found Him, to declare Him fully, is impossible.”[65]

Why so? by Himself, I beseech you! For He can by no means be
expressed. Well done, Plato! Thou hast touched on the truth. But do
not flag. Undertake with me the inquiry respecting the Good. For into
all men whatever, especially those who are occupied with intellectual
pursuits, a certain divine effluence has been instilled; wherefore,
though reluctantly, they confess that God is one, indestructible,
unbegotten, and that somewhere above in the tracts of heaven, in His
own peculiar appropriate eminence, whence He surveys all things, He has
an existence true and eternal.

    “Tell me what I am to conceive God to be,
    Who sees all things, and is Himself unseen,”

Euripides says. Accordingly, Menander seems to me to have fallen into
error when he said:

    “O sun! for thou, first of gods, ought to be worshipped,
    By whom it is that we are able to see the other gods,”

For the sun never could show me the true God; but that healthful Word,
that is the Sun of the soul, by whom alone, when He arises in the
depths of the soul, the eye of the soul itself is irradiated. Whence
accordingly, Democritus, not without reason, says, “that a few of the
men of intellect, raising their hands upwards to what we Greeks now
call the air (ηέρ), called the whole expanse Zeus, or God: He, too,
knows all things, gives and takes away, and He is King of all.”

Of the same sentiments is Plato, who somewhere alludes to God thus:
“Around the King of all are all things, and He is the cause of all good
things.” Who, then, is the King of all? God, who is the measure of the
truth of all existence. As, then, the things that are to be measured
are contained in the measure, so also the knowledge of God measures
and comprehends truth. And the truly holy Moses says: “There shall not
be in thy bag a balance and a balance, great or small, but a true and
just balance shall be to thee,”[66] deeming the balance and measure
and number of the whole to be God. For the unjust and unrighteous
idols are hid at home in the bag, and, so to speak, in the polluted
soul. But the only just measure is the only true God, always just,
continuing the self-same; who measures all things, and weighs them by
righteousness as in a balance, grasping and sustaining universal nature
in equilibrium. “God, therefore, as the old saying has it, occupying
the beginning, the middle, and the end of all that is in being, keeps
the straight course, while He makes the circuit of nature; and justice
always follows Him, avenging those who violate the divine law.”

Whence, O Plato, is that hint of the truth which thou givest? Whence
this rich copiousness of diction, which proclaims piety with oracular
utterance? The tribes of the barbarians, he says, are wiser than these;
I know thy teachers, even if thou wouldst conceal them. You have
learned geometry from the Egyptians, astronomy from the Babylonians;
the charms of healing you have got from the Thracians; the Assyrians
also have taught you many things; but for the laws that are consistent
with truth, and your sentiments respecting God, you are indebted to the
Hebrews,

    “Who do not worship through vain deceits
    The works of men, of gold, and brass, and silver, and ivory,
    And images of dead men, of wood and stone,
    Which other men, led by their foolish inclinations, worship;
    But raise to heaven pure arms:
    When they rise from bed, purifying themselves with water,
    And worship alone the Eternal, who reigns for evermore.”

And let it not be this one man alone--Plato; but, O philosophy,
hasten to produce many others also, who declare the only true God to
be God, through His inspiration, if in any measure they have grasped
the truth. For Antisthenes did not think out this doctrine of the
Cynics; but it is in virtue of his being a disciple of Socrates that
he says, “that God is not like to any; wherefore no one can know Him
from an image.” And Xenophon the Athenian would have in his own person
committed freely to writing somewhat of the truth, and given the same
testimony as Socrates, had he not been afraid of the cup of poison,
which Socrates had to drink. But he hints nothing less; he says: “How
great and powerful He is who moves all things, and is Himself at rest,
is manifest; but what He is in form is not revealed. The sun himself,
intended to be the source of light to all around, does not deem it
fitting to allow himself to be looked at; but if any one audaciously
gazes on him, he is deprived of sight.” Whence, then, does the son of
Gryllus learn his wisdom? Is it not manifestly from the prophetess of
the Hebrews,[67] who prophesies in the following style?--

    “What flesh can see with the eye the celestial,
    The true, the immortal God, who inhabits the vault of heaven?
    Nay, men born mortal cannot even stand
    Before the rays of the sun.”

Cleanthes Pisadeus,[68] the Stoic philosopher, who exhibits not a
poetic theogony, but a true theology, has not concealed what sentiments
he entertained respecting God:

    “If you ask me 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:
    Mean is every one who looks to opinion
    With the view of obtaining some advantage from it.”

Here, as I think, he clearly teaches of what nature God is; and that
the common opinion and religious customs enslave those that follow
them, but seek not after God.

We must not either keep the Pythagoreans in the background, who say:
“God is one; and He is not, as some suppose, outside of this frame of
things, but within it; but, in all the entireness of His being, is
in the whole circle of existence, surveying all nature, and blending
in harmonious union the whole,--the author of all His own forces and
works, the giver of light in heaven, and Father of all,--the mind and
vital power of the whole world,--the mover of all things.” For the
knowledge of God, these utterances, written by those we have mentioned
through the inspiration of God, and selected by us, may suffice even
for the man that has but small power to examine into truth.

                             CHAPTER VII.

              THE POETS ALSO BEAR TESTIMONY TO THE TRUTH.

Let poetry also approach to us (for philosophy alone will not suffice):
poetry which is wholly occupied with falsehood--which scarcely will
make confession of the truth, but will rather own to God its deviations
into fable. Let whoever of those poets chooses advance first. Aratus
considers that the power of God pervades all things:

    “That all may be secure,
    Him ever they propitiate first and last,
    Hail, Father! great marvel, great gain to man.”

Thus also the Ascræan Hesiod dimly speaks of God:

    “For He is the King of all, and monarch
    Of the immortals; and there is none that may vie with Him in power.”

Also on the stage they reveal the truth:

    “Look on the ether and heaven, and regard that as God,”

says Euripides. And Sophocles, the son of Sophilus, says:

    “One, in truth, one is God,
    Who made both heaven and the far-stretching earth,
    And ocean’s blue wave, and the mighty winds;
    But many of us mortals, deceived in heart,
    Have set up for ourselves, as a consolation in our afflictions,
    Images of the gods of stone, or wood, or brass,
    Or gold, or ivory;
    And, appointing to those sacrifices and vain festal assemblages,
    Are accustomed thus to practise religion.”

In this venturous manner has he on the stage brought truth before the
spectators. But the Thracian Orpheus, the son of Œagrus, hierophant
and poet at once, after his exposition of the orgies, and his theology
of idols, introduces a palinode of truth with true solemnity, though
tardily singing the strain:

    “I shall utter to whom it is lawful; but let the doors be closed,
    Nevertheless, against all the profane. But do thou hear,
    O Musæus, offspring of the light-bringing moon,
    For I will declare what is true. And let not these things
    Which once appeared in your breast rob you of dear life;
    But looking to the divine word, apply yourself to it,
    Keeping right _the seat of intellect and feeling_; and walk well
    In the straight path, and to the immortal King of the universe
      alone
    Direct your gaze.”

Then proceeding, he clearly adds:

    “He is one, self-proceeding; and from Him alone all things proceed,
    And in them He Himself exerts his activity: no mortal
    Beholds Him, but He beholds all.”

Thus far Orpheus at last understood that he had been in error:

    “But linger no longer, O man, endued with varied wisdom;
    But turn and retrace your steps, and propitiate God.”

For if, at the most, the Greeks, having received certain scintillations
of the divine word, have given forth some utterances of truth, they
bear indeed witness that the force of truth is not hidden, and at the
same time expose their own weakness in not having arrived at the end.
For I think it has now become evident to all, that those who do or
speak aught without the word of truth are like people compelled to
walk without feet. Let the strictures on your gods, which the poets,
impelled by the force of truth, introduce in their comedies, shame you
into salvation. Menander, for instance, the comic poet, in his drama of
the _Charioteer_, says:

    “No god pleases me that goes about
    With an old woman, and enters houses
    Carrying a trencher.”

For such are the begging priests of Cybele. Hence Antisthenes replies
appropriately to their request for alms:

    “I do not maintain the mother of the gods,
    For the gods maintain her.”

Again, the same writer of comedy, expressing his dissatisfaction
with the common usages, tries to expose the impious arrogance of the
prevailing error in the drama of the _Priestess_, sagely declaring:

    “If a man drags the Deity
    Whither he will by the sound of cymbals,
    He that does this is greater than the Deity;
    But these are the instruments of audacity and means of living
    Invented by men.”

And not only Menander, but Homer also, and Euripides, and other poets
in great numbers, expose your gods, and are wont to rate them, and that
soundly too. For instance, they call Aphrodite dog-fly, and Hephæstus a
cripple. Helen says to Aphrodite:

          “Thy godship abdicate!
    Renounce Olympus!”[69]

And of Dionysus, Homer writes without reserve:

    “He, mid their frantic orgies, in the groves
    Of lovely Nyssa, put to shameful rout
    The youthful Bacchus’ nurses; they in fear,
    Dropped each her thyrsus, scattered by the hand
    Of fierce Lycurgus, with an ox-goad armed.”[70]

Worthy truly of the Socratic school is Euripides, who fixes his eye
on truth, and despises the spectators of his plays. On one occasion,
Apollo,

    “Who inhabits the sanctuary that is in the middle of the earth,
    Dispensing most certain oracles to mortals,”

is thus exposed:

    “It was in obedience to him that I killed her who brought me forth;
    Him do you regard as stained with guilt--put him to death;
    It was he that sinned, not I, uninstructed as I was
    In right and justice.”[71]

He introduces Heracles, at one time mad, at another drunk and
gluttonous. How should he not so represent the god who, when
entertained as a guest, ate green figs to flesh, uttering discordant
howls, that even his barbarian host remarked it? In his drama of _Ion_,
too, he barefacedly brings the gods on the stage:

    “How, then, is it right for you, who have given laws to mortals,
    To be yourselves guilty of wrong?
    And if--what will never take place, yet I will state the
      supposition--
    You will give satisfaction to men for your adulteries,
    You, Poseidon, and you, Zeus, the ruler of heaven,--
    You will, in order to make recompense for your misdeeds,
    Have to empty your temples.”[72]

                             CHAPTER VIII.

          THE TRUE DOCTRINE IS TO BE SOUGHT IN THE PROPHETS.

It is now time, as we have despatched in order the other points, to
go to the prophetic Scriptures; for the oracles present us with the
appliances necessary for the attainment of piety, and so establish
the truth. The divine Scriptures and institutions of wisdom form the
short road to salvation. Devoid of embellishment, of outward beauty
of diction, of wordiness and seductiveness, they raise up humanity
strangled by wickedness, teaching men to despise the casualties of
life; and with one and the same voice remedying many evils, they at
once dissuade us from pernicious deceit, and clearly exhort us to the
attainment of the salvation set before us. Let the Sibyl prophetess,
then, be the first to sing to us the song of salvation:

    “So He is all sure and unerring:
    Come, follow no longer darkness and gloom;
    See, the sun’s sweet-glancing light shines gloriously.
    Know, and lay up wisdom in your hearts:
    There is one God, who sends rains, and winds, and earthquakes,
    Thunderbolts, famines, plagues, and dismal sorrows,
    And snows and ice. But why detail particulars?
    He reigns over heaven, He rules earth, He truly is;”--

where, in remarkable accordance with inspiration, she compares delusion
to darkness, and the knowledge of God to the sun and light, and
subjecting both to comparison, shows the choice we ought to make. For
falsehood is not dissipated by the bare presentation of the truth, but
by the practical improvement of the truth it is ejected and put to
flight.

