Let us add in completion what follows, and exhibit now with greater
clearness the plagiarism of the Greeks from the Barbarian philosophy.
Now the Stoics say that God, like the soul, is essentially body and
spirit. You will find all this explicitly in their writings. Do not
consider at present their allegories as the gnostic truth presents
them; whether they show one thing and mean another, like the dexterous
athletes. Well, they say that God pervades all being; while we call Him
solely Maker, and Maker by the Word. They were misled by what is said
in the book of Wisdom: "He pervades and passes through all by reason of
His purity;" [3108] since they did not understand that this was said of
Wisdom, which was the first of the creation of God.
So be it, they say. But the philosophers, the Stoics, and Plato, and
Pythagoras, nay more, Aristotle the Peripatetic, suppose the existence
of matter among the first principles; and not one first principle. Let
them then know that what is called matter by them, is said by them to
be without quality, and without form, and more daringly said by Plato
to be non-existence. And does he not say very mystically, knowing that
the true and real first cause is one, in these very words: "Now, then,
let our opinion be so. As to the first principle or principles of the
universe, or what opinion we ought to entertain about all these points,
we are not now to speak, for no other cause than on account of its
being difficult to explain our sentiments in accordance with the
present form of discourse." But undoubtedly that prophetic expression,
"Now the earth was invisible and formless," supplied them with the
ground of material essence.
And the introduction of "chance" was hence suggested to Epicurus, who
misapprehended the statement, "Vanity of vanities, and all is vanity."
And it occurred to Aristotle to extend Providence as far as the moon
from this psalm: "Lord, Thy mercy is in the heavens; and Thy truth
reacheth to the clouds." [3109] For the explanation of the prophetic
mysteries had not yet been revealed previous to the advent of the Lord.
Punishments after death, on the other hand, and penal retribution by
fire, were pilfered from the Barbarian philosophy both by all the
poetic Muses and by the Hellenic philosophy. Plato, accordingly, in the
last book of the Republic, says in these express terms: "Then these men
fierce and fiery to look on, standing by, and hearing the sound, seized
and took some aside; and binding Aridæus and the rest hand, foot, and
head, and throwing them down, and flaying them, dragged them along the
way, tearing their flesh with thorns." For the fiery men are meant to
signify the angels, who seize and punish the wicked. "Who maketh," it
is said, "His angels spirits; His ministers flaming fire." [3110] It
follows from this that the soul is immortal. For what is tortured or
corrected being in a state of sensation lives, though said to suffer.
Well! Did not Plato know of the rivers of fire and the depth of the
earth, and Tartarus, called by the Barbarians Gehenna, naming, as he
does prophetically, [3111] Cocytus, and Acheron, and Pyriphlegethon,
and introducing such corrective tortures for discipline?
But indicating "the angels" as the Scripture says, "of the little ones,
and of the least, which see God," and also the oversight reaching to us
exercised by the tutelary angels, [3112] he shrinks not from writing,
"That when all the souls have selected their several lives, according
as it has fallen to their lot, they advance in order to Lachesis; and
she sends along with each one, as his guide in life, and the joint
accomplisher of his purposes, the demon which he has chosen." Perhaps
also the demon of Socrates suggested to him something similar.
Nay, the philosophers. having so heard from Moses, taught that the
world was created. [3113] And so Plato expressly said, "Whether was it
that the world had no beginning of its existence, or derived its
beginning from some beginning? For being visible, it is tangible; and
being tangible, it has a body." Again, when he says, "It is a difficult
task to find the Maker and Father of this universe," he not only showed
that the universe was created, but points out that it was generated by
him as a son, and that he is called its father, as deriving its being
from him alone, and springing from non-existence. The Stoics, too, hold
the tenet that the world was created.
And that the devil so spoken of by the Barbarian philosophy, the prince
of the demons, is a wicked spirit, Plato asserts in the tenth book of
the Laws, in these words: "Must we not say that spirit which pervades
the things that are moved on all sides, pervades also heaven? Well,
what? One or more? Several, say I, in reply for you. Let us not suppose
fewer than two--that which is beneficent, and that which is able to
accomplish the opposite." Similarly in the Phoedrus he writes as
follows: "Now there are other evils. But some demon has mingled
pleasure with the most things at present." Further, in the tenth book
of the Laws, he expressly emits that apostolic sentiment, [3114] "Our
contest is not with flesh and blood, but principalities, with powers,
with the spiritual things of those which are in heaven;" writing thus:
"For since we are agreed that heaven is full of many good beings; but
it is also full of the opposite of these, and more of these; and as we
assert such a contest is deathless, and requiring marvellous
watchfulness."
Again the Barbarian philosophy knows the world of thought and the world
of sense--the former archetypal, and the latter the image of that which
is called the model; and assigns the former to the Monad, as being
perceived by the mind, and the world of sense to the number six. For
six is called by the Pythagoreans marriage, as being the genital
number; and he places in the Monad the invisible heaven and the holy
earth, and intellectual light. For "in the beginning," it is said, "God
made the heaven and the earth; and the earth was invisible." And it is
added, "And God said, Let there be light; and there was light." [3115]
And in the material cosmogony He creates a solid heaven (and what is
solid is capable of being perceived by sense), and a visible earth, and
a light that is seen. Does not Plato hence appear to have left the
ideas of living creatures in the intellectual world, and to make
intellectual objects into sensible species according to their genera?
Rightly then Moses says, that the body which Plato calls "the earthly
tabernacle" was formed of the ground, but that the rational soul was
breathed by God into man's face. For there, they say, the ruling
faculty is situated; interpreting the access by the senses into the
first man as the addition of the soul.
Wherefore also man is said "to have been made in [God's] image and
likeness." For the image of God is the divine and royal Word, the
impassible man; and the image of the image is the human mind. And if
you wish to apprehend the likeness by another name, you will find it
named in Moses, a divine correspondence. For he says, "Walk after the
Lord your God, and keep His commandments." [3116] And I reckon all the
virtuous, servants and followers of God. Hence the Stoics say that the
end of philosophy is to live agreeable to nature; and Plato, likeness
to God, as we have shown in the second Miscellany. And Zeno the Stoic,
borrowing from Plato, and he from the Barbarian philosophy, says that
all the good are friends of one another. For Socrates says in the
Phoedrus, "that it has not been ordained that the bad should be a
friend to the bad, nor the good be not a friend to the good;" as also
he showed sufficiently in the Lysis, that friendship is never preserved
in wickedness and vice. And the Athenian stranger similarly says, "that
there is conduct pleasing and conformable to God, based on one ancient
ground-principle, That like loves like, provided it be within measure.
But things beyond measure are congenial neither to what is within nor
what is beyond measure. Now it is the case that God is the measure to
us of all things." Then proceeding, Plato [3117] adds: "For every good
man is like every other good man; and so being like to God, he is liked
by every good man and by God." At this point I have just recollected
the following. In the end of the Timæus he says: "You must necessarily
assimilate that which perceives to that which is perceived, according
to its original nature; and it is by so assimilating it that you attain
to the end of the highest life proposed by the gods to men, [3118] for
the present or the future time." For those have equal power with these.
He, who seeks, will not stop till he find; and having found, he will
wonder; and wondering, he will reign; and reigning, he will rest. And
what? Were not also those expressions of Thales derived from these? The
fact that God is glorified for ever, and that He is expressly called by
us the Searcher of hearts, he interprets. For Thales being asked, What
is the divinity? said, What has neither beginning nor end. And on
another asking, "If a man could elude the knowledge of the Divine Being
while doing aught?" said, "How could he who cannot do so while
thinking?"
