Stromateis 1 part 4/42

Some, more in the manner of myth, say that certain wise men called the Idaean Dactyls first arose, to whom is attributed both the so-called Ephesian letters and the discovery of musical rhythms.

For this reason the 'dactyls' used among musicians have received their name.

And the Idaean Dactyls were Phrygians ... barbarians.

Herodorus records that Heracles, having become a seer and a natural philosopher, received the pillars of the cosmos from Atlas the barbarian, the Phrygian, the myth hinting that he received, by instruction, the knowledge of heavenly things.

Hermippus of Berytus calls Chiron the Centaur wise, concerning whom the writer of the Titanomachy also says that he was the first to lead the race of mortals to righteousness, having shown them oaths, gracious sacrifices, and the figures of Olympus.

By him Achilles, who campaigned against Ilium, was educated; and Hippo, the daughter of the Centaur, having lived together with Aeolus, taught him natural theoria, the ancestral science.

Euripides too testifies concerning Hippo somewhat as follows:

'<at the clear> risings of the stars.'

With this Aeolus, Odysseus was entertained as a guest after the taking of Ilium.

Observe for me the dates, for comparison of the age of Moses with the most ancient philosophy connected with him.

Barbarians are the discoverers not of philosophy alone, but of almost every art as well.

The Egyptians, at any rate, were the first to bring forth astrology among men, and likewise the Chaldeans also.

The Egyptians again were the first to show how to burn lamps, and they divided the year into twelve months, and they forbade intercourse with women in the temples, and legislated that one not washed after being with a woman should not enter the temples; and the same people were also the discoverers of geometry.

And there are those who say that the Carians devised foreknowledge by means of the stars.

The Phrygians were the first to observe closely the flights of birds, and the Tuscans, neighbors of Italy, perfected the art of sacrifice.

The Isaurians and the Arabs worked out the art of augury, just as, of course, the Telmessians worked out divination by means of dreams.

The Tyrrhenians devised the trumpet, and the Phrygians the pipe.

For Olympus and Marsyas were both Phrygians.

Cadmus, the discoverer of letters for the Greeks, was a Phoenician, as Ephorus says; whence Herodotus also writes that the letters were called Phoenician.

But some say that the Phoenicians and the Syrians were the first to devise letters.

They say that Apis, a native Egyptian, discovered medicine before Io came to Egypt, and that afterward Asclepius increased the art.

Atlas the Libyan was the first to build a ship and to sail the sea.

Celmis and Damnameneus, the Idaean Dactyls, were the first to discover iron, in Cyprus; and Delas, another Idaean, discovered the alloying of bronze — or, as Hesiod says, it was a Scythian.

Indeed, the Thracians were the first to discover the so-called harpe (it is a curved blade), and were the first to use light shields on horseback.

Likewise the Illyrians discovered the so-called parma.

They further say that the Tuscans invented the plastic art, and that Itanus (he was a Samnite) was the first to construct the large shield.

For Cadmus the Phoenician discovered stone-quarrying, and devised the gold mines around Mount Pangaeum.

Moreover, yet another nation, the Cappadocians, were the first to discover the instrument called the nabla, just as the Assyrians discovered the two-stringed instrument.

For the Carthaginians were the first to construct a quadrireme, and Bosporus built it as an improvisation of his own.

And Medea the Colchian, daughter of Aeëtes, was the first to devise the dyeing of hair.

But also the Noropes (a Paeonian nation, now called the Norici) worked bronze and were the first to refine iron.

And Amycus, king of the Bebrycians, was the first to discover boxing thongs.

And in music, Olympus the Mysian skillfully devised the Lydian mode.

And those called the Troglodytes discovered the sambuca, a musical instrument.

They say also that Satyrus the Phrygian discovered the transverse pipe.

<Likewise Agnis, also a Phrygian, devised the three-stringed instrument and the diatonic mode;> and likewise Olympus the Phrygian devised the plucked melodies, just as Marsyas — who was of the same region as those aforementioned — devised the Phrygian mode, and the mixo-Phrygian and mixo-Lydian modes; and that Thamyris the Thracian devised the Dorian mode.