Jeremiah the prophet, gifted with consummate wisdom, or rather the
Holy Spirit in Jeremiah, exhibits God. “Am I a God at hand,” he says,
“and not a God afar off? Shall a man do ought in secret, and I not see
him? Do I not fill heaven and earth? saith the Lord.”[73]

And again by Isaiah, “Who shall measure heaven with a span, and the
whole earth with his hand?”[74] Behold God’s greatness, and be filled
with amazement. Let us worship Him of whom the prophet says, “Before
Thy face the hills shall melt, as wax melteth before the fire!”[75]
This, says he, is the God “whose throne is heaven, and His footstool
the earth; and if He open heaven, quaking will seize thee.”[76] Will
you hear, too, what this prophet says of idols? “And they shall be
made a spectacle of in the face of the sun, and their carcases shall
be meat for the fowls of heaven and the wild beasts of the earth; and
they shall putrefy before the sun and the moon, which they have loved
and served; and their city shall be burned down.”[77] He says, too,
that the elements and the world shall be destroyed. “The earth,” he
says, “shall grow old, and the heaven shall pass away; but the word
of the Lord endureth for ever.” What, then, when again God wishes to
show Himself by Moses: “Behold ye, behold ye, that I AM, and there is
no other God beside me. I will kill, and I will make to live; I will
strike, and I will heal; and there is none who shall deliver out of my
hands.”[78] But do you wish to hear another seer? You have the whole
prophetic choir, the associates of Moses. What the Holy Spirit says by
Hosea, I will not shrink from quoting: “Lo, I am He that appointeth
the thunder, and createth spirit; and His hands have established the
host of heaven.”[79] And once more by Isaiah. And this utterance I will
repeat: “I am,” he says, “I am the Lord; I who speak righteousness,
announce truth. Gather yourselves together, and come. Take counsel
together, ye that are saved from the nations. They have not known,
they who set up the block of wood, their carved work, and pray to gods
who will not save them.”[80] Then proceeding: “I am God, and there is
not beside me a just God, and a Saviour: there is none except me. Turn
to me, and ye will be saved, ye that are from the end of the earth.
I am God, and there is no other; by myself I swear.”[81] But against
the worshippers of idols he is exasperated, saying, “To whom will ye
liken the Lord, or to what likeness will ye compare Him? Has not the
artificer made the image, or the goldsmith melted the gold and plated
it with gold?”[82]--and so on. Be not therefore idolaters, but even
now beware of the threatenings; “for the graven images and the works
of men’s hands shall wail, or rather they that trust in them,”[83] for
matter is devoid of sensation. Once more he says, “The Lord will shake
the cities that are inhabited, and grasp the world in His hand like a
nest.”[84] Why repeat to you the mysteries of wisdom, and sayings from
the writings of the son of the Hebrews, the master of wisdom? “The
Lord created me the beginning of His ways, in order to His works.”[85]
And, “The Lord giveth wisdom, and from His face proceed knowledge and
understanding.”[86] “How long wilt thou lie in bed, O sluggard; and
when wilt thou be aroused from sleep?”[87] “but if thou show thyself
no sluggard, as a fountain thy harvest shall come,”[88] the “Word of
the Father, the benign light, the Lord that bringeth light, faith to
all, and salvation.”[89] For “the Lord who created the earth by His
power,” as Jeremiah says, “has raised up the world by His wisdom;”[90]
for wisdom, which is His word, raises us up to the truth, who have
fallen prostrate before idols, and is itself the first resurrection
from our fall. Whence Moses, the man of God, dissuading from all
idolatry, beautifully exclaims, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God is
one Lord; and thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt
thou serve.”[91] “Now therefore be wise, O men,” according to that
blessed psalmist David; “lay hold on instruction, lest the Lord be
angry, and ye perish from the way of righteousness, when His wrath has
quickly kindled. Blessed are all they who put their trust in Him.”[92]
But already the Lord, in His surpassing pity, has inspired the song of
salvation, sounding like a battle march, “Sons of men, how long will ye
be slow of heart? Why do you love vanity, and seek after a lie?”[93]
What, then, is the vanity, and what the lie? The holy apostle of the
Lord, reprehending the Greeks, will show thee: “Because that, when they
knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful; but
became vain in their imaginations, and changed the glory of God into
the likeness of corruptible man, and worshipped and served the creature
more than the Creator.”[94] And verily this is the God who “in the
beginning made the heaven and the earth.”[95] But you do not know God,
and worship the heaven, and how shall you escape the guilt of impiety?
Hear again the prophet speaking: “The sun shall suffer eclipse, and the
heaven be darkened; but the Almighty shall shine for ever: while the
powers of the heavens shall be shaken, and the heavens stretched out
and drawn together shall be rolled as a parchment-skin (for these are
the prophetic expressions), and the earth shall flee away from before
the face of the Lord.”[96]

                              CHAPTER IX.

           “THAT THOSE GRIEVOUSLY SIN WHO DESPISE OR NEGLECT
                       GOD’S GRACIOUS CALLING.”

I could adduce ten thousand scriptures of which not “one tittle shall
pass away”[97] without being fulfilled; for the mouth of the Lord the
Holy Spirit hath spoken these things. “Do not any longer,” he says,
“my son, despise the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art
rebuked of Him.”[98] O surpassing love for man! Not as a teacher
speaking to his pupils, not as a master to his domestics, nor as God
to men, but as a father, does the Lord gently admonish His children.
Thus Moses confesses that “he was filled with quaking and terror”[99]
while he listened to God speaking concerning the Word. And art not
thou afraid as thou hearest the voice of the Divine Word? Art not thou
distressed? Do you not fear, and hasten to learn of Him,--that is,
to salvation,--dreading wrath, loving grace, eagerly striving after
the hope set before us, that you may shun the judgment threatened?
Come, come, O my young people! For if you become not again as little
children, and be born again, as saith the Scripture, you shall not
receive the truly existent Father, nor shall you ever enter into the
kingdom of heaven. For in what way is a stranger permitted to enter?
Well, as I take it, then, when he is enrolled and made a citizen, and
receives one to stand to him in the relation of father, then will he
be occupied with the Father’s concerns, then shall he be deemed worthy
to be made His heir, then will he share the kingdom of the Father
with His own dear Son. For this is the first-born church, composed
of many good children; these are “the first-born enrolled in heaven,
who hold high festival with so many myriads of angels.” We, too, are
first-born sons, who are reared by God, who are the genuine friends of
the First-born, who first of all other men attained to the knowledge
of God, who first were wrenched away from our sins, first severed from
the devil. And now the more benevolent God is, the more impious men
are; for He desires us from slaves to become sons, while they scorn
to become sons. O the prodigious folly of being ashamed of the Lord!
He offers freedom, you flee into bondage; He bestows salvation, you
sink down into destruction; He confers everlasting life, you wait for
punishment, and prefer the fire which the Lord “has prepared for the
devil and his angels.”[100] Wherefore the blessed apostle says: “I
testify in the Lord, that ye walk no longer as the Gentiles walk, in
the vanity of their mind; having their understanding darkened, being
alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them,
because of the hardness of their heart: who, being past feeling, have
given themselves over to lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness and
concupiscence.”[101] After the accusation of such a witness, and his
invocation of God, what else remains for the unbelieving than judgment
and condemnation? And the Lord, with ceaseless assiduity, exhorts,
terrifies, urges, rouses, admonishes; He awakes from the sleep of
darkness, and raises up those who have wandered in error. “Awake,” He
says, “thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall
give thee light,”[102]--Christ, the Sun of the Resurrection, He “who
was born before the morning star,”[103] and with His beams bestows
life. Let no one then despise the Word, lest he unwittingly despise
himself. For the Scripture somewhere says, “To-day, if ye will hear
His voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the
day of temptation in the wilderness, when your fathers proved me by
trial.”[104] And what was the trial? If you wish to learn, the Holy
Spirit will show you: “And saw my works,” He says, “forty years.
Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do always
err in heart, and have not known my ways. So I sware in my wrath,
they shall not enter into my rest.”[105] Look to the threatening!
Look to the exhortation! Look to the punishment! Why, then, should
we any longer change grace into wrath, and not receive the word with
open ears, and entertain God as a guest in pure spirits? For great
is the grace of His promise, “if to-day we hear His voice.”[106] And
that to-day is lengthened out day by day, while it is called to-day.
And to the end the to-day and the instruction continue; and then the
true to-day, the neverending day of God, extends over eternity. Let us
then ever obey the voice of the divine word. For the to-day signifies
eternity. And day is the symbol of light; and the light of men is the
Word, by whom we behold God. Rightly, then, to those that have believed
and obey, grace will superabound; while with those that have been
unbelieving, and err in heart, and have not known the Lord’s ways,
which John commanded to make straight and to prepare, God is incensed,
and those He threatens.

And, indeed, the old Hebrew wanderers in the desert received typically
the end of the threatening; for they are said not to have entered into
the rest, because of unbelief, till, having followed the successor of
Moses, they learned by experience, though late, that they could not be
saved otherwise than by believing on Jesus. But the Lord, in His love
to man, invites all men to the knowledge of the truth, and for this
end sends the Paraclete. What, then, is this knowledge? Godliness;
and “godliness,” according to Paul, “is profitable for all things,
having the promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to
come.”[107] If eternal salvation were to be sold, for how much, O men,
would you propose to purchase it? Were one to estimate the value of
the whole of Pactolus, the fabulous river of gold, he would not have
reckoned up a price equivalent to salvation.

Do not, however, faint. You may, if you choose, purchase salvation,
though of inestimable value, with your own resources, love and living
faith, which will be reckoned a suitable price. This recompense God
cheerfully accepts; “for we trust in the living God, who is the Saviour
of all men, especially of those who believe.”[108]

But the rest, round whom the world’s growths have fastened, as the
rocks on the sea-shore are covered over with seaweed, make light of
immortality, like the old man of Ithaca, eagerly longing to see, not
the truth, not the fatherland in heaven, not the true light, but smoke.
But godliness, that makes man as far as can be like God, designates God
as our suitable teacher, who alone can worthily assimilate man to God.
This teaching the apostle knows as truly divine. “Thou, O Timothy,”
he says, “from a child hast known the holy letters, which are able
to make thee wise unto salvation, through faith that is in Christ
Jesus.”[109] For truly holy are those letters that sanctify and deify;
and the writings or volumes that consist of those holy letters and
syllables, the same apostle consequently calls “inspired of God, being
profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction
in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly
furnished to every good work.”[110] No one will be so impressed by the
exhortations of any of the saints, as he is by the words of the Lord
Himself, the lover of man. For this, and nothing but this, is His only
work--the salvation of man. Therefore He Himself, urging them on to
salvation, cries, “The kingdom of heaven is at hand.”[111] Those men
that draw near through fear, He converts. Thus also the apostle of
the Lord, beseeching the Macedonians, becomes the interpreter of the
divine voice, when he says, “The Lord is at hand; take care that ye be
not apprehended empty.”[112] But are ye so devoid of fear, or rather
of faith, as not to believe the Lord Himself, or Paul, who in Christ’s
stead thus entreats: “Taste and see that Christ is God?”[113] Faith
will lead you in; experience will teach you; Scripture will train you,
for it says, “Come hither, O children; listen to me, and I will teach
you the fear of the Lord.” Then, as to those who already believe, it
briefly adds, “What man is he that desireth life, that loveth to see
good days?”[114] It is we, we shall say--we who are the devotees of
good, we who eagerly desire good things. Hear, then, ye who are far
off, hear ye who are near: the word has not been hidden from any; light
is common, it shines “on all men.” No one is a Cimmerian in respect to
the word. Let us haste to salvation, to regeneration; let us who are
many haste that we may be brought together into one love, according
to the union of the essential unity; and let us, by being made good,
conformably follow after union, seeking after the good Monad.

The union of many in one, issuing in the production of divine harmony
out of a medley of sounds and division, becomes one symphony following
one choir-leader and teacher, the Word, reaching and resting in the
same truth, and crying Abba, Father. This, the true utterance of His
children, God accepts with gracious welcome--the first-fruits He
receives from them.

                              CHAPTER X.

            ANSWER TO THE OBJECTION OF THE HEATHEN, THAT IT
             WAS NOT RIGHT TO ABANDON THE CUSTOMS OF THEIR
                               FATHERS.

But you say it is not creditable to subvert the customs handed down
to us from our fathers. And why, then, do we not still use our first
nourishment, milk, to which our nurses accustomed us from the time
of our birth? Why do we increase or diminish our patrimony, and not
keep it exactly the same as we got it? Why do we not still vomit on
our parents’ breasts, or still do the things for which, when infants,
and nursed by our mothers, we were laughed at, but have corrected
ourselves, even if we did not fall in with good instructors? Then,
if excesses in the indulgence of the passions, though pernicious and
dangerous, yet are accompanied with pleasure, why do we not in the
conduct of life abandon that usage which is evil, and provocative of
passion, and godless, even should our fathers feel hurt, and betake
ourselves to the truth, and seek Him who is truly our Father, rejecting
custom as a deleterious drug? For of all that I have undertaken to do,
the task I now attempt is the noblest, viz. to demonstrate to you how
inimical this insane and most wretched custom is to godliness. For a
boon so great, the greatest ever given by God to the human race, would
never have been hated and rejected, had not you been carried away by
custom, and then shut your ears against us; and just as unmanageable
horses throw off the reins, and take the bit between their teeth, you
rush away from the arguments addressed to you, in your eager desire to
shake yourselves clear of us, who seek to guide the chariot of your
life, and, impelled by your folly, dash towards the precipices of
destruction, and regard the holy word of God as an accursed thing. The
reward of your choice, therefore, as described by Sophocles, follows:

    “The mind a blank, useless ears, vain thoughts.”

And you know not that, of all truths, this is the truest, that the good
and godly shall obtain the good reward, inasmuch as they held goodness
in high esteem; while, on the other hand, the wicked shall receive meet
punishment. For the author of evil, torment has been prepared; and so
the prophet Zecharias threatens him: “He that hath chosen Jerusalem
rebuke thee; lo, is not this a brand plucked from the fire?”[115]
What an infatuated desire, then, for voluntary death is this, rooted
in men’s minds! Why do they flee to this fatal brand, with which they
shall be burned, when it is within their power to live nobly according
to God, and not according to custom? For God bestows life freely; but
evil custom, after our departure from this world, brings on the sinner
unavailing remorse with punishment. _By sad experience, even a child
knows_ how superstition destroys and piety saves. Let any of you
look at those who minister before the idols, their hair matted, their
persons disgraced with filthy and tattered clothes; who never come near
a bath, and let their nails grow to an extraordinary length, like wild
beasts; many of them castrated, who show the idol’s temples to be in
reality graves or prisons. These appear to me to bewail the gods, not
to worship them, and their sufferings to be worthy of pity rather than
piety. And seeing these things, do you still continue blind, and will
you not look up to the Ruler of all, the Lord of the universe? And will
you not escape from those dungeons, and flee to the mercy that comes
down from heaven? For God, of His great love to man, comes to the help
of man, as the mother-bird flies to one of her young that has fallen
out of the nest; and if a serpent open its mouth to swallow the little
bird, “the mother flutters round, uttering cries of grief over her dear
progeny;”[116] and God the Father seeks His creature, and heals his
transgression, and pursues the serpent, and recovers the young one, and
incites it to fly up to the nest.