Further, the Barbarian philosophy recognises good as alone excellent,
and virtue as sufficient for happiness, when it says, "Behold, I have
set before your eyes good and evil, life and death, that ye may choose
life." [3119] For it calls good, "life," and the choice of it
excellent, and the choice of the opposite "evil." And the end of good
and of life is to become a lover of God: "For this is thy life and
length of days," to love that which tends to the truth. And these
points are yet clearer. For the Saviour, in enjoining to love God and
our neighbour, says, "that on these two commandments hang the whole law
and the prophets." Such are the tenets promulgated by the Stoics; and
before these, by Socrates, in the Phoedrus, who prays, "O Pan, and ye
other gods, give me to be beautiful within." And in the Theoetetus he
says expressly, "For he that speaks well (kalos) is both beautiful and
good." And in the Protagoras he avers to the companions of Protagoras
that he has met with one more beautiful than Alcibiades, if indeed that
which is wisest is most beautiful. For he said that virtue was the
soul's beauty, and, on the contrary, that vice was the soul's
deformity. Accordingly, Antipatrus the Stoic, who composed three books
on the point, "That, according to Plato, only the beautiful is good,"
shows that, according to him, virtue is sufficient for happiness; and
adduces several other dogmas agreeing with the Stoics. And by
Aristobulus, who lived in the time of Ptolemy Philadelphus, who is
mentioned by the composer of the epitome of the books of the Maccabees,
there were abundant books to show that the Peripatetic philosophy was
derived from the law of Moses and from the other prophets. Let such be
the case.
Plato plainly calls us brethren, as being of one God and one teacher,
in the following words: "For ye who are in the state are entirely
brethren (as we shall say to them, continuing our story). But the God
who formed you, mixed gold in the composition of those of you who are
fit to rule, at your birth, wherefore you are most highly honoured; and
silver in the case of those who are helpers; and steel and brass in the
case of farmers and other workers." Whence, of necessity, some embrace
and love those things to which knowledge pertains; and others matters
of opinion. Perchance he prophesies of that elect nature which is bent
on knowledge; if by the supposition he makes of three natures he does
not describe three politics, as some supposed: that of the Jews, the
silver; that of the Greeks, the third; and that of the Christians, with
whom has been mingled the regal gold, the Holy Spirit, the golden.
[3120]
And exhibiting the Christian life, he writes in the Theætetus in these
words: "Let us now speak of the highest principles. For why should we
speak of those who make an abuse of philosophy? These know neither the
way to the forum, nor know they the court or the senate-house, or any
other public assembly of the state. As for laws and decrees spoken or
[3121] written, they neither see nor hear them. But party feelings of
political associations and public meetings, and revels with musicians
[occupy them]; but they never even dream of taking part in affairs. Has
any one conducted himself either well or ill in the state, or has aught
evil descended to a man from his forefathers?--it escapes their
attention as much as do the sands of the sea. And the man does not even
know that he does not know all these things; but in reality his body
alone is situated and dwells in the state, [3122] while the man himself
flies, according to Pindar, beneath the earth and above the sky,
astronomizing, and exploring all nature on all sides.
Again, with the Lord's saying, "Let your yea be yea, and your nay nay,"
may be compared the following: "But to admit a falsehood, and destroy a
truth, is in nowise lawful." With the prohibition, also, against
swearing agrees the saying in the tenth book of the Laws: "Let praise
and an oath in everything be absent."
And in general, Pythagoras, and Socrates, and Plato say that they hear
God's voice while closely contemplating the fabric of the universe,
made and preserved unceasingly by God. For they heard Moses say, "He
said, and it was done," describing the word of God as an act.
And founding on the formation of man from the dust, the philosophers
constantly term the body earthy. Homer, too, does not hesitate to put
the following as an imprecation:-"But may you all become earth and water."
As Esaias says, "And trample them down as clay." And Callimachus
clearly writes:-"That was the year in which
Birds, fishes, quadrupeds,
Spoke like Prometheus' clay."
And the same again:-"If thee Prometheus formed,
And thou art not of other clay."
Hesiod says of Pandora:-"And bade Hephæstus, famed, with all his speed,
Knead earth with water, and man's voice and mind
Infuse."
The Stoics, accordingly, define nature to be artificial fire, advancing
systematically to generation. And God and His Word are by Scripture
figuratively termed fire and light. But how? Does not Homer himself, is
not Homer himself, paraphrasing the retreat of the water from the land,
and the clear uncovering of the dry land, when he says of Tethys and
Oceanus:-"For now for a long time they abstain from
Each other's bed and love?" [3123]
Again, power in all things is by the most intellectual among the Greeks
ascribed to God; Epicharmus--he was a Pythagorean--saying:-"Nothing escapes the divine. This it behoves thee to know.
He is our observer. To God nought is impossible."
And the lyric poet:-"And God from gloomy night
Can raise unstained light,
And can in darksome gloom obscure
The day's refulgence pure."
He alone who is able to make night during the period of day is God.
In the Phoenomena Aratus writes thus:-"With Zeus let us begin; whom let us ne'er,
Being men, leave unexpressed. All full of Zeus,
The streets, and throngs of men, and full the sea,
And shores, and everywhere we Zeus enjoy."
He adds:-"For we also are
His offspring; . . . . "
that is, by creation.
"Who, bland to men,
Propitious signs displays, and to their tasks
Arouses. For these signs in heaven He fixed,
The constellations spread, and crowned the year
With stars; to show to men the seasons' tasks,
That all things may proceed in order sure.
Him ever first, Him last too, they adore:
Hail Father, marvel great--great boon to men."
And before him, Homer, framing the world in accordance with Moses on
the Vulcan-wrought shield, says:-"On it he fashioned earth, and sky, and sea,
And all the signs with which the heaven is crowned." [3124]
For the Zeus celebrated in poems and prose compositions leads the mind
up to God. And already, so to speak, Democritus writes, "that a few men
are in the light, who stretch out their hands to that place which we
Greeks now call the air. Zeus speaks all, and he hears all, and
distributes and takes away, and he is king of all." And more mystically
the Boeotian Pindar, being a Pythagorean, says:-"One is the race of gods and men,
And of one mother both have breath;"
that is, of matter: and names the one creator of these things, whom he
calls Father, chief artificer, who furnishes the means of advancement
on to divinity, according to merit.
For I pass over Plato; he plainly, in the Epistle to Erastus and
Coriscus, is seen to exhibit the Father and Son somehow or other from
the Hebrew Scriptures, exhorting in these words: "In invoking by oath,
with not illiterate gravity, and with culture, the sister of gravity,
God the author of all, and invoking Him by oath as the Lord, the Father
of the Leader, and author; whom if ye study with a truly philosophical
spirit, ye shall know." And the address in the Timoeus calls the
creator, Father, speaking thus: "Ye gods of gods, of whom I am Father;
and the Creator of your works." So that when he says, "Around the king
of all, all things are, and because of Him are all things; and he [or
that] is the cause of all good things; and around the second are the
things second in order; and around the third, the third," I understand
nothing else than the Holy Trinity to be meant; for the third is the
Holy Spirit, and the Son is the second, by whom all things were made
according to the will of the Father. [3125]
And the same, in the tenth book of the Republic, mentions Eros the son
of Armenius, who is Zoroaster. Zoroaster, then, writes: "These were
composed by Zoroaster, the son of Armenius, a Pamphylian by birth:
having died in battle, and been in Hades, I learned them of the gods."