And we have heard that the Persians were the first to fashion the wagon, the couch, and the footstool, and that the Sidonians constructed the trireme.

And the Sicels, who dwell near Italy, were the first to discover the phorminx (not much inferior to the cithara), and they devised castanets.

And they record that, in the time of (†Semiramis) king of the Egyptians, fine linen garments were discovered.

And Hellanicus says that Atossa, who reigned as queen of the Persians, was the first to compose letters.

Scamon of Mytilene, and Theophrastus of Eresus, and Cydippus of Mantinea, and further Antiphanes, and Aristodemus, and Aristotle, and besides these Philostephanus, and also Strato the Peripatetic in his work On Discoveries, have recorded these things.

from whom the Greeks have profited in their pursuits.

But if anyone disparages the barbarian tongue, Anacharsis says, 'To me, all the Greeks speak like Scythians.'

This was the man admired among the Greeks, who said, 'My cloak is my covering, my dinner is milk and cheese.'

You see barbarian philosophy promising deeds, not words.

And the apostle speaks thus: 'So also you, unless you give by the tongue speech that is easily understood, how will what is spoken be known? For you will be speaking into the air.'

'There are, it may be, so many kinds of tongues in the world, and none of them is without meaning.'

'If then I know not the meaning of the tongue, I shall be a barbarian to him that speaks, and he that speaks shall be a barbarian to me.'

'And let him who speaks in a tongue pray that he may interpret.'

Indeed, it was only late that the teaching and writing of letters passed over to the Greeks.

Alcmaeon of Croton, son of Perithous, was at any rate the first to compose a treatise on nature.

But some record that Anaxagoras of Clazomenae, son of Hegesibulus, was the first to publish a book in writing.

Terpander of Antissa was the first to set melody to poems and to set to music the laws of the Lacedaemonians; Lasus of Hermione devised the dithyramb; Stesichorus of Himera, the hymn; Alcman the Lacedaemonian, the choral dance; Anacreon of Teos, love poetry; Pindar of Thebes, the hyporcheme; and Timotheus of Miletus was the first to sing nomes with chorus and cithara.

Indeed, Archilochus of Paros devised the iambic, and Hipponax of Ephesus the limping iambic; and Thespis of Athens devised tragedy, and Susarion of Icaria, comedy.

The pupils of the grammarians hand down the dates of these men, but it would be tedious to set them forth with precision, since it is shown that Dionysus himself — on whose account also come the Dionysiac spectacles — was later than Moses, or very nearly so.

They say also that Antiphon, son of Sophilus, of Rhamnus, was the first to devise discourses for use in the schools and rhetorical figures of speech, and to plead for hire, having composed and published the first forensic speech, as Diodorus says; while Apollodorus of Cyme was the first to introduce the term 'grammarian' in place of 'critic,' and was so called; but some say it was Eratosthenes of Cyrene, since he published two books which he entitled 'Grammatical.'

And the first to be named 'grammarian,' as we now use the term, was Praxiphanes... son of Dionysophanes, of Mytilene.

Zaleucus the Locrian is recorded as the first to establish laws; but others say it was Minos, son of Zeus, in the time of Lynceus.

This man comes after Danaus, in the eleventh generation counting back from Inachus, and from Moses... as we shall show a little further on.

But Lycurgus, having lived many years after the fall of Troy, one hundred and fifty years before the Olympiads, gave laws to the Lacedaemonians.

For we have already spoken of the dates of Solon.

Draco, likewise a lawgiver, is found to have lived about the thirty-ninth Olympiad.

Antilochus again, who composed a work of history, reckons from the age of Pythagoras to the death of Epicurus — which occurred on the tenth day of the rising of Gamelion — a total of three hundred and twelve years in all.

They further say that Phanothea, the wife of Icarius, invented heroic hexameter verse; but others say it was Themis, one of the Titanesses.

Didymus, in his work On the Pythagorean Philosophy, records that Theano the Crotonian was the first of women to practise philosophy and to write poems.