Thus dogs that have strayed, track out their master by the scent; and
horses that have thrown their riders, come to their master’s call if he
but whistle. “The ox,” it is said, “knoweth his owner, and the ass his
master’s crib; but Israel hath not known me.”[117] What, then, of the
Lord? He remembers not our ill desert; He still pities, He still urges
us to repentance.

And I would ask you, if it does not appear to you monstrous, that you
men who are God’s handiwork, who have received your souls from Him, and
belong wholly to God, should be subject to another master, and, what
is more, serve the tyrant instead of the rightful King--the evil one
instead of the good? For, in the name of truth, what man in his senses
turns his back on good, and attaches himself to evil? What, then, is
he who flees from God to consort with demons? Who, that may become a
son of God, prefers to be in bondage? Or who is he that pursues his way
to Erebus, when it is in his power to be a citizen of heaven, and to
cultivate Paradise, and walk about in heaven and partake of the tree
of life and immortality, and, cleaving his way through the sky in the
track of the luminous cloud, behold, like Elias, the rain of salvation?
Some there are, who, like worms wallowing in marshes and mud in the
streams of pleasure, feed on foolish and useless delights--swinish men.
For swine, it is said, like mud better than pure water; and, according
to Democritus, “doat upon dirt.”

Let us not then be enslaved or become swinish; but, as true children
of the light, let us raise our eyes and look on the light, lest
the Lord discover us to be spurious, as the sun does the eagles.
Let us therefore repent, and pass from ignorance to knowledge,
from foolishness to wisdom, from licentiousness to self-restraint,
from unrighteousness to righteousness, from godlessness to God.
It is an enterprise of noble daring to take our way to God; and
the enjoyment of many other good things is within the reach of the
lovers of righteousness, who pursue eternal life, specially those
things to which God Himself alludes, speaking by Isaiah: “There is an
inheritance for those who serve the Lord.”[118] Noble and desirable
is this inheritance: not gold, not silver, not raiment, which the
moth assails, and things of earth which are assailed by the robber,
whose eye is dazzled by worldly wealth; but it is that treasure of
salvation to which we must hasten, by becoming lovers of the Word.
Thence praiseworthy works descend to us, and fly with us on the wing
of truth. This is the inheritance with which the eternal covenant of
God invests us, conveying the everlasting gift of grace; and thus
our loving Father--the true Father--ceases not to exhort, admonish,
train, love us. For He ceases not to save, and advises the best course:
“Become righteous,” says the Lord.[119] Ye that thirst, come to the
water; and ye that have no money, come, and buy and drink without
money.[120] He invites to the laver, to salvation, to illumination, all
but crying out and saying, The land I give thee, and the sea, my child,
and heaven too; and all the living creatures in them I freely bestow
upon thee. Only, O child, thirst for thy Father; God shall be revealed
to thee without price; the truth is not made merchandise of. He gives
thee all creatures that fly and swim, and those on the land. These the
Father has created for thy thankful enjoyment. What the bastard, who is
a son of perdition, foredoomed to be the slave of mammon, has to buy
for money, He assigns to thee as thine own, even to His own son who
loves the Father; for whose sake He still works, and to whom alone He
promises, saying, “The land shall not be sold in perpetuity,” for it
is not destined to corruption. “For the whole land is mine;” and it is
thine too, if thou receive God. Wherefore the Scripture, as might have
been expected, proclaims good news to those who have believed. “The
saints of the Lord shall inherit the glory of God and His power.” What
glory, tell me, O blessed One, which “eye hath not seen, nor ear heard,
nor hath it entered into the heart of man;”[121] and “they shall be
glad in the kingdom of their Lord for ever and ever! Amen.” You have,
O men, the divine promise of grace; you have heard, on the other hand,
the threatening of punishment: by these the Lord saves, teaching men
by fear and grace. Why do we delay? Why do we not shun the punishment?
Why do we not receive the free gift? Why, in fine, do we not choose
the better part, God instead of the evil one, and prefer wisdom to
idolatry, and take life in exchange for death? “Behold,” He says, “I
have set before your face death and life.”[122] The Lord tries you,
that “you may choose life.” He counsels you as a father to obey God.
“For if ye hear me,” He says, “and be willing, ye shall eat the good
things of the land:”[123] this is the grace attached to obedience. “But
if ye obey me not, and are unwilling, the sword and fire shall devour
you:”[124] this is the penalty of disobedience. For the mouth of the
Lord--the law of truth, the word of the Lord--hath spoken these things.
Are you willing that I should be your good counsellor? Well, do you
hear. I, if possible, will explain. You ought, O men, when reflecting
on the Good, to have brought forward a witness inborn and competent,
viz. faith, which of itself, and from its own resources, chooses
at once what is best, instead of occupying yourselves in painfully
inquiring whether what is best ought to be followed. For, allow me to
tell you, you ought to doubt whether you should get drunk, but you get
drunk before reflecting on the matter; and whether you ought to do an
injury, but you do injury with the utmost readiness. The only thing you
make the subject of question is, whether God should be worshipped, and
whether this wise God and Christ should be followed: and this you think
requires deliberation and doubt, and know not what is worthy of God.
Have faith in us, as you have in drunkenness, that you may be wise;
have faith in us, as you have in injury, that you may live. But if,
acknowledging the conspicuous trustworthiness of the virtues, you wish
to trust them, come and I will set before you in abundance, materials
of persuasion respecting the Word. But do you--for your ancestral
customs, by which your minds are pre-occupied, divert you from the
truth,--do you now hear what is the real state of the case as follows.

And let not any shame of this name preoccupy you, which does great
harm to men, and seduces them from salvation. Let us then openly strip
for the contest, and nobly strive in the arena of truth, the holy
Word being the judge, and the Lord of the universe prescribing the
contest. For ’tis no insignificant prize, the guerdon of immortality
which is set before us. Pay no more regard, then, if you are rated by
some of the low rabble who lead the dance of impiety, and are driven
on to the same pit by their folly and insanity, makers of idols and
worshippers of stones. For these have dared to deify men,--Alexander
of Macedon, for example, whom they canonized as the thirteenth
god, whose pretensions Babylon confuted, which showed him dead. I
admire, therefore, the divine sophist. Theocritus was his name. After
Alexander’s death, Theocritus, holding up the vain opinions entertained
by men respecting the gods, to ridicule before his fellow-citizens,
said: “Men, keep up your hearts as long as you see the gods dying
sooner than men.” And, truly, he who worships gods that are visible,
and the promiscuous rabble of creatures begotten and born, and attaches
himself to them, is a far more wretched object than the very demons.
For God is by no manner of means unrighteous, as the demons are, but in
the very highest degree righteous; and nothing more resembles God than
one of us when he becomes righteous in the highest possible degree:

    “Go into the way, the whole tribe of you handicraftsmen,
    Who worship Jove’s fierce-eyed daughter,[125] the working goddess,
    With fans duly placed, fools that ye are”--

fashioners of stones, and worshippers of them. Let your Phidias, and
Polycletus, and your Praxiteles and Apelles too, come, and all that are
engaged in mechanical arts, who, being themselves of the earth, are
workers of the earth. “For then,” says a certain prophecy, “the affairs
here turn out unfortunately, when men put their trust in images.” Let
the meaner artists, too--for I will not stop calling--come. None of
these ever made a breathing image, or out of earth moulded soft flesh.
Who liquefied the marrow? or who solidified the bones? Who stretched
the nerves? who distended the veins? Who poured the blood into
them? Or who spread the skin? Who ever could have made eyes capable
of seeing? Who breathed spirit into the lifeless form? Who bestowed
righteousness? Who promised immortality? The Maker of the universe
alone: the Great Artist and Father has formed us, such a living image
as man is. But your Olympian Jove, the image of an image, greatly out
of harmony with truth, is the senseless work of Attic hands. For the
image of God is His Word, the genuine Son of Mind, the Divine Word, the
archetypal light of light; and the image of the Word is the true man,
the mind which is in man, who is therefore said to have been made “in
the image and likeness of God,”[126] assimilated to the Divine Word
in the affections of the soul, and therefore rational; but effigies
sculptured in human form, the earthly image of that part of man which
is visible and earth-born, are but a perishable impress of humanity,
manifestly wide of the truth. That life, then, which is occupied with
so much earnestness about matter, seems to me to be nothing else than
full of insanity. And custom, which has made you taste bondage and
unreasonable care, is fostered by vain opinion; and ignorance, which
has proved to the human race the cause of unlawful rites and delusive
shows, and also of deadly plagues and hateful images, has, by devising
many shapes of demons, stamped on all that follow it the mark of
long-continued death. Receive, then, the water of the word; wash, ye
polluted ones; purify yourselves from custom, by sprinkling yourselves
with the drops of truth. The pure must ascend to heaven. Thou art a
man, if we look to that which is most common to thee and others--seek
Him who created thee; thou art a son, if we look to that which is thy
peculiar prerogative--acknowledge thy Father. But do you still continue
in your sins, engrossed with pleasures? To whom shall the Lord say,
“Yours is the kingdom of heaven?” Yours, whose choice is set on God, if
you will; yours, if you will only believe, and comply with the brief
terms of the announcement; which the Ninevites having obeyed, instead
of the destruction they looked for, obtained a signal deliverance.
How, then, may I ascend to heaven, is it said? The Lord is the way; a
strait way, but leading from heaven, strait in truth, but leading back
to heaven, strait, despised on earth; broad, adored in heaven.

Then, he that is uninstructed in the word, has ignorance as the excuse
of his error; but as for him into whose ears instruction has been
poured, and who deliberately maintains his incredulity in his soul,
the wiser he appears to be, the more harm will his understanding do
him; for he has his own sense as his accuser for not having chosen the
best part. For man has been otherwise constituted by nature, so as
to have fellowship with God. As, then, we do not compel the horse to
plough, or the bull to hunt, but set each animal to that for which it
is by nature fitted; so, placing our finger on what is man’s peculiar
and distinguishing characteristic above other creatures, we invite
him--born, as he is, for the contemplation of heaven, and being, as he
is, a truly heavenly plant--to the knowledge of God, counselling him
to furnish himself with what is his sufficient provision for eternity,
namely piety. Practise husbandry, we say, if you are a husbandman;
but while you till your fields, know God. Sail the sea, you who are
devoted to navigation, yet call the whilst on the heavenly Pilot. Has
knowledge taken hold of you while engaged in military service? Listen
to the commander, who orders what is right. As those, then, who have
been overpowered with sleep and drunkenness, do ye awake; and using
your eyes a little, consider what mean those stones which you worship,
and the expenditure you frivolously lavish on matter. Your means and
substance you squander on ignorance, even as you throw away your lives
to death, having found no other end of your vain hope than this. Not
only unable to pity yourselves, you are incapable even of yielding to
the persuasions of those who commiserate you; enslaved as you are to
evil custom, and, clinging to it voluntarily till your last breath, you
are hurried to destruction: “because light is come into the world, and
men have loved the darkness rather than the light,”[127] while they
could sweep away those hindrances to salvation, pride, and wealth, and
fear, repeating this poetic utterance:

    “Whither do I bear these abundant riches? and whither
    Do I myself wander?”[128]

If you wish, then, to cast aside these vain phantasies, and bid adieu
to evil custom, say to vain opinion:

    “Lying dreams, farewell; you were then nothing.”