This Zoroaster, Plato says, having been placed on the funeral pyre,
rose again to life in twelve days. He alludes perchance to the
resurrection, or perchance to the fact that the path for souls to
ascension lies through the twelve signs of the zodiac; and he himself
says, that the descending pathway to birth is the same. In the same way
we are to understand the twelve labours of Hercules, after which the
soul obtains release from this entire world.
I do not pass over Empedocles, who speaks thus physically of the
renewal of all things, as consisting in a transmutation into the
essence of fire, which is to take place. And most plainly of the same
opinion is Heraclitus of Ephesus, who considered that there was a world
everlasting, and recognised one perishable--that is, in its
arrangement, not being different from the former, viewed in a certain
aspect. But that he knew the imperishable world which consists of the
universal essence to be everlastingly of a certain nature, he makes
clear by speaking thus: "The same world of all things, neither any of
the gods, nor any one of men, made. But there was, and is, and will be
ever-living fire, kindled according to measure, [3126] and quenched
according to measure." And that he taught it to be generated and
perishable, is shown by what follows: "There are transmutations of
fire,--first, the sea; and of the sea the half is land, the half fiery
vapour." For he says that these are the effects of power. For fire is
by the Word of God, which governs all things, changed by the air into
moisture, which is, as it were, the germ of cosmical change; and this
he calls sea. And out of it again is produced earth, and sky, and all
that they contain. How, again, they are restored and ignited, he shows
clearly in these words: "The sea is diffused and measured according to
the same rule which subsisted before it became earth." Similarly also
respecting the other elements, the same is to be understood. The most
renowned of the Stoics teach similar doctrines with him, in treating of
the conflagration and the government of the world, and both the world
and man properly so called, and of the continuance of our souls.
Plato, again, in the seventh book of the Republic, has called "the day
here nocturnal," as I suppose, on account of "the world-rulers of this
darkness;" [3127] and the descent of the soul into the body, sleep and
death, similarly with Heraclitus. And was not this announced,
oracularly, of the Saviour, by the Spirit, saying by David, "I slept,
and slumbered; I awoke: for the Lord will sustain me;" [3128] For He
not only figuratively calls the resurrection of Christ rising from
sleep; but to the descent of the Lord into the flesh he also applies
the figurative term sleep. The Saviour Himself enjoins, "Watch;" [3129]
as much as to say, "Study how to live, and endeavour to separate the
soul from the body."
And the Lord's day Plato prophetically speaks of in the tenth book of
the Republic, in these words: "And when seven days have passed to each
of them in the meadow, on the eighth they are to set out and arrive in
four days." [3130] By the meadow is to be understood the fixed sphere,
as being a mild and genial spot, and the locality of the pious; and by
the seven days each motion of the seven planets, and the whole
practical art which speeds to the end of rest. But after the wandering
orbs the journey leads to heaven, that is, to the eighth motion and
day. And he says that souls are gone on the fourth day, pointing out
the passage through the four elements. But the seventh day is
recognised as sacred, not by the Hebrews only, but also by the Greeks;
according to which the whole world of all animals and plants revolve.
Hesiod says of it:-"The first, and fourth, and seventh day were held sacred."
And again:-"And on the seventh the sun's resplendent orb."
And Homer:-"And on the seventh then came the sacred day."
And:-"The seventh was sacred."
And again:-"It was the seventh day, and all things were accomplished."
And again:-"And on the seventh morn we leave the stream of Acheron."
Callimachus the poet also writes:-"It was the seventh morn, and they had all things done."
And again:-"Among good days is the seventh day, and the seventh race."
And:-"The seventh is among the prime, and the seventh is perfect."
And:-"Now all the seven were made in starry heaven,
In circles shining as the years appear."
The Elegies of Solon, too, intensely deify the seventh day.
And how? Is it not similar to Scripture when it says, "Let us remove
the righteous man from us, because he is troublesome to us?" [3131]
when Plato, all but predicting the economy of salvation, says in the
second book of the Republic as follows: "Thus he who is constituted
just shall be scourged, shall be stretched on the rack, shall be bound,
have his eyes put out; and at last, having suffered all evils, shall be
crucified." [3132]
And the Socratic Antisthenes, paraphrasing that prophetic utterance,
"To whom have ye likened me? saith the Lord," [3133] says that "God is
like no one; wherefore no one can come to the knowledge of Him from an
image."
Xenophon too, the Athenian, utters these similar sentiments in the
following words: "He who shakes all things, and is Himself immoveable,
is manifestly one great and powerful. But what He is in form, appears
not. No more does the sun, who wishes to shine in all directions, deem
it right to permit any one to look on himself. But if one gaze on him
audaciously, he loses his eyesight."
"What flesh can see with eyes the Heavenly, True,
Immortal God, whose dwelling is the poles?
Not even before the bright beams of the sun
Are men, as being mortal, fit to stand,"-the Sibyl had said before. Rightly, then, Xenophanes of Colophon,
teaching that God is one and incorporeal, adds:-"One God there is 'midst gods and men supreme;
In form, in mind, unlike to mortal men."
And again:-"But men have the idea that gods are born,
And wear their clothes, and have both voice and shape."
And again:-"But had the oxen or the lions hands,
Or could with hands depict a work like men,
Were beasts to draw the semblance of the gods,
The horses would them like to horses sketch,
To oxen, oxen, and their bodies make
Of such a shape as to themselves belongs."
Let us hear, then, the lyric poet Bacchylides speaking of the divine:-"Who to diseases dire [3134] never succumb,
And blameless are; in nought resembling men."
And also Cleanthes, the Stoic, who writes thus in a poem on the Deity:
[3135] -"If you ask what is the nature of the good, listen-That which is regular, just, holy, pious,
Self-governing, useful, fair, fitting,
Grave, independent, always beneficial,
That feels no fear or grief, profitable, painless,
Helpful, pleasant, safe, friendly,
Held in esteem, agreeing with itself: honourable,
Humble, careful, meek, zealous,
Perennial, blameless, ever-during."
And the same, tacitly vilifying the idolatry of the multitude, adds:-"Base is every one who looks to opinion,
With the view of deriving any good from it."
We are not, then, to think of God according to the opinion of the
multitude.
"For I do not think that secretly,
Imitating the guise of a scoundrel,
He would go to thy bed as a man,"
says Amphion to Antiope. And Sophocles plainly writes:-"His mother Zeus espoused,
Not in the likeness of gold, nor covered
With swan's plumage, as the Pleuronian girl
He impregnated; but an out and out man."
He further proceeds, and adds:-"And quick the adulterer stood on the bridal steps."
Then he details still more plainly the licentiousness of the fabled
Zeus:-"But he nor food nor cleansing water touched,
But heart-stung went to bed, and that whole night
Wantoned."
But let these be resigned to the follies of the theatre.
Heraclius plainly says: "But of the word which is eternal men are not
able to understand, both before they have heard it, and on first
hearing it." And the lyrist Melanippides says in song:-"Hear me, O Father, Wonder of men,
Ruler of the ever-living soul."
And Parmenides the great, as Plato says in the Sophist, writes of God
thus:-"Very much, since unborn and indestructible He is,
Whole, only-begotten, and immoveable, and unoriginated."
Hesiod also says:-"For He of the immortals all is King and Lord.
With God [3136] none else in might may strive."
Nay more, Tragedy, drawing away from idols, teaches to look up to
heaven. Sophocles, as Hecatæus, who composed the histories in the work
about Abraham and the Egyptians, says, exclaims plainly on the stage:-"One in very truth, God is One,
Who made the heaven and the far-stretching earth,
The Deep's blue billow, and the might of winds.