Greek philosophy, then, according to some, attains to the truth by mere chance, in some measure, but dimly, and not to the whole of it.

But as others would have it, it derives its impulse from the devil.

Some, again, have supposed that certain inferior powers inspired the whole of philosophy.

But even if Greek philosophy does not grasp the greatness of the truth, and is moreover too weak to carry out the Lord's commandments, it nevertheless prepares the way beforehand for the most kingly teaching, in some measure disciplining and moulding character, and preparing beforehand for the reception of the truth the man who glorifies providence.

'All who came before me are thieves and robbers.'

Now all who are 'in the Word' — that is, those before the incarnation of the Word — are to be understood in the more general sense.

But the prophets, inasmuch as they were sent and inspired by the Lord, are not thieves, but ministers.

'Wisdom sent forth her own servants, calling together with a loud proclamation... unto the mixing-bowl of wine.'

But philosophy was not sent by the Lord; rather, it came, they say, having been stolen, or given by a thief — whether it was some power or an angel who had learned something of the truth and did not abide in it, but inspired these things and, having stolen them, taught them; not that the Lord was ignorant of it — he who knew even the ends of things that were to be before the foundation of the world, and what each thing would be — but that he did not prevent it.

For that theft, as it came to men, had at that time some benefit — not that the one who stole it had this advantage in view, but because providence directed the outcome of the audacious deed toward what was beneficial.

I know that many persistently attack us, saying also that that which does not prevent is a cause.

For they say that the one who did not guard, or did not prevent, is the cause of the theft — just as the one who did not extinguish the terrible fire when it began is the cause of the conflagration, and the pilot who did not take in the sail is the cause of the shipwreck.

Accordingly, those responsible for these things are punished by the law.

For to him who had the power to prevent, to him also is attached the responsibility for what occurred.

We say, then, in reply to them, that a cause is understood to consist in doing, working, and acting; whereas that which does not prevent is, in this very respect, inoperative.

Further, the cause is bound up with the activity, just as the shipwright is bound up with the making of the vessel, and the builder with the building of the house.

But that which does not prevent is separate from that which comes to be.

It is accordingly brought about for this reason: that the one able to prevent neither acts nor prevents.

For what does the one who does not prevent actually do? Indeed, their argument already proceeds to absurdity, if they are going to blame, not the arrow, but the shield that did not prevent the arrow from passing through, for the wounding.

For in that case they would blame, not the thief, but the one who did not prevent the theft.

And thus, when they say it was not Hector who set fire to the ships of the Greeks, but Achilles, because, though able to prevent Hector, he did not prevent him.

But he, on account of his wrath — and it was in his power both to hold his wrath and not to — did indeed fail to keep off the fire, and so is perhaps a joint cause.

But the devil, being possessed of free will, was able both to repent and to steal; and he himself is the cause of the theft, not the Lord who did not prevent it.

But neither was the giving of it harmful, such that prevention should have followed.

But if we must speak with precision against them, let them know that that which is not preventive — which we say occurred in the case of the theft — is not a cause at all, whereas that which is preventive is liable to the charge of being a cause.

For the one who holds his shield before another is the cause to the one so shielded of his not being wounded, by preventing him from being wounded; and to Socrates the divine sign was a cause, not by failing to prevent, but by turning him away, even though it did not urge him on.

Neither praises nor censures, neither honors nor punishments, would be just, if the soul did not have authority over impulse and its withdrawal, but vice were involuntary.

Hence the one who prevents is a cause, while the one who does not prevent leaves the judgment to the soul's own choice.

Justly so, that God, as far as possible, may remain for us guiltless of evil.

But since it is choice and impulse that initiate sins, and mistaken supposition sometimes prevails — from which, being ignorance and lack of learning, we are negligent to depart — he might reasonably punish (for indeed to have a fever is involuntary...

but when someone has a fever through his own fault and through lack of self-control, we hold him responsible) — even so is vice also, though it be involuntary.

For no one chooses evil as evil; but, being carried away by the pleasure connected with it, and supposing it to be good, he considers it something to be seized upon.