For what, think you, O men, is the Hermes of Typho, and that of
Andocides, and that of Amyetus? Is it not evident to all that they
are stones, as is the veritable Hermes himself? As the Halo is not a
god, and as the Iris is not a god, but are states of the atmosphere
and of the clouds; and as, likewise, a day is not a god, nor a year,
nor time, which is made up of these, so neither is sun nor moon, by
which each of those mentioned above is determined. Who, then, in his
right senses, can imagine Correction, and Punishment, and Justice, and
Retribution to be gods? For neither the Furies, nor the Fates, nor
Destiny are gods, since neither Government, nor Glory, nor Wealth are
gods, which last [as Plutus] painters represent as blind. But if you
deify Modesty, and Love, and Venus, let these be followed by Infamy,
and Passion, and Beauty, and Intercourse. Therefore Sleep and Death
cannot reasonably any more be regarded as twin deities, being merely
changes which take place naturally in living creatures; no more will
you with propriety call Fortune, or Destiny, or the Fates goddesses.
And if Strife and Battle be not gods, no more are Ares and Enyo. Still
further, if the lightnings, and thunderbolts, and rains are not gods,
how can fire and water be gods? how can shooting stars and comets,
which are produced by atmospheric changes? He who calls Fortune a
god, let him also so call Action. If, then, none of these, nor of the
images formed by human hands, and destitute of feeling, is held to be
a God, while a providence exercised about us is evidently the result
of a divine power,[129] it remains only to acknowledge this, that He
alone who is truly God, only truly is and subsists. But those who are
insensible to this are like men who have drunk mandrake or some other
drug. May God grant that you may at length awake from this slumber, and
know God; and that neither Gold, nor Stone, nor Tree, nor Action, nor
Suffering, nor Disease, nor Fear, may appear in your eyes as a god.
For there are, in sooth, “on the fruitful earth thrice ten thousand”
demons, not immortal, nor indeed mortal; for they are not endowed with
sensation, so as to render them capable of death, but only things
of wood and stone, that hold despotic sway over men insulting and
violating life through the force of custom. “The earth is the Lord’s,”
it is said, “and the fulness thereof.”[130] Then why darest thou, while
luxuriating in the bounties of the Lord, to ignore the Sovereign Ruler?
“Leave my earth,” the Lord will say to thee. “Touch not the water
which I bestow. Partake not of the fruits of the earth produced by my
husbandry.” Give to God recompense for your sustenance; acknowledge
thy Master. Thou art God’s creature. What belongs to Him, how can it
with justice be alienated? For that which is alienated, being deprived
of the properties that belonged to it, is also deprived of truth. For,
after the fashion of Niobe, or, to express myself more mystically, like
the Hebrew woman called by the ancients Lot’s wife, are ye not turned
into a state of insensibility? This woman, we have heard, was turned
into stone for her love of Sodom. And those who are godless, addicted
to impiety, hard-hearted and foolish, are Sodomites. Believe that these
utterances are addressed to you from God. For think not that stones,
and stocks, and birds, and serpents are sacred things, and men are not;
but, on the contrary, regard men as truly sacred, and take beasts and
stones for what they are. For there are miserable wretches of human
kind, who consider that God utters His voice by the raven and the
jackdaw, but says nothing by man; and honour the raven as a messenger
of God. But the man of God, who croaks not, nor chatters, but speaks
rationally and instructs lovingly, alas, they persecute; and while he
is inviting them to cultivate righteousness, they try inhumanly to slay
him, neither welcoming the grace which comes from above, nor fearing
the penalty. For they believe not God, nor understand His power, whose
love to man is ineffable; and His hatred of evil is inconceivable.
His anger augments punishment against sin; His love bestows blessings
on repentance. It is the height of wretchedness to be deprived of the
help which comes from God. Hence this blindness of eyes and dulness
of hearing are more grievous than other inflictions of the evil one;
for the one deprives them of heavenly vision, the other robs them of
divine instruction. But ye, thus maimed as respects the truth, blind
in mind, deaf in understanding, are not grieved, are not pained, have
had no desire to see heaven and the Maker of heaven, nor, by fixing
your choice on salvation, have sought to hear the Creator of the
universe, and to learn of Him; for no hindrance stands in the way of
him who is bent on the knowledge of God. Neither childlessness, nor
poverty, nor obscurity, nor want, can hinder him who eagerly strives
after the knowledge of God; nor does any one who has conquered[131]
by brass or iron the true wisdom for himself choose to exchange it,
for it is vastly preferred to everything else. Christ is able to save
in every place. For he that is fired with ardour and admiration for
righteousness, being the lover of One who needs nothing, needs himself
but little, having treasured up his bliss in nothing but himself and
God, where is neither moth,[132] robber, nor pirate, but the eternal
Giver of good. With justice, then, have you been compared to those
serpents who shut their ears against the charmers. For “their mind,”
says the Scripture, “is like the serpent, like the deaf adder, which
stoppeth her ear, and will not hear the voice of the charmers.”[133]
But allow yourselves to feel the influence of the charming strains of
sanctity, and receive that mild word of ours, and reject the deadly
poison, that it may be granted to you to divest yourselves as much
as possible of destruction, as they[134] have been divested of old
age. Hear me, and do not stop your ears; do not block up the avenues
of hearing, but lay to heart what is said. Excellent is the medicine
of immortality! Stop at length your grovelling reptile motions. “For
the enemies of the Lord,” says Scripture, “shall lick the dust.”[135]
Raise your eyes from earth to the skies, look up to heaven, admire the
sight, cease watching with outstretched head the heel of the righteous,
and hindering the way of truth. Be wise and harmless. Perchance the
Lord will endow you with the wing of simplicity (for He has resolved
to give wings to those that are earth-born), that you may leave your
holes and dwell in heaven. Only let us with our whole heart repent,
that we may be able with our whole heart to contain God. “Trust in Him,
all ye assembled people; pour out all your hearts before Him.”[136]
He says to those that have newly abandoned wickedness, “He pities
them, and fills them with righteousness.” Believe Him who is man and
God; believe, O man. Believe, O man, the living God, who suffered
and is adored. Believe, ye slaves, Him who died; believe, all ye of
human kind, Him who alone is God of all men. Believe, and receive
salvation as your reward. Seek God, and your soul shall live. He who
seeks God is busying himself about his own salvation. Hast thou found
God?--then thou hast life. Let us then seek, in order that we may
live. The reward of seeking is life with God. “Let all who seek Thee
be glad and rejoice in Thee; and let them say continually, God be
magnified.”[137] A noble hymn of God is an immortal man, established
in righteousness, in whom the oracles of truth are engraved. For where
but in a soul that is wise can you write truth? where love? where
reverence? where meekness? Those who have had these divine characters
impressed on them, ought, I think, to regard wisdom as a fair port
whence to embark, to whatever lot in life they turn; and likewise to
deem it the calm haven of salvation: wisdom, by which those who have
betaken themselves to the Father, have proved good fathers to their
children; and good parents to their sons, those who have known the Son;
and good husbands to their wives, those who remember the Bridegroom;
and good masters to their servants, those who have been redeemed from
utter slavery. Oh, happier far the beasts than men involved in error!
who live in ignorance as you, but do not counterfeit the truth. There
are no tribes of flatterers among them. Fishes have no superstition:
the birds worship not a single image; only they look with admiration
on heaven, since, deprived as they are of reason, they are unable to
know God. So are you not ashamed for living through so many periods of
life in impiety, making yourselves more irrational than the irrational
creatures? You were boys, then striplings, then youths, then men, but
never as yet were you good. If you have respect for old age, be wise,
now that you have reached life’s sunset; and albeit at the close of
life, acquire the knowledge of God, that the end of life may to you
prove the beginning of salvation. You have become old in superstition;
as young, enter on the practice of piety. God regards you as innocent
children. Let, then, the Athenian follow the laws of Solon, and the
Argive those of Phoroneus, and the Spartan those of Lycurgus: but if
thou enrol thyself as one of God’s people, heaven is thy country,
God thy lawgiver. And what are the laws? “Thou shalt not kill; thou
shalt not commit adultery; thou shalt not seduce boys; thou shalt not
steal; thou shalt not bear false witness; thou shalt love the Lord thy
God.”[138] And the complements of these are those laws of reason and
words of sanctity which are inscribed on men’s hearts: “Thou shalt
love thy neighbour as thyself; to him who strikes thee on the cheek,
present also the other;”[139] “thou shalt not lust, for by lust alone
thou hast committed adultery.”[140] How much better, therefore, is it
for men from the beginning not to wish to desire things forbidden, than
to obtain their desires! But ye are not able to endure the austerity
of salvation; but as we delight in sweet things, and prize them higher
for the agreeableness of the pleasure they yield, while, on the other
hand, those bitter things which are distasteful to the palate are
curative and healing, and the harshness of medicines strengthens
people of weak stomach, thus custom pleases and tickles; but custom
pushes into the abyss, while truth conducts to heaven. Harsh it is
at first, but a good nurse of youth; and it is at once the decorous
place where the household maids and matrons dwell together, and the
sage council-chamber. Nor is it difficult to approach, or impossible
to attain, but is very near us in our very homes; as Moses, endowed
with all wisdom, says, while referring to it, it has its abode in
three departments of our constitution--in the hands, the mouth, and
the heart: a meet emblem this of truth, which is embraced by these
three things in all--will, action, speech. And be not afraid lest the
multitude of pleasing objects which rise before you withdraw you from
wisdom. You yourself will spontaneously surmount the frivolousness
of custom, as boys when they have become men throw aside their toys.
For with a celerity unsurpassable, and a benevolence to which we have
ready access, the divine power, casting its radiance on the earth,
hath filled the universe with the seed of salvation. For it was not
without divine care that so great a work was accomplished in so brief
a space by the Lord, who, though despised as to appearance, was in
reality adored, the expiator of sin, the Saviour, the clement, the
Divine Word, He that is truly most manifest Deity, He that is made
equal to the Lord of the universe; because He was His Son, and the Word
was in God, not disbelieved in by all when He was first preached, nor
altogether unknown when, assuming the character of man, and fashioning
Himself in flesh, He enacted the drama of human salvation: for He was
a true champion and a fellow-champion with the creature. And being
communicated most speedily to men, having dawned from His Father’s
counsel quicker than the sun, with the most perfect ease He made God
shine on us. Whence He was and what He was, He showed by what He taught
and exhibited, manifesting Himself as the Herald of the Covenant, the
Reconciler, our Saviour, the Word, the fount of life, the giver of
peace, diffused over the whole face of the earth; by whom, so to speak,
the universe has already become an ocean of blessings.

                              CHAPTER XI.

              HOW GREAT ARE THE BENEFITS CONFERRED ON MAN
                     THROUGH THE ADVENT OF CHRIST.

Contemplate a little, if agreeable to you, the divine beneficence. The
first man, when in Paradise, sported free, because he was the child of
God; but when he succumbed to pleasure (for the serpent allegorically
signifies pleasure crawling on its belly, earthly wickedness nourished
for fuel to the flames), was as a child seduced by lusts, and grew
old in disobedience; and by disobeying his Father, dishonoured God.
Such was the influence of pleasure. Man, that had been free by reason
of simplicity, was found fettered to sins. The Lord then wished to
release him from his bonds, and clothing Himself with flesh--O divine
mystery!--vanquished the serpent, and enslaved the tyrant death; and,
most marvellous of all, man that had been deceived by pleasure, and
bound fast to corruption, had his hands unloosed, and was set free.
O mystic wonder! The Lord was laid low, and man rose up; and he that
fell from Paradise receives as the reward of obedience something
greater [than Paradise]--namely, heaven itself. Wherefore, since the
Word Himself has come to us from heaven, we need not, I reckon, go any
more in search of human learning to Athens and the rest of Greece,
and to Ionia. For if we have as our teacher Him that filled the
universe with His holy energies in creation, salvation, beneficence,
legislation, prophecy, teaching, we have the Teacher from whom all
instruction comes; and the whole world, with Athens and Greece, has
already become the domain of the Word. For you, who believed the
poetical fable which designated Minos the Cretan as the bosom friend
of Zeus, will not refuse to believe that we who have become the
disciples of God have received the only true wisdom; and that which
the chiefs of philosophy only guessed at, the disciples of Christ
have both apprehended and proclaimed. And the one whole Christ is not
divided: “There is neither barbarian, nor Jew, nor Greek, neither male
nor female, but a new man,”[141] transformed by God’s Holy Spirit.
Further, the other counsels and precepts are unimportant, and respect
particular things,--as, for example, if one may marry, take part in
public affairs, beget children; but the only command that is universal,
and over the whole course of existence, at all times and in all
circumstances, tends to the highest end, viz. life, is piety,--all that
is necessary, in order that we may live for ever, being that we live
in accordance with it. Philosophy, however, as the ancients say, is
“a long-lived exhortation, wooing the eternal love of wisdom;” while
the commandment of the Lord is far-shining, “enlightening the eyes.”
Receive Christ, receive sight, receive thy light,

    “In order that you may know well both God and man.”[142]

“Sweet is the Word that gives us light, precious above gold and gems;
it is to be desired above honey and the honey-comb.”[143] For how
can it be other than desirable, since it has filled with light the
mind which had been buried in darkness, and given keenness to the
“light-bringing eyes” of the soul? For just as, had the sun not been in
existence, night would have brooded over the universe notwithstanding
the other luminaries of heaven; so, had we not known the Word, and
been illuminated by Him, we should have been nowise different from
fowls that are being fed, fattened in darkness, and nourished for
death. Let us then admit the light, that we may admit God; let us admit
the light, and become disciples to the Lord. This, too, He has been
promised to the Father: “I will declare Thy name to my brethren; in
the midst of the church will I praise Thee.”[144] Praise and declare
to me Thy Father God; Thy utterances save; Thy hymn teaches that
hitherto I have wandered in error, seeking God. But since Thou leadest
me to the light, O Lord, and I find God through Thee, and receive the
Father from Thee, I become “Thy fellow-heir,”[145] since Thou “wert not
ashamed of me as Thy brother.”[146] Let us put away, then, let us put
away oblivion of the truth, viz. ignorance; and removing the darkness
which obstructs, as dimness of sight, let us contemplate the only true
God, first raising our voice in this hymn of praise: Hail, O light!
For in us, buried in darkness, shut up in the shadow of death, light
has shone forth from heaven, purer than the sun, sweeter than life
here below. That light is eternal life; and whatever partakes of it
lives. But night fears the light, and hiding itself in terror, gives
place to the day of the Lord. Sleepless light is now over all, and the
west has given credence to the east. For this was the end of the new
creation. For “the Sun of Righteousness,” who drives His chariot over
all, pervades equally all humanity, like “His Father, who makes His
sun to rise on all men,” and distils on them the dew of the truth. He
hath changed sunset into sunrise, and through the cross brought death
to life; and having wrenched man from destruction, He hath raised him
to the skies, transplanting mortality into immortality, and translating
earth to heaven--He, the husbandman of God,

    “Pointing out the favourable signs and rousing the nations
    To good works, putting them in mind of the true sustenance;”[147]

having bestowed on us the truly great, divine, and inalienable
inheritance of the Father, deifying man by heavenly teaching, putting
His laws into our minds, and writing them on our hearts. What laws
does He inscribe? “That all shall know God, from small to great;”
and, “I will be merciful to them,” says God, “and will not remember
their sins.”[148] Let us receive the laws of life, let us comply with
God’s expostulations; let us become acquainted with Him, that He may
be gracious. And though God needs nothing, let us render to Him the
grateful recompense of a thankful heart and of piety, as a kind of
house-rent for our dwelling here below.