But of us mortals, many erring far
In heart, as solace for our woes, have raised
Images of gods--of stone, or else of brass,
Or figures wrought of gold or ivory;
And sacrifices and vain festivals
To these appointing, deem ourselves devout."
And Euripides on the stage, in tragedy, says:-"Dost thou this lofty, boundless Ether see,
Which holds the earth around in the embrace
Of humid arms? This reckon Zeus,
And this regard as God."
And in the drama of Pirithous, the same writes those lines in tragic
vein:-"Thee, self-sprung, who on Ether's wheel
Hast universal nature spun,
Around whom Light and dusky spangled Night,
The countless host of stars, too, ceaseless dance."
For there he says that the creative mind is self-sprung. What follows
applies to the universe, in which are the opposites of light and
darkness.
Æschylus also, the son of Euphorion, says with very great solemnity of
God:-"Ether is Zeus, Zeus earth, and Zeus the heaven;
The universe is Zeus, and all above."
I am aware that Plato assents to Heraclitus, who writes: "The one thing
that is wise alone will not be expressed, and means the name of Zeus."
And again, "Law is to obey the will of one." And if you wish to adduce
that saying, "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear," you will find
it expressed by the Ephesian [3137] to the following effect: "Those
that hear without understanding are like the deaf. The proverb
witnesses against them, that when present they are absent."
But do you want to hear from the Greeks expressly of one first
principle? Timæus the Locrian, in the work on Nature, shall testify in
the following words: "There is one first principle of all things
unoriginated. For were it originated, it would be no longer the first
principle; but the first principle would be that from which it
originated." For this true opinion was derived from what follows:
"Hear," it is said, "O Israel; the Lord thy God is one, and Him only
shalt thou serve." [3138]
"Lo [3139] He all sure and all unerring is,"
says the Sibyl.
Homer also manifestly mentions the Father and the Son by a happy hit of
divination in the following words:-"If Outis, [3140] alone as thou art, offers thee violence,
And there is no escaping disease sent by Zeus,-For the Cyclopes heed not Ægis-bearing Zeus." [3141]
And before him Orpheus said, speaking of the point in hand:-"Son of great Zeus, Father of Ægis-bearing Zeus."
And Xenocrates the Chalcedonian, who mentions the supreme Zeus and the
inferior Zeus, leaves an indication of the Father and the Son. Homer,
while representing the gods as subject to human passions, appears to
know the Divine Being, whom Epicurus does not so revere. He says
accordingly:-"Why, son of Peleus, mortal as thou art,
With swift feet me pursuest, a god
Immortal? Hast thou not yet known
That I am a god?" [3142]
For he shows that the Divinity cannot be captured by a mortal, or
apprehended either with feet, or hands, or eyes, or by the body at all.
"To whom have ye likened the Lord? or to what likeness have ye likened
Him?" says the Scripture. [3143] Has not the artificer made the image?
or the goldsmith, melting the gold, has gilded it, and what follows.
The comic poet Epicharmus speaks in the Republic clearly of the Word in
the following terms:-"The life of men needs calculation and number alone,
And we live by number and calculation, for these save mortals." [3144]
He then adds expressly:-"Reason governs mortals, and alone preserves manners."
Then:-"There is in man reasoning; and there is a divine Reason. [3145]
Reason is implanted in man to provide for life and sustenance,
But divine Reason attends the arts in the case of all,
Teaching them always what it is advantageous to do.
For it was not man that discovered art, but God brought it;
And the Reason of man derives its origin from the divine Reason."
The Spirit also cries by Isaiah: "Wherefore the multitude of
sacrifices? saith the Lord. I am full of holocausts of rams, and the
fat of lambs and the blood of bulls I wish not;" and a little after
adds: "Wash you, and be clean. Put away wickedness from your souls,"
[3146] and so forth.
Menander, the comic poet, writes in these very words:-"If one by offering sacrifice, a crowd
Of bulls or kids, O Pamphilus, by Zeus.
Or such like things; by making works of art,
Garments of gold or purple, images
Of ivory or emerald, deems by these
God can be made propitious, he does err,
And has an empty mind. For the man must prove
A man of worth, who neither maids deflowers,
Nor an adulterer is, nor steals, nor kills
For love of worldly wealth, O Pamphilus.
Nay, covet not a needle's thread. For God
Thee sees, being near beside thee." . . . [3147]
"I am a God at hand," it is said by Jeremiah, [3148] "and not a God
afar off. Shall a man do aught in secret places, and I shall not see
him?"
And again Menander, paraphrasing that Scripture, "Sacrifice a sacrifice
of righteousness, and trust in the Lord," [3149] thus writes:-"And not a needle even that is
Another's ever covet, dearest friend;
For God in righteous works delights, and so
Permits him to increase his worldly wealth,
Who toils, and ploughs the land both night and day.
But sacrifice to God, and righteous be,
Shining not in bright robes, but in thy heart;
And when thou hear'st the thunder, do not flee,
Being conscious to thyself of nought amiss,
Good sir, for thee God ever present sees." [3150]
"Whilst thou art yet speaking," says the Scripture, "I will say, Lo,
here I am." [3151]
Again Diphilus, the comic poet, discourses as, follows on the
judgment:-"Think'st thou, O Niceratus, that the dead,
Who in all kinds of luxury in life have shared,
Escape the Deity, as if forgot?
There is an eye of justice, which sees all.
For two ways, as we deem, to Hades lead-One for the good, the other for the bad.
But if the earth hides both for ever, then
Go plunder, steal, rob, and be turbulent.
But err not. For in Hades judgment is,
Which God the Lord of all will execute,
Whose name too dreadful is for me to name,
Who gives to sinners length of earthly life.
If any mortal thinks, that day by day,
While doing ill, he eludes the gods' keen sight,
His thoughts are evil; and when justice has
The leisure, he shall then detected be
So thinking. Look, whoe'er you be that say
That there is not a God. There is, there is.
If one, by nature evil, evil does,
Let him redeem the time; for such as he
Shall by and by due punishment receive." [3152]
And with this agrees the tragedy [3153] in the following lines:-"For there shall come, shall come [3154] that point of time,
When Ether, golden-eyed, shall ope its store
Of treasured fire; and the devouring flame,
Raging, shall burn all things on earth below,
And all above." ...
And after a little he adds:-"And when the whole world fades,
And vanished all the abyss of ocean's waves,
And earth of trees is bare; and wrapt in flames,
The air no more begets the winged tribes;
Then He who all destroyed, shall all restore."
We shall find expressions similar to these also in the Orphic hymns,
written as follows:-"For having hidden all, brought them again
To gladsome light, forth from his sacred heart,
Solicitous."
And if we live throughout holily and righteously, we are happy here,
and shall be happier after our departure hence; not possessing
happiness for a time, but enabled to rest in eternity.
"At the same hearth and table as the rest
Of the immortal gods, we sit all free
Of human ills, unharmed,"
says the philosophic poetry of Empedocles. And so, according to the
Greeks, none is so great as to be above judgment, none so insignificant
as to escape its notice.
And the same Orpheus speaks thus:-"But to the word divine, looking, attend,
Keeping aright the heart's receptacle
Of intellect, and tread the straight path well,
And only to the world's immortal King
Direct thy gaze." [3155]
And again, respecting God, saying that He was invisible, and that He
was known to but one, a Chaldean by race--meaning either by this
Abraham or his son--he speaks as follows:-"But one a scion of Chaldean race;
For he the sun's path knew right well,
And how the motion of the sphere about
The earth proceeds, in circle moving
Equally around its axis, how the winds
Their chariot guide o'er air and sea."