This being so, it lies in our own power to be freed both from ignorance and from that base yet pleasurable choice, and — before these — not to give our assent to those deceitful appearances.

The devil is said to have mixed false prophets in among the prophets, just as tares among the wheat.

All, then, who came before the Lord are thieves and robbers — not simply all men, but all the false prophets, and all who were not properly sent by him.

The false prophets also possessed the stolen thing, the prophetic name — being prophets, not of the Lord, but of the liar.

The Lord says: 'You are of your father the devil, and it is your father's desires that you wish to do.'

'He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him.'

'Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own, for he is a liar, and the father of lies.'

But among their falsehoods the false prophets also spoke certain true things, and indeed they prophesied in a state of ecstasy, as being ministers of the apostate.

The Shepherd, too, the angel of repentance, says to Hermas concerning the false prophet:

'For he speaks certain true words.'

'For the devil fills him with his own spirit, in case he may be able to break down any of the righteous.'

All things, then, are administered from above unto good, so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might be made known, according to the eternal purpose which he wrought in Christ.

But nothing is opposed to God, nor does anything stand against him, since he is Lord and Almighty.

But even the counsels and activities of those who have apostatized, being partial, arise indeed from an evil disposition, just as bodily diseases also do.

But they are governed by the universal providence toward a healthful end, even though the cause be disease-producing.

It is, then, the greatest work of divine providence not to allow the evil that has sprung from voluntary apostasy to remain useless and unprofitable, nor indeed to become altogether harmful.

For it is the work of divine wisdom and virtue and power not only to do good — for this is, so to speak, the very nature of God, as it is of fire to warm and of light to illuminate — but especially also this: to bring about, through the evils devised by some, some good and beneficial end, and to make beneficial use of what seems base, just as also with the testimony that comes from trial.

There is, then, even in philosophy — stolen, as it were, by a Prometheus — a little fire, usefully kindled up into a light fit for its purpose, a certain trace of wisdom and a movement concerning God.

Perhaps, then, those philosophers among the Greeks, and those before the Lord's advent who received portions of truth from the Hebrew prophets not with true acknowledgment, but appropriated them as their own doctrines — some things corrupting, some ignorantly sophisticating out of officious curiosity, and some also discovering for themselves — might indeed be thieves and robbers.

For perhaps they too possessed a spirit of perception.

Aristotle also agreed with Scripture when he called sophistry a thing that steals from wisdom, as we have already indicated.

The apostle says: 'The things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in words taught by the Spirit.'

For concerning the prophets, scripture says: 'Of his fullness we have all received' — evidently, the fullness of Christ.

So that the prophets are not thieves.

And the Lord says: 'My teaching is not mine, but the Father's who sent me.'

But concerning those who steal, he says: 'He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory.'

And such are the Greeks — self-loving and boastful.

But Scripture, in calling them 'wise,' is not accusing those who are truly wise, but those who merely seem wise.

'And of these,' it says, 'I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and set aside the understanding of the prudent.'

The apostle accordingly adds:

'Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age?' — in contradistinction to the scribes, he ranks 'the seekers of this age' as the philosophers from among the Gentiles.

'Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?' — equivalent to saying that he showed it to be foolish and not true, as they had imagined it to be.

And if you inquire the cause of their vain conceit of wisdom, he will tell you it is on account of the hardening of their heart.

As it stands proclaimed: the world did not know him — that is, God — through 'the wisdom' that speaks through the prophets; therefore this God was pleased, through 'the foolishness of preaching' — the foolishness that seems to the Greeks to be foolishness — 'to save those who believe.'

'Since,' he says, 'the Jews require signs for belief, and the Greeks seek wisdom' — namely, the so-called demonstrative arguments and other syllogisms — 'but we preach Christ Jesus crucified: to the Jews a stumbling block' — because, though knowing the prophecy, they do not believe its fulfillment — 'but to the Greeks foolishness.'

For those who merely seem wise consider it a myth that the Son of God should speak through a man, that God should have a Son, and moreover that this Son should have suffered.

Hence their preconceived conceit persuades them to disbelieve.