                      “Gold for brass,
    A hundred oxen’s worth for that of nine;”[149]

that is, for your little faith He gives you the earth of so great
extent to till, water to drink and also to sail on, air to breathe,
fire to do your work, a world to dwell in; and He has permitted you to
conduct a colony from here to heaven: with these important works of
His hand, and benefits in such numbers, He has rewarded your little
faith. Then, those who have put faith in necromancers, receive from
them amulets and charms, to ward off evil forsooth; and will you not
allow the heavenly Word, the Saviour, to be bound on to you as an
amulet, and, by trusting in God’s own charm, be delivered from passions
which are the diseases of the mind, and rescued from sin?--for sin is
eternal death. Surely utterly dull and blind, and, like moles, doing
nothing but eat, you spend your lives in darkness, surrounded with
corruption. But it is truth which cries, “The light shall shine forth
from the darkness.” Let the light then shine in the hidden part of man,
that is, the heart; and let the beams of knowledge arise to reveal
and irradiate the hidden inner man, the disciple of the Light, the
familiar friend and fellow-heir of Christ; especially now that we have
come to know the most precious and venerable name of the good Father,
who to a pious and good child gives gentle counsels, and commands what
is salutary for His child. He who obeys Him has the advantage in all
things, follows God, obeys the Father, knows Him though wandering,
loves God, loves his neighbour, fulfils the commandment, seeks the
prize, claims the promise. But it has been God’s fixed and constant
purpose to save the flock of men: for this end the good God sent the
good Shepherd. And the Word, having unfolded the truth, showed to men
the height of salvation, that either repenting they might be saved, or
refusing to obey, they might be judged. This is the proclamation of
righteousness: to those that obey, glad tidings; to those that disobey,
judgment. The loud trumpet, when sounded, collects the soldiers, and
proclaims war. And shall not Christ, breathing a strain of peace to
the ends of the earth, gather together His own soldiers, the soldiers
of peace? Well, by His blood, and by the word, He has gathered the
bloodless host of peace, and assigned to them the kingdom of heaven.
The trumpet of Christ is His gospel. He hath blown it, and we have
heard. “Let us array ourselves in the armour of peace, putting on the
breastplate of righteousness, and taking the shield of faith, and
binding our brows with the helmet of salvation; and the sword of the
Spirit, which is the word of God,”[150] let us sharpen. So the apostle
in the spirit of peace commands. These are our invulnerable weapons:
armed with these, let us face the evil one; “the fiery darts of the
evil one” let us quench with the sword-points dipped in water, that
have been baptized by the Word, returning grateful thanks for the
benefits we have received, and honouring God through the Divine Word.
“For while thou art yet speaking,” it is said, “He will say, Behold,
I am beside thee.”[151] O this holy and blessed power, by which God
has fellowship with men! Better far, then, is it to become at once
the imitator and the servant of the best of all beings; for only by
holy service will any one be able to imitate God, and to serve and
worship Him only by imitating Him. The heavenly and truly divine love
comes to men thus, when in the soul itself the spark of true goodness,
kindled in the soul by the Divine Word, is able to burst forth into
flame; and, what is of the highest importance, salvation runs parallel
with sincere willingness--choice and life being, so to speak, yoked
together. Wherefore this exhortation of the truth alone, like the most
faithful of our friends, abides with us till our last breath, and is
to the whole and perfect spirit of the soul the kind attendant on our
ascent to heaven. What, then, is the exhortation I give you? I urge
you to be saved. This Christ desires. In one word, He freely bestows
life on you. And who is He? Briefly learn. The Word of truth, the Word
of incorruption, that regenerates man by bringing him back to the
truth--the goad that urges to salvation--He who expels destruction
and pursues death--He who builds up the temple of God in men, that He
may cause God to take up His abode in men. Cleanse the temple; and
pleasures and amusements abandon to the winds and the fire, as a fading
flower; but wisely cultivate the fruits of self-command, and present
thyself to God as an offering of first-fruits, that there may be not
the work alone, but also the grace of God; and both are requisite, that
the friend of Christ may be rendered worthy of the kingdom, and be
counted worthy of the kingdom.

                             CHAPTER XII.

          EXHORTATION TO ABANDON THEIR OLD ERRORS AND LISTEN
                    TO THE INSTRUCTIONS OF CHRIST.

Let us then avoid custom as we would a dangerous headland, or the
threatening Charybdis, or the mythic sirens. It chokes man, turns him
away from truth, leads him away from life: custom is a snare, a gulf, a
pit, a mischievous winnowing fan.

    “Urge the ship beyond that smoke and billow.”[152]

Let us shun, fellow-mariners, let us shun this billow; it vomits forth
fire: it is a wicked island, heaped with bones and corpses, and in it
sings a fair courtesan, Pleasure, delighting with music for the common
ear.

    “Hie thee hither, far-famed Ulysses, great glory of the Achæans;
    Moor the ship, that thou mayest hear a diviner voice.”[153]

She praises thee, O mariner, and calls thee illustrious; and the
courtesan tries to win to herself the glory of the Greeks. Leave her
to prey on the dead; a heavenly spirit comes to thy help: pass by
Pleasure, she beguiles.

    “Let not a woman with flowing train cheat you of your senses,
    With her flattering prattle seeking your hurt.”

Sail past the song; it works death. Exert your will only, and you have
overcome ruin; bound to the wood of the cross, thou shalt be freed from
destruction: the word of God will be thy pilot, and the Holy Spirit
will bring thee to anchor in the haven of heaven. Then shalt thou see
my God, and be initiated into the sacred mysteries, and come to the
fruition of those things which are laid up in heaven reserved for me,
which “ear hath not heard, nor have they entered into the heart of
any.”[154]

    “And in sooth methinks I see two suns,
    And a double Thebes,”[155]

said one frenzy-stricken in the worship of idols, intoxicated with
mere ignorance. I would pity him in his frantic intoxication, and thus
frantic I would invite him to the sobriety of salvation; for the Lord
welcomes a sinner’s repentance, and not his death.

Come, O madman, not leaning on the thyrsus, not crowned with ivy; throw
away the mitre, throw away the fawn-skin; come to thy senses. I will
show thee the Word, and the mysteries of the Word, expounding them
after thine own fashion. This is the mountain beloved of God, not the
subject of tragedies like Cithæron, but consecrated to dramas of the
truth,--a mount of sobriety, shaded with forests of purity; and there
revel on it not the Mænades, the sisters of Semele, who was struck by
the thunderbolt, practising in their initiatory rites unholy division
of flesh, but the daughters of God, the fair lambs, who celebrate the
holy rites of the Word, raising a sober choral dance. The righteous
are the chorus; the music is a hymn of the King of the universe. The
maidens strike the lyre, the angels praise, the prophets speak; the
sound of music issues forth, they run and pursue the jubilant band;
those that are called make haste, eagerly desiring to receive the
Father.

Come thou also, O aged man, leaving Thebes, and casting away from thee
both divination and Bacchic frenzy, allow thyself to be led to the
truth. I give thee the staff [of the cross] on which to lean. Haste,
Tiresias; believe, and thou wilt see. Christ, by whom the eyes of the
blind recover sight, will shed on thee a light brighter than the sun;
night will flee from thee, fire will fear, death will be gone; thou,
old man, who saw not Thebes, shalt see the heavens. O truly sacred
mysteries! O stainless light! My way is lighted with torches, and I
survey the heavens and God; I become holy whilst I am initiated.
The Lord is the hierophant, and seals while illuminating him who is
initiated, and presents to the Father him who believes, to be kept safe
for ever. Such are the revelries of my mysteries. If it is thy wish, be
thou also initiated; and thou shalt join the choir along with angels
around the unbegotten and indestructible and the only true God, the
Word of God, raising the hymn with us. This Jesus, who is eternal, the
one great High Priest of the one God and of His Father, prays for and
exhorts men.

“Hear, ye myriad tribes, rather whoever among men are endowed with
reason, both barbarians and Greeks. I call on the whole race of men,
whose creator I am, by the will of the Father. Come to me, that you
may be put in your due rank under the one God and the one Word of
God; and do not only have the advantage of the irrational creatures
in the possession of reason; for to you of all mortals I grant the
enjoyment of immortality. For I want, I want to impart to you this
grace, bestowing on you the perfect boon of immortality; and I confer
on you both the Word and the knowledge of God, my complete self. This
am I, this God wills, this is symphony, this the harmony of the Father,
this is the Son, this is Christ, this the Word of God, the arm of the
Lord, the power of the universe, the will of the Father; of which
things there were images of old, but not all adequate. I desire to
restore you according to the original model, that ye may become also
like me. I anoint you with the unguent of faith, by which you throw off
corruption, and show you the naked form of righteousness by which you
ascend to God. Come to me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and
I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am
meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest to your souls. For my
yoke is easy, and my burden light.”[156]

Let us haste, let us run, my fellow-men--us, who are God-loving and
God-like images of the Word. Let us haste, let us run, let us take His
yoke, let us receive, to conduct us to immortality, the good charioteer
of men. Let us love Christ. He led the colt with its parent; and
having yoked the team of humanity to God, directs His chariot to
immortality, hastening clearly to fulfil, by driving now into heaven,
what He shadowed forth before by riding into Jerusalem. A spectacle
most beautiful to the Father is the eternal Son crowned with victory.
Let us aspire, then, after what is good; let us become God-loving men,
and obtain the greatest of all things which are incapable of being
harmed--God and life. Our helper is the Word; let us put confidence
in Him; and never let us be visited with such a craving for silver
and gold, and glory, as for the Word of truth Himself. For it will
not, it will not be pleasing to God Himself if we value least those
things which are worth most, and hold in the highest estimation the
manifest enormities and the utter impiety of folly, and ignorance,
and thoughtlessness, and idolatry. For not improperly the sons of the
philosophers consider that the foolish are guilty of profanity and
impiety in whatever they do; and describing ignorance itself as a
species of madness, allege that the multitude are nothing but madmen.
There is therefore no room to doubt, the Word will say, whether it
is better to be sane or insane; but holding on to truth with our
teeth, we must with all our might follow God, and in the exercise of
wisdom regard all things to be, as they are, His; and besides, having
learned that we are the most excellent of His possessions, let us
commit ourselves to God, loving the Lord God, and regarding this as
our business all our life long. And if what belongs to friends be
reckoned common property, and man be the friend of God--for through
the mediation of the Word has he been made the friend of God--then
accordingly all things become man’s, because all things are God’s, and
the common property of both the friends, God and man.

It is time, then, for us to say that the pious Christian alone is rich
and wise, and of noble birth, and thus call and believe him to be God’s
image, and also His likeness,[157] having become righteous and holy
and wise by Jesus Christ, and so far already like God. Accordingly
this grace is indicated by the prophet, when he says, “I said that ye
are gods, and all sons of the Highest.”[158] For us, yea us, He has
adopted, and wishes to be called the Father of us alone, not of the
unbelieving. Such is then our position who are the attendants of Christ.

    “As are men’s wishes, so are their words;
    As are their words, so are their deeds;
    And as their works, such is their life.”

Good is the whole life of those who have known Christ.

Enough, methinks, of words, though, impelled by love to man, I might
have gone on to pour out what I had from God, that I might exhort to
what is the greatest of blessings--salvation. For discourses concerning
the life which has no end, are not readily brought to the end of their
disclosures. To you still remains this conclusion, to choose which will
profit you most--judgment or grace. For I do not think there is even
room for doubt which of these is the better; nor is it allowable to
compare life with destruction.

                            THE INSTRUCTOR.

                                BOOK I.

                              CHAPTER I.

                     THE OFFICE OF THE INSTRUCTOR.

As there are these three things in the case of man, habits, actions,
and passions; habits are the department appropriated by _hortatory_
discourse the guide to piety, which, like the ship’s keel, is laid
beneath for the building up of faith; in which, rejoicing exceedingly,
and abjuring our old opinions, through salvation we renew our youth,
singing with the hymning prophecy, “How good is God to Israel, to such
as are upright in heart!”[159] All actions, again, are the province of
_preceptive_ discourse; while _persuasive_ discourse applies itself to
heal the passions. It is, however, one and the self-same word which
rescues man from the custom of this world in which he has been reared,
and trains him up in the one salvation of faith in God.

When, then, the heavenly guide, the Word, was inviting men to
salvation, the appellation of _hortatory_ was properly applied to Him:
this same word was called rousing (the whole from a part). For the
whole of piety is hortatory, engendering in the kindred faculty of
reason a yearning after true life now and to come. But now, being at
once curative and preceptive, following in His own steps, He makes what
had been prescribed the subject of persuasion, promising the cure of
the passions within us. Let us then designate this Word appropriately
by the one name _Tutor_ (or _Pædagogue_, or _Instructor_).