Then, as if paraphrasing the expression, "Heaven is my throne, and
earth is my footstool," [3156] he adds:-"But in great heaven, He is seated firm
Upon a throne of gold, and 'neath His feet
The earth. His right hand round the ocean's bound
He stretches; and the hills' foundations shake
To the centre at His wrath, nor can endure
His mighty strength. He all celestial is,
And all things finishes upon the earth.
He the Beginning, Middle is, and End.
But Thee I dare not speak. In limbs
And mind I tremble. He rules from on high."
And so forth. For in these he indicates these prophetic utterances: "If
Thou openest the heaven, trembling shall seize the mountains from Thy
presence; and they shall melt, as wax melteth before the fire;" [3157]
and in Isaiah, "Who hath measured the heaven with a span, and the whole
earth with His fist? [3158] Again, when it is said:-"Ruler of Ether, Hades, Sea, and Land,
Who with Thy bolts Olympus' strong-built home
Dost shake. Whom demons dread, and whom the throng
Of gods do fear. Whom, too, the Fates obey,
Relentless though they be. O deathless One,
Our mother's Sire! whose wrath makes all things reel;
Who mov'st the winds, and shroud'st in clouds the world,
Broad Ether cleaving with Thy lightning gleams,-Thine is the order 'mongst the stars, which run
As Thine unchangeable behests direct.
Before Thy burning throne the angels wait,
Much-working, charged to do all things, for men.
Thy young Spring shines, all prank'd with purple flowers;
Thy Winter with its chilling clouds assails;
Thine Autumn noisy Bacchus distributes."
Then he adds, naming expressly the Almighty God:-"Deathless Immortal, capable of being
To the immortals only uttered! Come,
Greatest of gods, with strong Necessity.
Dread, invincible, great, deathless One,
Whom Ether crowns." ...
By the expression "Sire of our Mother" (metropator) he not only
intimates creation out of nothing, but gives occasion to those who
introduce emissions of imagining a consort of the Deity. And he
paraphrases those prophetic Scripture--that in Isaiah, "I am He that
fixes the thunder, and creates the wind; whose hands have founded the
host of heaven;" [3159] and that in Moses, "Behold, behold that I am
He, and there is no god beside me: I will kill, and I will make to
live; I will smite, and I will heal: and there is none that shall
deliver out of my hands." [3160]
"And He, from good, to mortals planteth ill,
And cruel war, and tearful woes,"
according to Orpheus.
Such also are the words of the Parian Archilochus.
"O Zeus, thine is the power of heaven, and thou
Inflict'st on men things violent and wrong." [3161]
Again let the Thracian Orpheus sing to us:-"His right hand all around to ocean's bound
He stretches; and beneath His feet is earth."
These are plainly derived from the following: "The Lord will save the
inhabited cities, and grasp the whole land in His hand like a nest;"
[3162] "It is the Lord that made the earth by His power," as saith
Jeremiah, "and set up the earth by His wisdom." [3163] Further, in
addition to these, Phocylides, who calls the angels demons, explains in
the following words that some of them are good, and others bad (for we
also have learned that some are apostate):-"Demons there are--some here, some there--set over men;
Some, on man's entrance [into life], to ward off ill."
Rightly, then, also Philemon, the comic poet demolishes idolatry in
these words:-"Fortune is no divinity to us:
There's no such god. But what befalls by chance
And of itself to each, is Fortune called."
And Sophocles the tragedian says:-"Not even the gods have all things as they choose,
Excepting Zeus; for he beginning is and end."
And Orpheus:-"One Might, the great, the flaming heaven, was
One Deity. All things one Being were; in whom
All these revolve fire, water, and the earth."
And so forth.
Pindar, the lyric poet, as if in Bacchic frenzy, plainly says:-"What is God? The All."
And again:-"God, who makes all mortals."
And when he says,-"How little, being a man, dost thou expect
Wisdom for man? 'Tis hard for mortal mind
The counsels of the gods to scan; and thou
Wast of a mortal mother born,"
he drew the thought from the following: "Who hath known the mind of the
Lord, or who was His counsellor?" [3164] Hesiod, too, agrees with what
is said above, in what he writes:-"No prophet, sprung of men that dwell on earth,
Can know the mind of Ægis-bearing Zeus."
Similarly, then, Solon the Athenian, in the Elegies, following Hesiod,
writes:-"The immortal's mind to men is quite unknown."
Again Moses, having prophesied that the woman would bring forth in
trouble and pain, on account of transgression, a poet not
undistinguished writes:-"Never by day
From toil and woe shall they have rest, nor yet
By night from groans. Sad cares the gods to men
Shall give."
Further, when Homer says,-"The Sire himself the golden balance held," [3165]
he intimates that God is just.
And Menander, the comic poet, in exhibiting God, says:-"To each man, on his birth, there is assigned
A tutelary Demon, as his life's good guide.
For that the Demon evil is, and harms
A good life, is not to be thought."
Then he adds:-"Hapanta d' hagathon heinai ton Theon,"
meaning either "that every one good is God," or, what is preferable,
"that God in all things is good."
Again, Æschylus the tragedian, setting forth the power of God, does not
shrink from calling Him the Highest, in these words:-"Place God apart from mortals; and think not
That He is, like thyself, corporeal.
Thou know'st Him not. Now He appears as fire,
Dread force; as water now; and now as gloom;
And in the beasts is dimly shadowed forth,
In wind, and cloud, in lightning, thunder, rain;
And minister to Him the seas and rocks,
Each fountain and the water's floods and streams.
The mountains tremble, and the earth, the vast
Abyss of sea, and towering height of hills,
When on them looks the Sovereign's awful eye:
Almighty is the glory of the Most High God." [3166]
Does he not seem to you to paraphrase that text, "At the presence of
the Lord the earth trembles?" [3167] In addition to these, the most
prophetic Apollo is compelled--thus testifying to the glory of God--to
say of Athene, when the Medes made war against Greece, that she
besought and supplicated Zeus for Attica. The oracle is as follows:-"Pallas cannot Olympian Zeus propitiate,
Although with many words and sage advice she prays;
But he will give to the devouring fire many temples of the immortals,
Who now stand shaking with terror, and bathed in sweat;" [3168]
and so forth.
Thearidas, in his book On Nature, writes: "There was then one really
true beginning [first principle] of all that exist"--one. For that
Being in the beginning is one and alone."
"Nor is there any other except the Great King,"
says Orpheus. In accordance with whom, the comic poet Diphilus says
very sententiously, [3169] the
"Father of all,
To Him alone incessant reverence pay,
The inventor and the author of such blessings."
Rightly therefore Plato "accustoms the best natures to attain to that
study which formerly we said was the highest, both to see the good and
to accomplish that ascent. And this, as appears, is not the throwing of
the potsherds; [3170] but the turning round of the soul from a
nocturnal day to that which is a true return to that which really is,
which we shall assert to be the true philosophy." Such as are partakers
of this he judges [3171] to belong to the golden race, when he says:
"Ye are all brethren; and those who are of the golden race are most
capable of judging most accurately in every respect." [3172]
The Father, then, and Maker of all things is apprehended by all things,
agreeably to all, by innate power and without teaching,--things
inanimate, sympathizing with the animate creation; and of living beings
some are already immoral, working in the light of day. But of those
that are still mortal, some are in fear, and carried still in their
mother's womb; and others regulate themselves by their own independent
reason. And of men all are Greeks and Barbarians. But no race anywhere
of tillers of the soil, or nomads, and not even of dwellers in cities,
can live, without being imbued with the faith of a superior being.