For the coming of the Savior did not make people foolish, hard-hearted, and unbelieving, but rather understanding, obedient, and moreover faithful.

But those who were unwilling to be persuaded were shown, by their separation from the voluntary inclination of those who obeyed, to be both unintelligent, unbelieving, and foolish.

But to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God.

Should we not then — and this is indeed the better view — take the negative sense of the statement 'Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?' as equivalent to 'he did not make it foolish,' lest the cause of their hard-heartedness should appear to have come from God, as though he were the one who made their wisdom foolish? For on the contrary, though they were wise, they have incurred the greater blame precisely because they did not believe the preaching.

For both the choice and the turning away from the truth are voluntary.

But also by 'I will destroy the wisdom of the wise' he means that it is outshone by comparison with the despised and disdained barbarian philosophy, just as a lamp, when outshone by the sun, is said to have perished, because it no longer performs the same function.

Since, then, all men have been called, those who were willing to obey were named 'the called.'

For there is no unrighteousness with God.

Accordingly, those from both races who believed — these are a peculiar people.

And in the Acts of the Apostles you may find it word for word:

'Those, then, who received his word were baptized,' while those who were unwilling to be persuaded evidently withdrew of their own accord.

To these the prophecy says:

'If you are willing and obey me, you shall eat the good things of the land' — proving that both the choice and the turning away lie within our own power.

By 'the wisdom of God' the apostle meant the teaching concerning the Lord, calling it wisdom in order to show that the true philosophy is handed down through the Son.

But indeed even the one who merely seems wise has certain exhortations, namely those in the apostle bidding one 'put on the new man, created according to God in righteousness and holiness of truth.'

'Therefore, putting away falsehood, speak the truth.'

'Do not give place to the devil.'

'Let him who steals steal no longer, but rather let him labor, working what is good.'

And 'to labor' means to strive earnestly in seeking the truth; for, along with rational well-doing, it is 'that you may have something to share with him who is in need' — of both worldly abundance and divine wisdom.

For he wants the word to be thoroughly taught, and the silver, once carefully assayed, to be put out with the bankers for lending at interest.

'Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth' — that corrupt word is the one born of conceit — 'but if there be any good one for edifying as need is, that it may give grace to the hearers.'

And necessarily, since God is good, the Word must also be good.

And how is the one who saves not good? ... That the Greeks, too, are attested to teach certain true doctrines, one may observe even from this.

Paul is recorded in the Acts of the Apostles as saying to the Areopagites:

'I perceive that you are very religious in all things.'

'For as I passed by and observed the objects of your worship, I found an altar on which was inscribed:'

'What therefore you worship without knowing it, this I declare to you.'

'He does not dwell in temples made with hands, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, seeing he himself gives to all life and breath and all things.'

'And he made from one every nation of men to dwell upon the whole face of the earth, having determined their appointed seasons and the boundaries of their habitation, that they should seek God, if perhaps they might feel after him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.'

'For in him we live and move and have our being, as even some of your own poets have said.'

From which it is clear that, even in using poetic examples from the Phaenomena of Aratus, he approves what has been well said among the Greeks; and by speaking of the 'unknown God,' he hinted that the Creator God is honored by the Greeks only under a circumlocution, whereas full knowledge of him must be received and learned through the Son.

'I have sent you therefore to the Gentiles,' he says, 'to open their eyes, that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in me.' These 'opened eyes of the blind,' then, are the knowledge of the Father through the Son — the full apprehension of what the Greek circumlocution only grasped indirectly; and the 'turning from the power of Satan' is a change away from sin, on account of which slavery had come about.

We do not, however, simply accept all philosophy, but that concerning which Socrates too, in Plato, speaks:

'For indeed, as those concerned with the mysteries say, many are the thyrsus-bearers, but few the bacchants' — hinting thereby at the many who are called but the few who are chosen.

'And these are, in my opinion, none other than those who have practiced philosophy rightly.'

'Of these I too, as far as possible, have left nothing undone in my life, but have striven in every way to become one of them.'

'But whether I strove rightly and accomplished anything, we shall know for certain when we arrive there, God willing, a little later.'