The Instructor being practical, not theoretical, His aim is thus to
improve the soul, not to teach, and to train it up to a virtuous, not
to an intellectual life. Although this same word is didactic, but not
in the present instance. For the word which, in matters of doctrine,
explains and reveals, is that whose province it is to teach. But our
Educator[160] being practical, first exhorts to the attainment of right
dispositions and character, and then persuades us to the energetic
practice of our duties, enjoining on us pure commandments, and
exhibiting to such as come after representations of those who formerly
wandered in error. Both are of the highest utility,--that which assumes
the form of counselling to obedience, and that which is presented in
the form of example; which latter is of two kinds, corresponding to the
former duality,--the one having for its purpose that we should choose
and imitate the good, and the other that we should reject and turn away
from the opposite.

Hence accordingly ensues the healing of our passions, in consequence
of the assuagements of those examples; the Pædagogue strengthening our
souls, and by His benign commands, as by gentle medicines, guiding the
sick to the perfect knowledge of the truth.

There is a wide difference between health and knowledge; for the latter
is produced by learning, the former by healing. One, who is ill, will
not therefore learn any branch of instruction till he is quite well.
For neither to learners nor to the sick is each injunction invariably
expressed similarly; but to the former in such a way as to lead to
knowledge, and to the latter to health. As, then, for those of us who
are diseased in body a physician is required, so also those who are
diseased in soul require a pædagogue to cure our maladies; and then a
teacher, to train and guide the soul to all requisite knowledge when
it is made able to admit the revelation of the Word. Eagerly desiring,
then, to perfect us by a gradation conducive to salvation, suited
for efficacious discipline, a beautiful arrangement is observed by
the all-benignant Word, who first exhorts, then trains, and finally
teaches.

                              CHAPTER II.

                OUR INSTRUCTOR’S TREATMENT OF OUR SINS.

Now, O you, my children, our Instructor is like His Father God, whose
son He is, sinless, blameless, and with a soul devoid of passion; God
in the form of man, stainless, the minister of His Father’s will, the
Word who is God, who is in the Father, who is at the Father’s right
hand, and with the form of God is God. He is to us a spotless image;
to Him we are to try with all our might to assimilate our souls.
He is wholly free from human passions; wherefore also He alone is
judge, because He alone is sinless. As far, however, as we can, let
us try to sin as little as possible. For nothing is so urgent in the
first place as deliverance from passions and disorders, and then the
checking of our liability to fall into sins that have become habitual.
It is best, therefore, not to sin at all in any way, which we assert
to be the prerogative of God alone; next to keep clear of voluntary
transgressions, which is characteristic of the wise man; thirdly, not
to fall into many involuntary offences, which is peculiar to those who
have been excellently trained. Not to continue long in sins, let that
be ranked last. But this also is salutary to those who are called back
to repentance, to renew the contest.

And the Instructor, as I think, very beautifully says, through
Moses: “If any one die suddenly by him, straightway the head of his
consecration shall be polluted, and shall be shaved,”[161] designating
involuntary sin as sudden death. And He says that it pollutes by
defiling the soul: wherefore He prescribes the cure with all speed,
advising the head to be instantly shaven; that is, counselling the
locks of ignorance which shade the reason to be shorn clean off, that
reason (whose seat is in the brain), being left bare of the dense stuff
of vice, may speed its way to repentance. Then after a few remarks He
adds, “The days before are not reckoned irrational,”[162] by which
manifestly sins are meant which are contrary to reason. The involuntary
act He calls “_sudden_,” the sin he calls “irrational.” Wherefore the
Word, the Instructor, has taken the charge of us, in order to the
prevention of sin, which is contrary to reason.

Hence consider the expression of Scripture, “Therefore these things
saith the Lord;” the sin that had been committed before is held up to
reprobation by the succeeding expression “therefore,” according to
which the righteous judgment follows. This is shown conspicuously by
the prophets, when they said, “Hadst thou not sinned, He would not have
uttered these threatenings.” “Therefore thus saith the Lord;” “Because
thou hast not heard these words, therefore these things the Lord;” and,
“Therefore, behold, the Lord saith.” For prophecy is given by reason
both of obedience and disobedience: for obedience, that we may be
saved; for disobedience, that we may be corrected.

Our Instructor, the Word, therefore cures the unnatural passions of
the soul by means of exhortations. For with the highest propriety the
help of bodily diseases is called the healing art--an art acquired by
human skill. But the paternal Word is the only Pæonian physician of
human infirmities, and the holy charmer of the sick soul. “Save,” it is
said, “Thy servant, O my God, who trusteth in Thee. Pity me, O Lord;
for I will cry to Thee all the day.”[163] For a while the “physician’s
art,” according to Democritus, “heals the diseases of the body; wisdom
frees the soul from passion.” But the good Instructor, the Wisdom, the
Word of the Father, who made man, cares for the whole nature of His
creature; the all-sufficient Physician of humanity, the Saviour, heals
both body and soul. “Rise up,” He said to the paralytic; “take the
bed on which thou liest, and go away home;”[164] and straightway the
infirm man received strength. And to the dead He said, “Lazarus, go
forth;” and the dead man issued from his coffin such as he was ere he
died, having undergone resurrection. Further, He heals the soul itself
by precepts and gifts--by precepts indeed, in course of time, but being
liberal in His gifts, He says to us sinners, “Thy sins be forgiven
thee.”[165]

We, however, as soon as He conceived the thought, became His children,
having had assigned us the best and most secure rank by His orderly
arrangement, which first circles about the world, the heavens, and the
sun’s circuits, and occupies itself with the motions of the rest of the
stars for man’s behoof, and then busies itself with man himself, on
whom all its care is concentrated; and regarding him as its greatest
work, regulated his soul by wisdom and temperance, and tempered the
body with beauty and proportion. And whatever in human actions is right
and regular, is the result of the inspiration of its rectitude and
order.

                             CHAPTER III.

                  THE PHILANTHROPY OF THE INSTRUCTOR.

The Lord ministers all good and all help, both as man and as God: as
God, forgiving our sins; and as man, training us not to sin. Man is
therefore justly dear to God, since he is His workmanship. The other
works of creation He made by the word of command alone, but man He
framed by Himself, by His own hand, and breathed into him what was
peculiar to Himself. What, then, was fashioned by Him, and after His
likeness, either was created by God Himself as being desirable on its
own account, or was formed as being desirable on account of something
else. If, then, man is an object desirable for itself, then He who is
good loved what is good, and the lovecharm is within even in man, and
is that very thing which is called the inspiration [or breath] of God;
but if man was a desirable object on account of something else, God had
no other reason for creating him, than that unless he came into being,
it was not possible for God to be a good Creator, or for man to arrive
at the knowledge of God. For God would not have accomplished that on
account of which man was created otherwise than by the creation of man;
and what hidden power in willing God possessed, He carried fully out
by the forth-putting of His might externally in the act of creating,
receiving from man what He made man;[166] and whom He had He saw, and
what He wished that came to pass; and there is nothing which God cannot
do. Man, then, whom God made, is desirable for himself, and that which
is desirable on his account is allied to him to whom it is desirable on
his account; and this, too, is acceptable and liked.

But what is loveable, and is not also loved by Him? And man has been
proved to be loveable; consequently man is loved by God. For how shall
he not be loved for whose sake the only-begotten Son is sent from the
Father’s bosom, the Word of faith, the faith which is superabundant;
the Lord Himself distinctly confessing and saying, “For the Father
Himself loveth you, because ye have loved me;”[167] and again, “And
hast loved them as Thou hast loved me?”[168] What, then, the Master
desires and declares, and how He is disposed in deed and word, how He
commands what is to be done, and forbids the opposite, has already been
shown.

Plainly, then, the other kind of discourse, the didactic, is powerful
and spiritual, observing precision, occupied in the contemplation of
mysteries. But let it stand over for the present. Now, it is incumbent
on us to return His love, who lovingly guides us to that life which
is best; and to live in accordance with the injunctions of His will,
not only fulfilling what is commanded, or guarding against what is
forbidden, but turning away from some examples, and imitating others as
much as we can, and thus to perform the works of the Master according
to His similitude, and so fulfil what Scripture says as to our being
made in His image and likeness. For, wandering in life as in deep
darkness, we need a guide that cannot stumble or stray; and our guide
is the best, not blind, as the Scripture says, “leading the blind
into pits.”[169] But the Word is keen-sighted, and scans the recesses
of the heart. As, then, that is not light which enlightens not, nor
motion that moves not, nor loving which loves not, so neither is that
good which profits not, nor guides to salvation. Let us then aim at
the fulfilment of the commandments by the works of the Lord; for the
Word Himself also, having openly become flesh,[170] exhibited the same
virtue, both practical and contemplative. Wherefore let us regard the
Word as law, and His commands and counsels as the short and straight
paths to immortality; for His precepts are full of persuasion, not of
fear.

                              CHAPTER IV.

          MEN AND WOMEN ALIKE UNDER THE INSTRUCTOR’S CHARGE.

Let us, then embracing more and more this good obedience, give
ourselves to the Lord, clinging to what is surest, the cable of faith
in Him, and understanding that the virtue of man and woman is the same.
For if the God of both is one, the Master of both is also one; one
church, one temperance, one modesty; their food is common, marriage an
equal yoke; respiration, sight, hearing, knowledge, hope, obedience,
love, all alike. And those whose life is common, have common grace and
a common salvation; common to them are love and training. “For in this
world,” he says, “they marry, and are given in marriage,”[171] in which
alone the female is distinguished from the male; “but in that world it
is so no more.” There the rewards of this social and holy life, which
is based on conjugal union, are laid up, not for male and female,
but for man, the sexual desire which divided humanity being removed.
Common therefore, too, to men and women, is the name of man. For this
reason I think the Attics called, not boys only, but girls, παιδάριον,
using it as a word of common gender; if Menander the comic poet, in
_Rhapizomena_, appears to any one a sufficient authority, who thus
speaks:

    “My little daughter; for by nature
    The child (παιδάριον) is most loving.”

Ἄρνες, too, the word for lambs, is a common name of simplicity for the
male and female animal.

Now the Lord Himself will feed us as His flock for ever. Amen. But
without a shepherd, neither can sheep nor any other animal live, nor
children without a tutor, nor domestics without a master.

                              CHAPTER V.

         ALL WHO WALK ACCORDING TO TRUTH ARE CHILDREN OF GOD.

That, then, Pædagogy is the training of children (παίδων αγωγή),
is clear from the word itself. It remains for us to consider the
children whom Scripture points to; then to give the pædagogue charge
of them. We are the children. In many ways Scripture celebrates us,
and describes us in manifold figures of speech, giving variety to
the simplicity of the faith by diverse names. Accordingly, in the
gospel, “the Lord, standing on the shore, says to the disciples”--they
happened to be fishing--“and called aloud, Children, have ye any
meat?”[172]--addressing those that were already in the position
of disciples as children. “And they brought to Him,” it is said,
“children, that He might put His hands on them and bless them; and
when His disciples hindered them, Jesus said, Suffer the children,
and forbid them not to come to me, for of such is the kingdom of
heaven.”[173] What the expression means, the Lord Himself shall
declare, saying, “Except ye be converted, and become as little
children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven;”[174] not in
that place speaking figuratively of regeneration, but setting before
us, for our imitation, the simplicity that is in children.

The prophetic spirit also distinguishes us as children. “Plucking,”
it is said, “branches of olives or palms, the children went forth
to meet the Lord, and cried, saying, Hosanna to the Son of David!
Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord;”[175] light, and
glory, and praise, with supplication to the Lord: for this is the
meaning of the expression Hosanna when rendered into Greek. And the
Scripture appears to me, in allusion to the prophecy just mentioned,
reproachfully to upbraid the thoughtless: “Have ye never read, Out of
the mouths of babes and sucklings Thou hast perfected praise?”[176]
In this way the Lord in the Gospels spurs on His disciples, urging
them to attend to Him, hastening as He was to the Father; rendering
His hearers more eager by the intimation that after a little He was to
depart, and showing them that it was requisite that they should take
more unsparing advantage of the truth than ever before, as the Word
was to ascend to heaven. Again, therefore, He calls them children;
for He says, “Children, a little while I am with you.”[177] And,
again, He likens the kingdom of heaven to children sitting in the
market-places and saying, “We have piped unto you, and ye have not
danced; we have mourned, and ye have not lamented;”[178] and whatever
else He added agreeably thereto. And it is not alone the gospel that
holds these sentiments. Prophecy also agrees with it. David accordingly
says, “_Praise, O children, the Lord; praise the name of the
Lord._”[179] It says also by Esaias, “_Here am I, and the children
that God hath given me._”[180] Are you amazed, then, to hear that
men who belong to the nations are sons in the Lord’s sight? You do not
in that case appear to give ear to the Attic dialect, from which you
may learn that beautiful, comely, and freeborn young maidens are still
called παιδίσκαι, and servant-girls παιδισκάρια; and that those last
also are, on account of the bloom of youth, called by the flattering
name of young maidens.