[3173] Wherefore every eastern nation, and every nation touching the
western shore; or the north, and each one towards the south, [3174]
--all have one and the same preconception respecting Him who hath
appointed government; since the most universal of His operations
equally pervade all. Much more did the philosophers among the Greeks,
devoted to investigation, starting from the Barbarian philosophy,
attribute providence [3175] to the "Invisible, and sole, and most
powerful, and most skilful and supreme cause of all things most
beautiful;"--not knowing the inferences from these truths, unless
instructed by us, and not even how God is to be known naturally; but
only, as we have already often said, by a true periphrasis. [3176]
Rightly therefore the apostle says, "Is He the God of the Jews only,
and not also of the Greeks?"--not only saying prophetically that of the
Greeks believing Greeks would know God; [3177] but also intimating that
in power the Lord is the God of all, and truly Universal King. For they
know neither what He is, nor how He is Lord, and Father, and Maker, nor
the rest of the system of the truth, without being taught by it. Thus
also the prophetic utterances have the same force as the apostolic
word. For Isaiah says, "If ye say, We trust in the Lord our God: now
make an alliance with my Lord the king of the Assyrians." And he adds:
"And now, was it without the Lord that we came up to this land to make
war against it?" [3178] And Jonah, himself a prophet, intimates the
same thing in what he says: "And the shipmaster came to him, and said
to him, Why dost thou snore? Rise, call on thy God, that He may save
us, and that we may not perish." [3179] For the expression "thy God" he
makes as if to one who knew Him by way of knowledge; and the
expression, "that God may save us," revealed the consciousness in the
minds of heathens who had applied their mind to the Ruler of all, but
had not yet believed. And again the same: "And he said to them, I am
the servant of the Lord; and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven." And
again the same: "And he said, Let us by no means perish for the life of
this man." And Malachi the prophet plainly exhibits God saying, "I will
not accept sacrifice at your hands. For from the rising of the sun to
its going down, My name is glorified among the Gentiles; and in every
place sacrifice is offered to Me." [3180] And again: "Because I am a
great King, saith the Lord omnipotent; and My name is manifest among
the nations." What name? The Son declaring the Father among the Greeks
who have believed.
Plato in what follows gives an exhibition of free-will: "Virtue owns
not a master; and in proportion as each one honours or dishonours it,
in that proportion he will be a partaker of it. The blame lies in the
exercise of free choice." But God is blameless. For He is never the
author of evil.
"O warlike Trojans," says the lyric poet, [3181] -"High ruling Zeus, who beholds all things,
Is not the cause of great woes to mortals;
But it is in the power of all men to find
Justice, holy, pure,
Companion of order,
And of wise Themis
The sons of the blessed are ye
In finding her as your associate."
And Pindar expressly introduces also Zeus Soter, the consort of Themis,
proclaiming him King, Saviour, Just, in the following lines:-"First, prudent Themis, of celestial birth,
On golden steeds, by Ocean's rock,
The Fates brought to the stair sublime,
The shining entrance of Olympus,
Of Saviour Zeus for aye [3182] to be the spouse,
And she, the Hours, gold-diademed, fair-fruited, good, brought forth."
[3183]
He, then, who is not obedient to the truth, and is puffed up with human
teaching, is wretched and miserable, according to Euripides:-"Who these things seeing, yet apprehends not God,
But mouthing lofty themes, casts far
Perverse deceits; stubborn in which, the tongue
Its shafts discharges, about things unseen,
Devoid of sense."
Let him who wishes, then, approaching to the true instruction, learn
from Parmenides the Eleatic, who promises:-"Ethereal nature, then, and all the signs
In Ether thou shall know, and the effects,
All viewless, of the sacred Sun's clear torch
And whence produced. The round-eyed Moon's
Revolving influences and nature thou
Shall learn; and the ensphering heaven shall know;
Whence sprung; and how Necessity took it
And chained so as to keep the starry bounds."
And Metrodorus, though an Epicurean, spoke thus, divinely inspired:
"Remember, O Menestratus, that, being a mortal endowed with a
circumscribed life, thou hast in thy soul ascended, till thou hast seen
endless time, and the infinity of things; and what is to be, and what
has been;" when with the blessed choir, according to Plato, we shall
gaze on the blessed sight and vision; we following with Zeus, and
others with other deities, if we may be permitted so to say, to receive
initiation into the most blessed mystery: which we shall celebrate,
ourselves being perfect and untroubled by the ills which awaited us at
the end of our time; and introduced to the knowledge of perfect and
tranquil visions, and contemplating them in pure sunlight; we ourselves
pure, and now no longer distinguished by that, which, when carrying it
about, we call the body, being bound to it like an oyster to its shell.
The Pythagoreans call heaven the Antichthon [the opposite Earth]. And
in this land, it is said by Jeremiah, "I will place thee among the
children, and give thee the chosen land as inheritance of God
Omnipotent;" [3184] and they who inherit it shall reign over the earth.
Myriads on myriads of examples [3185] rush on my mind which might
adduce. But for the sake of symmetry the discourse must now stop, in
order that we may not exemplify the saying of Agatho the tragedian:-"Treating our by-work as work,
And doing our work as by-work."
It having been, then, as I think, clearly shown in what way it is to be
understood that the Greeks were called thieves by the Lord, I willingly
leave the dogmas of the philosophers. For were we to go over their
sayings, we should gather together directly such a quantity of notes,
in showing that the whole of the Hellenic wisdom was derived from the
Barbarian philosophy. But this speculation, we shall, nevertheless,
again touch on, as necessity requires, when we collect the opinions
current among the Greeks respecting first principles.
But from what has been said, it tacitly devolves on us to consider in
what way the Hellenic books are to be perused by the man who is able to
pass through the billows in them. Therefore
"Happy is he who possesses the wealth of the divine mind,"
as appears according to Empedocles,
"But wretched he, who cares for dark opinion about the Gods."
He divinely showed knowledge and ignorance to be the boundaries of
happiness and misery. "For it behoves philosophers to be acquainted
with very many things," according to Heraclitus; and truly must
"He, who seeks to be good, err in many things."
It is then now clear to us, from what has been said, that the
beneficence of God is eternal, and that, from an unbeginning principle,
equal natural righteousness reached all, according to the worth of each
several race,--never having had a beginning. For God did not make a
beginning of being Lord and Good, being always what He is. Nor will He
ever cease to do good, although He bring all things to an end. And each
one of us is a partaker of His beneficence, as far as He wills. For the
difference of the elect is made by the intervention of a choice worthy
of the soul, and by exercise.
Thus, then, let our fifth Miscellany of gnostic notes in accordance
with the true philosophy be brought to a close.
__________________________________________________________________
[3108] Wisd. vii. 24.
[3109] Ps. xxxvi. 5.
[3110] Ps. civ. 4.
[3111] Eusebius reads poietikos.
[3112] [Guardian angels. Matt. xviii. 10.]
[3113] geneton.
[3114] [Compare Tayler Lewis, Plato against the Atheists, p. 342.]
[3115] Gen. i. 1-3.
[3116] Deut. xiii. 4.
[3117] The text has palin: Eusebius reads Platon.
[3118] The text has anthroto: Plato and Eusebius, anthropois.
[3119] Deut. xxx. 15, 19, 20.
[3120] ten chrusen is supplied, according to a very probably
conjecture.
[3121] "Spoken or" supplied from Plato and Eusebius.