Does it not seem to you that, on the basis of faith drawn from the Hebrew Scriptures, he is making plain the hope of the righteous man after death? And in the Demodocus too — if indeed that treatise is Plato's — he says: 'Perhaps this is not what it means to philosophize — to live stooping over the arts, nor to be widely learned — but something else, since for my part I used to think it even a reproach to be so.'

For he knew, I think, that, as Heraclitus says, 'much learning does not teach one to have understanding.'

And in the fifth book of the Republic: 'Shall we then class all these, and others who study such things, together with the philosophers of the petty arts, as philosophers?' 'By no means,' I said, 'but as resembling philosophers.'

'But whom do you mean by the true ones?' he said. 'Those,' I said, 'who are lovers of the vision of truth.'

For philosophy is not found in geometry, which has postulates and hypotheses, nor in music, which is merely conjectural, nor in astronomy, which is filled with natural, fluctuating, and probable accounts — but is the knowledge of the good itself and of truth, those other studies being different from the good, yet being, as it were, roads toward the good.

So that he himself does not grant that general education contributes to the good, but only that it helps to rouse and jointly exercise the soul toward the things of the intellect.

Whether, then, they say the Greeks uttered certain sayings of the true philosophy by mere chance — that 'chance' is a matter of divine providence (for no one will deify blind fortune on account of its beneficence toward us) — or whether by coincidence, that coincidence is not without providence.

Or again, if one should say that the Greeks possessed a natural conception of God, we know that the Creator of nature is one — just as we have also called righteousness natural; or if one should say they possessed a common reason, let us consider who is the father of this reason, and of the righteousness manifested in its distribution.

For if one speaks of an 'anticipatory utterance' and appeals to a 'concurrent utterance,' one is speaking of kinds of prophecy.

Yes indeed, others wish it to be said that certain things were spoken to the philosophers according to a reflection of truth.

The divinely inspired apostle, then, writes concerning us:

beholding together, as far as possible, the efficient cause.

'For,' he says, 'you have seen your brother, you have seen your God.'

I think the Savior is here called 'God' for us at present.

But after the laying aside of the flesh, we shall see face to face, then indeed definitely and comprehensibly, when the heart has become pure.

And by way of reflection and glimmering, those among the Greeks who philosophized with precision do discern God.

For such are the appearances of truth that come through weakness, just as sight beholds the things seen in water, and things seen through transparent and translucent bodies.

Well then does Solomon say, 'He who sows righteousness produces faith.'

'And there are those who sow their own who make more.'

'Attend to the green things in the field, and you shall shear the grass, and gather the ripened hay, that you may have sheep for clothing.'

You see how one must also take thought for outward covering and protection.

'But you shall surely know the souls of your flock.'

'For when the Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature the things of the law, these, not having the law, are a law to themselves' — the uncircumcision keeping the requirements of the law, according to the apostle, both before the law and before the advent.

Making, as it were, a comparison between those who come from philosophy and those called heretics, the discourse says quite plainly: 'Better is a friend nearby than a brother dwelling far away.'

But he who leans upon lies, this man shepherds the winds and pursues winged birds.

I do not think the discourse here means philosophy — although in many things philosophy does attempt plausibilities and is persuasive — but rather it is lashing the heresies.

For he has forsaken the paths of his own vineyard, and has strayed from the tracks of his own farm.

These are the ones who abandon the church that has existed from the beginning.

At once the one who has fallen into heresy passes through a waterless desert, having forsaken the God who truly is, bereft of God, seeking waterless water, journeying into the uninhabitable and thirsty land, ... gathering barrenness with his hands.

'And to those lacking understanding I proclaim,' says Wisdom — meaning, evidently, those attached to the heresies — 'gladly partake of hidden bread and the sweet water of theft' — bread and water spoken not of certain others, but clearly of those heresies which, in their offering, make use of bread and water not according to the rule of the church, as Scripture plainly ordains.

For there are some who even give thanks over plain water alone in the Eucharist.

'But leap away, do not linger in her place.'

He calls the place 'the synagogue,' and does not, by an equivocal use of the name, call it 'church.'