And when He says, “Let my lambs stand on my right,”[181] He alludes to
the simple children, as if they were sheep and lambs in nature, not
men; and the lambs He counts worthy of preference, from the superior
regard He has to that tenderness and simplicity of disposition in men
which constitutes innocence. Again, when He says, “as sucking calves,”
He again alludes figuratively to us; and “as an innocent and gentle
dove,”[182] the reference is again to us. Again, by Moses, He commands
“two young pigeons or a pair of turtles to be offered for sin;”[183]
thus saying, that the harmlessness and innocence and placable nature
of these tender young birds are acceptable to God, and explaining
that like is an expiation for like. Further, the timorousness of the
turtle-doves typifies fear in reference to sin.

And that He calls us chickens the Scripture testifies: “As a hen
gathereth her chickens under her wings.”[184] Thus are we the Lord’s
chickens; the Word thus marvellously and mystically describing the
simplicity of childhood. For sometimes He calls us children, sometimes
chickens, sometimes infants, and at other times sons, and “a new
people,” and “a recent people.” “And my servants shall be called by
a new name”[185] (a new name, He says, fresh and eternal, pure and
simple, and childlike and true), which shall be blessed on the earth.
And again, He figuratively calls us colts unyoked to vice, not broken
in by wickedness; but simple, and bounding joyously to the Father
alone; not such horses “as neigh after their neighbours’ wives, that
are under the yoke, and are female-mad;”[186] but free and new-born,
jubilant by means of faith, ready to run to the truth, swift to speed
to salvation, that tread and stamp under foot the things of the world.

“Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Sion; tell aloud, O daughter of
Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh, just, meek, and bringing salvation;
meek truly is He, and riding on a beast of burden, and a young
colt.”[187] It was not enough to have said colt alone, but He added to
it also _young_, to show the youth of humanity in Christ, and the
eternity of simplicity, which shall know no old age. And we who are
little ones being such colts, are reared up by our divine colt-tamer.
But if the new man in Scripture is represented by the ass, this ass
is also a colt. “And he bound,” it is said, “the colt to the vine,”
having bound this simple and childlike people to the word, whom He
figuratively represents as a vine. For the vine produces wine, as the
Word produces blood, and both drink for health to men--wine for the
body, blood for the spirit.

And that He also calls us lambs, the Spirit by the mouth of Isaiah is
an unimpeachable witness: “He will feed His flock like a shepherd,
He will gather the lambs with His arm,”[188]--using the figurative
appellation of lambs, which are still more tender than sheep, to
express simplicity. And we also in truth, honouring the fairest and
most perfect objects in life with an appellation derived from the
word child, have named training παιδεία, and discipline παιδαγωγία.
Discipline (παιδαγωγία) we declare to be right guiding from childhood
to virtue. Accordingly, our Lord revealed more distinctly to us what
is signified by the appellation of children. On the question arising
among the apostles, “which of them should be the greater,” Jesus placed
a little child in the midst, saying, “Whosoever shall humble himself
as this little child, the same shall be the greater in the kingdom
of heaven.”[189] He does not then use the appellation of children on
account of their very limited amount of understanding from their age,
as some have thought. Nor, if He says, “Except ye become as these
children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of God,” are His words
to be understood as meaning “without learning.” We, then, who are
infants, no longer roll on the ground, nor creep on the earth like
serpents as before, crawling with the whole body about senseless lusts;
but, stretching upwards in soul, loosed from the world and our sins,
touching the earth on tiptoe so as to appear to be in the world, we
pursue holy wisdom, although this seems folly to those whose wits are
whetted for wickedness. Rightly, then, are those called children who
know Him who is God alone as their Father, who are simple, and infants,
and guileless, who are lovers of the horns of the unicorns.[190]

To those, therefore, that have made progress in the word, He has
proclaimed this utterance, bidding them dismiss anxious care of the
things of this world, and exhorting them to adhere to the Father
alone, in imitation of children. Wherefore also in what follows He
says: “Take no anxious thought for the morrow; sufficient unto the
day is the evil thereof.”[191] Thus He enjoins them to lay aside
the cares of this life, and depend on the Father alone. And he who
fulfils this commandment is in reality a child and a son to God and
to the world,--to the one as deceived, to the other as beloved. And
if we have one Master in heaven, as the Scripture says, then by
common consent those on the earth will be rightly called disciples.
For so is the truth, that perfection is with the Lord, who is always
teaching, and infancy and childishness with us, who are always
learning. Thus prophecy hath honoured _perfection_, by applying
to it the appellation _man_. For instance, by David, He says
of the devil: “The Lord abhors the man of blood;”[192] he calls him
man, as perfect in wickedness. And the Lord is called man, because
He is perfect in righteousness. Directly in point is the instance
of the apostle, who says, writing the Corinthians: “For I have
espoused you to one man, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to
Christ,”[193] whether as children or saints, but to the Lord alone.
And writing to the Ephesians, he has unfolded in the clearest manner
the point in question, speaking to the following effect: “Till we all
attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of God, to a
perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:
that we be no longer children, tossed to and fro by every wind of
doctrine, by the craft of men, by their cunning in the stratagems of
deceit; but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up to Him in all
things,”[194]--saving these things in order to the edification of
the body of Christ, who is the head and man, the only one perfect in
righteousness; and we who are children guarding against the blasts of
heresies, which blow to our inflation; and not putting our trust in
fathers who teach us otherwise, are then made perfect when we are the
church, having received Christ the head. Then it is right to notice,
with respect to the appellation of infant (νήπιος), that τὸ νήπιον is
not predicated of the silly: for the silly man is called νηπύτιος; and
νήπιος is νεήπιος (since he that is tender-hearted is called ἤπιος),
as being one that has newly become gentle and meek in conduct. This
the blessed Paul most clearly pointed out when he said, “When we might
have been burdensome as the apostles of Christ, we were gentle (ἤπιοι)
among you, as a nurse cherisheth her children.”[195] The child (νήπιος)
is therefore gentle (ἤπιος), and therefore more tender, delicate,
and simple, guileless, and destitute of hypocrisy, straightforward
and upright in mind, which is the basis of simplicity and truth. For
He says, “Upon whom shall I look, but upon him who is gentle and
quiet?”[196] For such is the virgin speech, tender, and free of fraud;
whence also a virgin is wont to be called “a tender bride,” and a child
“tender-hearted.” And we are tender who are pliant to the power of
persuasion, and are easily drawn to goodness, and are mild, and free of
the stain of malice and perverseness, for the ancient race was perverse
and hard-hearted; but the band of infants, the new people which we
are, is delicate as a child. On account of the hearts of the innocent,
the apostle, in the Epistle to the Romans, owns that he rejoices, and
furnishes a kind of definition of children, so to speak, when he says,
“I would have you wise toward good, but simple towards evil.”[197] For
the name of child, νήπιος, is not understood by us privatively, though
the sons of the grammarians make the νη a privative particle. For if
they call us who follow after childhood foolish, see how they utter
blasphemy against the Lord, in regarding those as foolish who have
betaken themselves to God. But if, which is rather the true sense, they
themselves understand the designation children of simple ones, we glory
in the name. For the new minds, which have newly become wise, which
have sprung into being according to the new covenant, are infantile in
the old folly. Of late, then, God was known by the coming of Christ:
“For no man knoweth God but the Son, and he to whom the Son shall
reveal Him.”[198]

In contradistinction, therefore, to the older people, the new people
are called young, having learned the new blessings; and we have the
exuberance of life’s morning prime in this youth which knows no old
age, in which we are always growing to maturity in intelligence, are
always young, always mild, always new: for those must necessarily
be new, who have become partakers of the new Word. And that
which participates in eternity is wont to be assimilated to the
incorruptible: so that to us appertains the designation of the age of
childhood, a lifelong spring-time, because the truth that is in us,
and our habits saturated with the truth, cannot be touched by old age;
but Wisdom is ever blooming, ever remains consistent and the same,
and never changes. “Their children,” it is said, “shall be borne upon
their shoulders, and fondled on their knees; as one whom his mother
comforteth, so also shall I comfort you.”[199] The mother draws the
children to herself; and we seek our mother the church. Whatever is
feeble and tender, as needing help on account of its feebleness, is
kindly looked on, and is sweet and pleasant, anger changing into help
in the case of such: for thus horses’ colts, and the little calves
of cows, and the lion’s whelp, and the stag’s fawn, and the child of
man, are looked upon with pleasure by their fathers and mothers. Thus
also the Father of the universe cherishes affection towards those who
have fled to Him; and having begotten them again by His Spirit to the
adoption of children, knows them as gentle, and loves those alone,
and aids and fights for them; and therefore He bestows on them the
name of child. The word Isaac I also connect with child. Isaac means
laughter. He was seen sporting with his wife and helpmeet Rebecca by
the prying king.[200] The king, whose name was Abimelech, appears
to me to represent a supramundane wisdom contemplating the mystery
of sport. They interpret Rebecca to mean endurance. O wise sport,
laughter also assisted by endurance, and the king as spectator! The
spirit of those that are children in Christ, whose lives are ordered
in endurance, rejoice. And this is the divine sport. “Such a sport, of
his own, Jove sports,” says Heraclitus. For what other employment is
seemly for a wise and perfect man, than to sport and be glad in the
endurance of what is good, and, in the administration of what is good,
holding festival with God? That which is signified by the prophet may
be interpreted differently,--namely, of our rejoicing for salvation, as
Isaac. He also, delivered from death, laughed, sporting and rejoicing
with his spouse, who was the type of the Helper of our salvation, the
church, to whom the stable name of endurance is given; for this cause
surely, because she alone remains to all generations, rejoicing ever,
subsisting as she does by the endurance of us believers, who are the
members of Christ. And the witness of those that have endured to the
end, and the rejoicing on their account, is the mystic sport, and the
salvation accompanied with decorous solace which brings us aid.

The King, then, who is Christ, beholds from above our laughter,
and looking through the window, as the Scripture says, views the
thanksgiving, and the blessing, and the rejoicing, and the gladness,
and furthermore the endurance which works together with them and their
embrace: views His church, showing only His face, which was wanting to
the church, which is made perfect by her royal Head. And where, then,
was the door by which the Lord showed Himself? The flesh by which He
was manifested. He is Isaac (for the narrative may be interpreted
otherwise), who is a type of the Lord, a child as a son; for he was
the son of Abraham, as Christ the Son of God, and a sacrifice as the
Lord, but he was not immolated as the Lord. Isaac only bore the wood
of the sacrifice, as the Lord the wood of the cross. And he laughed
mystically, prophesying that the Lord should fill us with joy, who
have been redeemed from corruption by the blood of the Lord. Isaac
did everything but suffer, as was right, yielding the precedence in
suffering to the Word. Furthermore, there is an intimation of the
divinity of the Lord in His not being slain. For Jesus rose again
after His burial, having suffered no harm, like Isaac released from
sacrifice. And in defence of the point to be established, I shall
adduce another consideration of the greatest weight. The Spirit calls
the Lord Himself a child, thus prophesying by Esaias: “Lo, to us a
child has been born, to us a son has been given, on whose own shoulder
the government shall be; and His name has been called the Angel of
great Counsel.” Who, then, is this infant child? He according to whose
image we are made little children. By the same prophet is declared His
greatness: “Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father,
Prince of Peace; that He might fulfil His discipline: and of His peace
there shall be no end.”[201] O the great God! O the perfect child! The
Son in the Father, and the Father in the Son. And how shall not the
discipline of this child be perfect, which extends to all, leading as a
schoolmaster us as children, who are His little ones? He has stretched
forth to us those hands of His that are conspicuously worthy of trust.
To this child additional testimony is borne by John, “the greatest
prophet among those born of women:”[202] “Behold the Lamb of God!”[203]
For since Scripture calls the infant children lambs, it has also called
Him--God the Word--who became man for our sakes, and who wished in all
points to be made like to us--“the Lamb of God”--Him, namely, that is
the Son of God, the child of the Father.

                              CHAPTER VI.

            THE NAME CHILDREN DOES NOT IMPLY INSTRUCTION IN
                        ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES.

We have ample means of encountering those who are given to carping. For
we are not termed children and infants with reference to the childish
and contemptible character of our education, as those who are inflated
on account of knowledge have calumniously alleged. Straightway, on our
regeneration, we attained that perfection after which we aspired. For
we were illuminated, which is to know God. He is not then imperfect
who knows what is perfect. And do not reprehend me when I profess to
know God; for so it was deemed right to speak to the Word, and He
is free.[204] For at the moment of the Lord’s baptism there sounded
a voice from heaven, as a testimony to the Beloved, “Thou art my
beloved Son, to-day have I begotten Thee.” Let us then ask at the
wise, Is Christ, begotten to-day, already perfect, or--what were most
monstrous--imperfect? If the latter, there is some addition He requires
yet to make. But for Him to make any addition to His knowledge is
absurd, since He is God. For none can be superior to the Word, or the
teacher of the only Teacher. Will they not then own, though reluctant,
that the perfect Word born of the perfect Father was begotten in
perfection, according to œconomic fore-ordination? And if He was
perfect, why was He, the perfect one, baptized? It was necessary,
they say, to fulfil the profession that pertained to humanity. Most
excellent. Well, I assert, simultaneously with His baptism by John,
He becomes perfect? Manifestly. He did not then learn anything more
from him? Certainly not. But He is perfected by the washing--of
baptism--alone, and is sanctified by the descent of the Spirit? Such is
the case. The same also takes place in our case, whose exemplar Christ
became. Being baptized, we are illuminated; illuminated, we become
sons; being made sons, we are made perfect; being made perfect, we are
made immortal. “I,” says He, “have said that ye are gods, and all sons
of the Highest.”[205] This work is variously called grace,[206] and
illumination, and perfection, and washing: washing, by which we cleanse
away our sins; grace, by which the penalties accruing to transgressions
are remitted; and illumination, by which that holy light of salvation
is beheld, that is, by which we see God clearly. Now we call that
perfect which wants nothing. For what is yet wanting to him who knows
God? For it were truly monstrous that that which is not complete
should be called a gift (or act) of God’s grace. Being perfect, He
consequently bestows perfect gifts. As at His command all things were
made, so on His bare wishing to bestow grace, ensues the perfecting of
His grace. For the future of time is anticipated by the power of His
volition.