[3122] monon en te polei is here supplied from Plato. [Note in Migne.]
[3123] Iliad, xiv. 206.
[3124] Iliad, xviii, 483.
[3125] [On the Faith, see p. 444, [97]note 6, supra.]
[3126] Metra is the reading of the text, but is plainly an error for
metro, which is the reading of Eusebius.
[3127] Eph. vi. 12.
[3128] Ps. iii. 5.
[3129] Matt. xxiv. 42, etc.
[3130] [The bearing of this passage on questions of Sabbatical and
Dominical observances, needs only to be indicated.]
[3131] Wisd. ii. 12.
[3132] [See Leighton, Works, vol. v. p. 62, the very rich and copious
note of the editor, William West, of Nairn, Scotland. [98]Elucidation
IX.]
[3133] Isa. xl. 18, 25.
[3134] H. Stephanus, in his Fragments of Bacchylides, reads aikeleion
(foul) instead of aei kai lian of the text.
[3135] Quoted in Exhortation to the Heathen, p. 192, ante, and is here
corrected from the text there.
[3136] This is quoted in Exhortation to the Heathen, p. 192, ch. vii.
The reading varies, and it has been variously amended. Theo is
substituted above for seo. Perhaps the simplest of the emendations
proposed on this passage is the change of seo into soi, with Thee.
[3137] Heraclitus
[3138] Deut vi. 4.
[3139] See Exhortation, p. 194, where for "So" read "Lo."
[3140] "Houtis, Noman, Nobody: a fallacious name assumed by Ulysses
(with a primary allusion to ms, tis, metis, Odyss., xx. 20), to deceive
Polyphemus."--Liddell and Scott. The third line is 274 of same book.
[3141] Odyss., ix. 410.
[3142] Iliad. xxii. 8.
[3143] Isa. xl. 18, 25.
[3144] All these lines from Epicharmus: they have been rendered as
amended by Grotius.
[3145] logos [or Word].
[3146] Isa. i. 11, 16.
[3147] This passage, with four more lines, is quoted by Justin Martyr
[De Monarchia, vol. i. p. 291, this series], and ascribed by him to
Philemon.
[3148] Jer. xxiii. 23, 24.
[3149] Ps. iv. 5.
[3150] In Justin Martyr, in the place above quoted, these lines are
joined to the preceding. They are also quoted by Eusebius, but
differently arranged. The translation adopts the arrangement of
Grotius.
[3151] Isa. lxv. 24.
[3152] These lines are quoted by Justin (De Monarchia [vol. i. p. 291,
this series]), but ascribed by him part to Philemon, part to Euripides.
[3153] Ascribed by Justin to Sophocles.
[3154] Adopting the reading keinos instead of kainos in the text.
[3155] Quoted in Exhortation, p. 193.
[3156] Isa. lxvi. 1.
[3157] Isa. lxiv. 1, 2; xl. 12.
[3158] [On the Orphica, see Lewis' Plato cont. Ath., p. 99.]
[3159] Amos iv. 13.
[3160] Deut. xxxii. 39.
[3161] For ouranous oras we read anthropous (which is the reading of
Eusebius); and dres (Sylburgius's conjecture), also from Eusebius,
instead of ha themis athemista.
[3162] Isa. x. 14.
[3163] Jer. x. 12.
[3164] Isa. xl. 13.
[3165] Iliad, viii. 69.
[3166] These lines of Æschylus are also quoted by Justyn Martyr (De
Monarchia, vol. i. p. 290). Dread force, aplatos horme: Eusebius reads
horme, dative. J. Langus has suggested (aplastos) uncreated; aplestos
(insatiate) has also been suggested. The epithet of the text, which
means primarily unapproachable, then dread or terrible, is applied by
Pindar to fire.
[3167] Ps. lxviii. 8. [Comp. Coleridge's Hymn in Chamounix.]
[3168] This Pythian oracle is given by Herodotus, and is quoted also by
Eusebius and Theodoret.
[3169] gnomikotata. Eusebius reads geniikotaton, agreeing with patera.
[3170] A game in which a potsherd with a black and white side was cast
on a line; and as the black or white turned up, one of the players fled
and the other pursued.
[3171] Eusebius has krinei, which we have adopted, for krinein of the
text.
[3172] Plato, Rep., book vii.
[3173] [Pearson, On the Creed, p. 47.]
[3174] According to the reading in Eusebius, pan ethnos heoon pan de
hesperion eonon, boreion te kai to, k.t.l.
[3175] Instead of pronoian, Eusebius has pronomian (privilege).
[3176] Clement seems to mean that they knew God only in a roundabout
and inaccurate way. The text has periphasin; but periphrasin, which is
in Eusebius, is preferable.
[3177] [See p. 379, [99]Elucidation I., supra.]
[3178] Isa xxxvi. 7, 8, 10.
[3179] Jonah i. 6, 9, 14.
[3180] Mal. i. 10, 11, 14. [The prophetic present-future.]
[3181] Perhaps Bacchylides.
[3182] archaian.
[3183] The reading of H. Stephanus, agathas Horas, is adopted in the
translation. The text has agatha soteras. Some supply Oras, and at the
same time retain soteras.
[3184] Jer. iii. 19.
[3185] [This strong testimony of Clement is worthy of special note.]
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
Elucidations.
I.
(Clement's Hebrew, p. 446, [100]note 8.)
On this matter having spoken in a former Elucidation (see
[101]Elucidation VIII. p. 443), I must here translate a few words from
Philo Judæus. He says, "Before Abram was called, such was his name; but
afterward he was named Abraam, by the simple duplication of one letter,
which nevertheless enfolds a great significance. For Abram is expounded
to mean sublime father, but Abraam means elect father of sound." Philo
goes on to give his personal fancies in explication of this whim. But,
with Clement, Philo was an expert, to whom all knowledge was to be
credited in his specialty. This passage, however, confirms the opinion
of those who pronounce Clement destitute of Hebrew, even in its
elements. No need to say that Abram means something like what Philo
gives us, but Abraham is expounded in the Bible itself (Genesis 17:3).
The text of the LXX, seems to have been dubious to our author's mind,
and hence he fails back on Philo. But this of itself appears decisive
as to Clement's Hebrew scholarship.
II.
(The Beetle, cap. iv. p. 449, [102]note 6.)
Cicero notes the scarabæus on the tongue, as identifying Apis, [3186]
the calf-god of the Egyptians. Now, this passage of our author seems to
me to clear up the Scriptural word gillulim in Deut. xxix. 17, where
the English margin reads, literally enough, dungy-gods. The word means,
things rolled about (Lev. xxvi. 30; Hab. ii. 18, 19; 1 Kings xv. 12);
on which compare Leighton (St. Peter, pp. 239, 746, and note).
Scripture seems to prove that this story of Clement's about the beetle
of the Egyptians, was known to the ancient Hebrews, and was the point
in their references to the gillulim (see Herod., book iii. cap. 28., or
Rawlinson's Trans., vol. ii. 353). The note in Migne ad loc. is also
well-worthy to be consulted.
III.
(The Tetrad, cap. vi. p. 452, [103]note 4.)
