefore, trust those who hold firmly to the truth.

And now, speaking to them at greater length in this defense, it is also possible to say that physicians too, though holding opposite opinions according to their respective schools, nevertheless heal equally well in practice.

Does anyone, then, who is sick in body and in need of treatment refuse to accept a physician because of the schools of medicine? No more, then, should the one who is sick in soul and full of idols ever use the heresies as a pretext for not being healed and turning to God.

'Yes indeed,' he says, 'heresies exist for the sake of the approved.'

By 'the approved' he means either those who come to the faith, approaching the Lord's teaching with greater discernment — like approved money-changers who distinguish the Lord's genuine coin from the counterfeit — or those who have already become approved within the faith itself, both in their life and in their knowledge.

For this reason, then, we need all the more care and forethought in examining how one ought precisely to live and what true piety toward God really is.

For it is clear that, since the truth is difficult and hard to attain, disputes have arisen on this account.

From which have arisen the self-loving and glory-loving heresies, [formed by] those who have neither truly learned nor received the truth, but have taken up only a conceit of knowledge.

With all the more care, then, must one search out the truth that truly is, which alone occupies itself with the God who truly exists.

And upon labor follows sweet discovery and remembrance.

One must, therefore, strip for the labor of discovery all the more because of the heresies, but must not utterly abandon the search.

For indeed, when fruit is set before us — some of it genuine and ripe, some made of wax to resemble it as closely as possible — one need not, because of the similarity between the two, abstain from both alike; rather, one must distinguish the true from the merely apparent, both by comprehensive observation and by the most authoritative reasoning.

So too, when different people say different things about the truth, one must not give up the search, but must hunt all the more diligently for the most exact knowledge concerning it.

Since even among the vegetables cultivated in gardens, weeds also spring up together with them.

Do the farmers, then, therefore abstain from the care of gardening? Since, then, we have by nature many resources for examining what is said, we ought to discover the coherence of the truth.

Therefore we are justly condemned, if, failing to give assent to what ought to be believed, we do not distinguish what is contradictory, unfitting, contrary to nature, and false from what is true, consistent, fitting, and according to nature — resources which we ought to make full use of for the recognition of the truth that truly exists.

Vain, then, is this pretext for the Greeks.

For to those who are willing, it will be possible even to discover the truth; but for those who put forward irrational excuses, their condemnation is without defense.

For do they deny, or do they agree, that demonstration exists? I think all would admit it, except those who deny the senses.

Since, then, demonstration exists, it is necessary to descend into the inquiries and to learn thoroughly, in a demonstrative manner, from the Scriptures themselves, both how the heresies have gone astray, and how it is in the truth alone and in the ancient Church that the most exact knowledge and the truly best choice are found.

Of those who turn aside from the truth, some attempt to deceive only themselves, while others attempt to deceive their neighbors as well.

The former, then, called 'those who seem wise to themselves,' who suppose they have found the truth, having no true demonstration at all, deceive themselves by supposing that they have found rest.

Of these, no small multitude turn away from inquiries because of the refutations they would face, and also avoid instruction because of the condemnation it implies.

But others, deceiving those who approach them, are exceedingly cunning; and though they are well aware in themselves that they know nothing, they nevertheless darken the truth with plausible arguments.

But the nature of plausible arguments, I think, is one thing, and the nature of true ones is another.

And we know that the very name 'heresies' must necessarily be used in contradistinction to the truth.

From this truth the sophists, having torn away certain fragments to the ruin of mankind, and having buried them within the human arts of their own devising, boast that they preside over a school of disputation rather than over a church.

But those who are ready to labor for the noblest ends will not desist from seeking the truth until they have received demonstration from the Scriptures themselves.

There are, then, certain criteria common to all men, such as the senses; but there are others belonging only to those who have willed and trained themselves in the truth — namely, those skilled means, achieved through mind and reasoning, of distinguishing true and false arguments.