Further release from evils is the beginning of salvation. We then
alone, who first have touched the confines of life, are already
perfect; and we already live who are separated from death. Salvation,
accordingly, is the following of Christ: “For that which is in Him is
life.”[207] “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my words,
and believeth on Him that sent me, hath eternal life, and cometh not
into condemnation, but hath passed from death to life.”[208] Thus
believing alone, and regeneration, is perfection in life; for God is
never weak. For as His will is work, and this[209] is named the world;
so also His counsel is the salvation of men, and this has been called
the church. He knows, therefore, whom He has called, and whom He has
saved; and at one and the same time He called and saved them. “For ye
are,” says the apostle, “taught of God.”[210] It is not then allowable
to think of what is taught by Him as imperfect; and what is learned
from Him is the eternal salvation of the eternal Saviour, to whom be
thanks for ever and ever. Amen. And he who is only regenerated--as the
name necessarily indicates--and is enlightened, is delivered forthwith
from darkness, and on the instant receives the light.

As, then, those who have shaken off sleep forthwith become all awake
within; or rather, as those who try to remove a film that is over the
eyes, do not supply to them from without the light which they do not
possess, but removing the obstacle from the eyes, leave the pupil
free; thus also we who are baptized, having wiped off the sins which
obscure the light of the Divine Spirit, have the eye of the spirit
free, unimpeded, and full of light, by which alone we contemplate the
Divine, the Holy Spirit flowing down to us from above. This is the
eternal adjustment of the vision, which is able to see the eternal
light, since like loves like; and that which is holy, loves that from
which holiness proceeds, which has appropriately been termed light.
“Once ye were darkness, now are ye light in the Lord.”[211] Hence I am
of opinion man was called by the ancients φώς.[212] But he has not yet
received, say they, the perfect gift. I also assent to this; but he is
in the light, and the darkness comprehendeth him not. There is nothing
intermediate between light and darkness. But the end is reserved till
the resurrection of those who believe; and it is not the reception of
some other thing, but the obtaining of the promise previously made.
For we do not say that both take place together at the same time--both
the arrival at the end, and the anticipation of that arrival. For
eternity and time are not the same, neither is the attempt and the
final result; but both have reference to the same thing, and one and
the same person is concerned in both. Faith, so to speak, is the
attempt generated in time; the final result is the attainment of the
promise, secured for eternity. Now the Lord Himself has most clearly
revealed the equality of salvation, when He said: “For this is the will
of my Father, that every one that seeth the Son, and believeth on Him,
should have everlasting life; and I will raise him up in the last
day.”[213] As far as possible in this world, which is what he means
by the last day, and which is preserved till the time that it shall
end, we believe that we are made perfect. Wherefore He says, “He that
believeth on the Son hath everlasting life.”[214] If, then, those who
have believed have life, what remains beyond the possession of eternal
life? Nothing is wanting to faith, as it is perfect and complete in
itself. If aught is wanting to it, it is not wholly perfect. But faith
is not lame in any respect; nor after our departure from this world
does it make us who have believed, and received without distinction
the earnest of future good, wait; but having in anticipation grasped
by faith that which is future, after the resurrection we receive it
as present, in order that that may be fulfilled which was spoken,
“Be it according to thy faith.”[215] And where faith is, there is
the promise; and the consummation of the promise is rest. So that in
illumination what we receive is knowledge, and the end of knowledge
is rest--the last thing conceived as the object of aspiration. As,
then, inexperience comes to an end by experience, and perplexity by
finding a clear outlet, so by illumination must darkness disappear. The
darkness is ignorance, through which we fall into sins, purblind as
to the truth. Knowledge, then, is the illumination we receive, which
makes ignorance disappear, and endows us with clear vision. Further,
the abandonment of what is bad is the adopting[216] of what is better.
For what ignorance has bound ill, is by knowledge loosed well; those
bonds are with all speed slackened by human faith and divine grace, our
transgressions being taken away by one Pæonian medicine, the baptism of
the Word. We are washed from all our sins, and are no longer entangled
in evil. This is the one grace of illumination, that our characters
are not the same as before our washing. And since knowledge springs up
with illumination, shedding its beams around the mind, the moment we
hear, we who were untaught become disciples. Does this, I ask, take
place on the advent of this instruction? You cannot tell the time.
For instruction leads to faith, and faith with baptism is trained by
the Holy Spirit. For that faith is the one universal salvation of
humanity, and that there is the same equality before the righteous and
loving God, and the same fellowship between Him and all, the apostle
most clearly showed, speaking to the following effect: “Before faith
came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should
afterwards be revealed, so that the law became our schoolmaster to
bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith; but after that
faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster.”[217] Do you
not hear that we are no longer under that law which was accompanied
with fear, but under the Word, the master of free choice? Then he
subjoined the utterance, clear of all partiality: “For ye are all
the children of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many as
were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew
nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor
female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.”[218] There are not, then,
in the same Word some “illuminated (gnostics); and some animal (or
natural) men;” but all who have abandoned the desires of the flesh are
equal and spiritual before the Lord. And again he writes in another
place: “For by one spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether
Jews or Greeks, whether bond or free, and we have all drunk of one
cup.”[219] Nor were it absurd to employ the expressions of those who
call the reminiscence of better things the filtration of the spirit,
understanding by filtration the separation of what is baser, that
results from the reminiscence of what is better. There follows of
necessity, in him who has come to the recollection of what is better,
repentance for what is worse. Accordingly, they confess that the
spirit in repentance retraces its steps. In the same way, therefore,
we also, repenting of our sins, renouncing our iniquities, purified
by baptism, speed back to the eternal light, children to the Father.
Jesus therefore, rejoicing in spirit, said: “I thank Thee, O Father,
God of heaven and earth, that Thou hast hid these things from the
wise and prudent, and hast revealed them to babes;”[220] the Master
and Teacher applying the name babes to us, who are readier to embrace
salvation than the wise in the world, who, thinking themselves wise,
are inflated with pride. And He exclaims in exultation and exceeding
joy, as if lisping with the children, “Even so, Father; for so it
seemed good in Thy sight.”[221] Wherefore those things which have been
concealed from the wise and prudent of this present world have been
revealed to babes. Truly, then, are we the children of God, who have
put aside the old man, and stripped off the garment of wickedness,
and put on the immortality of Christ; that we may become a new, holy
people by regeneration, and may keep the man undefiled. And a babe, as
God’s little one, is cleansed from fornication and wickedness. With the
greatest clearness the blessed Paul has solved for us this question
in his First Epistle to the Corinthians, writing thus: “Brethren, be
not children in understanding; howbeit in malice be children, but in
understanding be men.”[222] And the expression, “When I was a child,
I thought as a child, I spake as a child,”[223] points out his mode
of life according to the law, according to which, thinking childish
things, he persecuted, and speaking childish things he blasphemed the
Word, not as having yet attained to the simplicity of childhood, but as
being in its folly; for the word νήπιον has two meanings.[224] “When
I became a man,” again Paul says, “I put away childish things.”[225]
It is not incomplete size of stature, nor a definite measure of time,
nor additional secret teachings in things that are manly and more
perfect, that the apostle, who himself professes to be a preacher of
childishness, alludes to when he sends it, as it were, into banishment;
but he applies the name “children” to those who are under the law,
who are terrified by fear as children are by bugbears; and “men” to
us who are obedient to the Word and masters of ourselves, who have
believed, and are saved by voluntary choice, and are rationally, not
irrationally, frightened by terror. Of this the apostle himself shall
testify, calling as he does the Jews heirs according to the first
covenant, and us heirs according to promise: “_Now I say, as long as
the heir is a child, he differeth nothing from a servant, though he be
lord of all; but is under tutors and governors, till the time appointed
by the father. So also we, when we were children, were in bondage under
the rudiments of the world; but when the fulness of the time was come,
God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem
them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of
sons_”[226] by Him. See how He has admitted those to be children
who are under fear and sins; but has conferred manhood on those who
are under faith, by calling them sons, in contradistinction from the
children that are under the law: “For thou art no more a servant,”
he says, “but a son; and if a son, then an heir through God.”[227]
What, then, is lacking to the son after inheritance? Wherefore the
expression, “When I was a child,” may be elegantly expounded thus: that
is, when I was a Jew (for he was a Hebrew by extraction) I thought
as a child, when I followed the law; but after becoming a man, I no
longer entertain the sentiments of a child, that is, of the law, but
of a man, that is, of Christ, whom alone the Scripture calls man, as
we have said before. “I put away childish things.” But the childhood
which is in Christ is maturity, as compared with the law. Having
reached this point, we must defend our childhood. And we have still
to explain what is said by the apostle: “I have fed you with milk (as
children in Christ), not with meat; for ye were not able, neither yet
are ye now able.”[228] For it does not appear to me that the expression
is to be taken in a Jewish sense; for I shall oppose to it also that
scripture, “I will bring you into that good land which flows with milk
and honey.”[229] A very great difficulty arises in reference to the
comparison of these scriptures, when we consider. For if the infancy
which is characterized by the milk is the beginning of faith in Christ,
then it is disparaged as childish and imperfect. How is the rest that
comes after the meat, the rest of the man who is perfect and endowed
with knowledge, again distinguished by infant milk? Does not this,
as explaining a parable, mean something like this, and is not the
expression to be read somewhat to the following effect: “_I have fed
you with milk in Christ_;” and after a slight stop, let us add, “as
children,” that by separating the words in reading we may make out some
such sense as this: I have instructed you in Christ with simple, true,
and natural nourishment,--namely, that which is spiritual: for such is
the nourishing substance of milk swelling out from breasts of love. So
that the whole matter may be conceived thus: As nurses nourish new-born
children on milk, so do I also by the Word, the milk of Christ,
instilling into you spiritual nutriment.

Thus, then, the milk which is perfect is perfect nourishment, and
brings to that consummation which cannot cease. Wherefore also the same
milk and honey were promised in the rest. Rightly, therefore, the Lord
again promises milk to the righteous, that the Word may be clearly
shown to be both, “the Alpha and Omega, beginning and end;”[230] the
Word being figuratively represented as milk. Something like this
Homer oracularly declares against his will, when he calls righteous
men milk-fed (γαλακτοφάγοι). So also may we take the scripture: “And
I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto
carnal, even as unto babes in Christ;”[231] so that the carnal may be
understood as those recently instructed, and still babes in Christ.
For he called those who had already believed on the Holy Spirit
spiritual, and those newly instructed and not yet purified carnal;
whom with justice he calls still carnal, as minding equally with the
heathen the things of the flesh: “For whereas there is among you envy
and strife, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?”[232] “Wherefore also
I have given you milk to drink,” he says; meaning, I have instilled
into you the knowledge which, from instruction, nourishes up to life
eternal. But the expression, “I have given you to drink” (ὲπότισα), is
the symbol of perfect appropriation. For those who are full-grown are
said to drink, babes to suck. “For my blood,” says the Lord, “is true
drink.”[233] In saying, therefore, “I have given you milk to drink,”
has he not indicated the knowledge of the truth, the perfect gladness
in the Word, who is the milk? And what follows next, “not meat, for ye
were not able,” may indicate the clear revelation in the future world,
like food, face to face. “For now we see as through a glass,” the same
apostle says, “but then face to face.”[234] Wherefore also he has
added, “neither yet are ye now able, for ye are still carnal,” minding
the things of the flesh,--desiring, loving, feeling jealousy, wrath,
envy. “For we are no more in the flesh,”[235] as some suppose. For with
it [they say], having the face which is like an angel’s, we shall see
the promise face to face. How then, if that is truly the promise after
our departure hence, say they that they know “what eye hath not known,
nor hath entered into the mind of man,” who have not perceived by the
Spirit, but received from instruction “what ear hath not heard,”[236]
or that ear alone which “was rapt up into the third heaven?”[237] But
it even then was commanded to preserve it unspoken.

But if human wisdom, as it remains to understand, is the glorying in
knowledge, hear the law of Scripture: “Let not the wise man glory in
his wisdom, and let not the mighty man glory in his might; but let him
that glorieth glory in the Lord.”[238] But we are God-taught, and glory
in the name of Christ. How then are we not to regard the apostle as
attaching this sense to the milk of the babes? And if we who preside
over the churches are shepherds after the image of the good Shepherd,
and you the sheep, are we not to regard the Lord as preserving
consistency in the use of figurative speech, when He speaks also of
the milk of the flock? And to this meaning we may secondly accommodate