It is important to observe that "the patriarchal dispensation," as we
too carelessly speak, is pluralized by Clement. He clearly
distinguishes the three patriarchal dispensations, as given in Adam,
Noah, and Abraham; and then comes the Mosaic. The editor begs to be
pardoned for referring to his venerated and gifted father's division
(sustained by Clement's authority), which he used to insist should be
further enlarged so as to subdivide the first and the last, making
seven complete, and thus honouring the system of sevens which runs
through all Scripture. Thus Adam embraces Paradise, and the first
covenant after the fall; and the Christian covenant embraces a
millennial period. So that we have (1) Paradise, (2) Adam, (3) Noah (4)
Abraham, (5) Moses, (6) Christ (7) a millennial period, preluding the
Judgment and the Everlasting Kingdom. My venerated and most erudite
instructor in theology, the late Dr. Jarvis, in his Church of the
Redeemed, expounds a dispensation as identified by (1) a covenant,
original or renewed, (2) a sign or sacrament, and (3) a closing
judgment. (See pp. 4, 5, and elsewhere in the great work I have named.)
Thus (1) the Tree of Life, (2) the institution of sacrifice, (3) the
rainbow, (4) circumcision, (5) the ark, (6) the baptismal and
eucharistic sacraments, and (7) the same renewed and glorified by the
conversion of nations are the symbols. The covenants and the judgments
are easily identified, ending with the universal Judgment.
Dr. Jarvis died, leaving his work unfinished; but the Church of the
Redeemed is a book complete in itself, embodying the results of a vast
erudition, and of a devout familiarity with Scripture. It begins with
Adam, and ends with the downfall of Jerusalem (the typical judgment),
which closed the Mosaic dispensation. It is written in a pellucid
style, and with a fastidious use of the English language; and it is the
noblest introduction to the understanding of the New Testament, with
which I am acquainted. That such a work should be almost unknown in
American literature, of which it should be a conspicuous ornament, is a
sad commentary upon the taste of the period when it was given to the
public. [3187]
IV.
(The Golden Candlestick, cap. vi. p. 452, [104]note 6.)
The seven gifts of the Spirit seem to be prefigured in this symbol,
corresponding to the seven (spirits) lamps before the throne in the
vision of St. John (see Rev. i. 4, iii. 1, iv. 5, and v. 6; also Isa.
xi. 1, 2, and Zech. iii. 9, and iv. 10). The prediction of Isaiah
intimates the anointing of Jesus at his baptism, and the outpouring of
these gifts upon the Christian Church.
V.
(Symbols, cap. vi. p. 453, note 3.)
Clement regards the symbols of the divine law as symbols merely, and
not images in the sense of the Decalogue. Whatever we may think of this
distinction, his argument destroys the fallacy of the Trent Catechism,
which pleads the Levitical symbols in favour of images in "the likeness
of holy things," and which virtually abrogates the second commandment.
Images of God the Father (crowned with the Papal tiara) are everywhere
to be seen in the Latin churches, and countless images of all heavenly
things are everywhere worshipped under the fallacy which Clement
rejects. Pascal exposes the distinctions without a difference, by which
God's laws are evacuated of all force in Jesuit theology; but the
hairsplitting distinctions, about "bowing down to images and
worshipping them," which infect the Trent theology, are equal to the
worst of Pascal's instances. [3188] It is with profound regret that I
insert this testimony; but it seems necessary, because garblings of
patristic authorities, which begin to appear in America, make an
accurate and intelligent study of the Ante-Nicene Fathers a necessity
for the American theologian.
VI.
(Perfection, cap. x. p. 459, [105]note 2.)
The teleioi of the ancient canons were rather the complete than the
perfect, as understood by the ancients. Clement's Gnostic is
"complete," and goes on to moral perfection. Now, does not St. Paul
make a similar distinction between babes in Christ, and those "complete
in Him?"(Col. ii. 10.) The pepleromenoi of this passage, referring to
the "thoroughly furnished" Christian (fully equipped for his work and
warfare), has thrown light on many passages of the fathers and of the
old canons, in my experience; and I merely make the suggestion for what
it may be worth. See Bunsen's Church and Home Book (Hippol., iii. 82,
83, et seqq.) for the rules (1) governing all Christians, and (2) those
called "the faithful," by way of eminence. So, in our days, not all
believers are communicants.
VII.
(The Unknown God, cap. xii. p. 464, [106]note 1.)
Must we retain "too superstitious," even in the Revised Version? (Which
see ad loc.) Bunsen's rendering of deisidaimonia, by demon-fear, [3189]
is not English; but it suggests the common view of scholars, upon the
passage, and leads me to suppose that the learned and venerable company
of revisers could not agree on any English that would answer. That St.
Paul paid the Athenians a compliment, as devout in their way, i.e., God
fearing towards their divinities, will not be denied. Clement seems to
have so understood it, and hence his constant effort to show that we
must recognise, in dealing with Gentiles, whatever of elementary good
God has permitted to exist among them. May we not admit this principle,
at least so far as to believe that Divine Providence led the Athenians
to set up the very inscription which was to prompt Christ's apostle to
an ingenious interpretation, and to an equally ingenious use of it, so
avoiding a direct conflict with their laws? This they had charged on
him (Acts xvii. 18), as before on Socrates.
VIII.
(Xenocrates and Democritus, cap. xiii. p. 465, note 3.)
My grave and studious reader will forgive me, here, for a reference to
Stromata of a widely different sort. Dulce est desipere, etc. One
sometimes finds instruction and relief amid the intense nonsense of
"agnostic" and other "philosophies" of our days, in turning to a
healthful intellect which "answers fools according to their folly." I
confess myself an occasional reader of the vastly entertaining and
suggestive Noctes of Christopher North, which may be excused by the
famous example of a Father of the Church, who delighted in
Aristophanes. [3190] To illustrate this passage of Clement, then, let
me refer to Professor Wilson's intense sympathy with animals. See the
real eloquence of his reference to the dogs of Homer and of Sir Walter
Scott. [3191] "The Ettrick Shepherd" somewhere wondered, whether some
dogs are not gifted with souls; and, in the passage referred to, it is
asked, whether the dog of Ulysses could have been destitute of an
immortal spirit. On another occasion, Christopher breaks out with
something like this: "Let me prefer the man who thinks so, to the
miserable atheist whose creed is dust." He looks upon his dog "Fro,"
and continues (while the noble animal seems listening), "Yes, better a
thousand times, O Fro, to believe that my faithful dog shall bear me
company,' than that the soul of a Newton perishes at death," etc. How
often have I regaled myself with the wholesome tonic of such dog loving
sport, after turning with disgust from some God hating and
mandestroying argument of "modern science," falsely so called.
IX.
(Plato's Prophecy, cap. xiv. p. 470, [107]note 2.)
My references at this point are worthy of being enlarged upon. I
subjoin the following as additional. On this sublime passage, Jones of
Nayland remarks, [3192] "The greatest moral philosopher of the Greeks
declared, with a kind of prescience, that, if a man perfectly just were
to come upon earth, he would be impoverished and scourged, and bound as
a criminal; and, when he had suffered all manner of indignities, would
be put to the shameful death of (suspension or) crucifixion." "Several
of the Fathers," he adds, "have taken notice of this extraordinary
passage in Plato, looking upon it as a prediction of the sufferings of
the Just One, Jesus Christ." He refers us to Grotius (De Veritate, iv.
sec. 12) and to Meric Casaubon (On Credulity, p. 135). The passage from
Plato (Rep., ii. 5) impressed the mind of Cicero. (See his Rep., iii.
17.)
__________________________________________________________________
[3186] De Nat. Deor., ed. Delphin., vol. xiv. p. 852.
[3187] Boston, 1850.
[3188] In the Provincial Letters, passim.
[3189] Hippol., vol. iii. p. 200.
[3190] Chrysostom.
[3191] Vol. iv. pp. 104-107.
[3192] Works, vol. iv. p. 205.
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
The Stromata, or Miscellanies
Book VI.
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
