Stromata

The last and third we call that from habit, but they call it the pleasure that is changeable and variable. And it seems to me that Hippodamus the Pythagorean writes very beautifully: "Of friendships, some are from knowledge of gods, some from the bounty of men, and some from the pleasure of animals." Accordingly, there is a friendship of the philosopher, one of the man, and one of the animal. For in truth, man is an image of God when doing good, in which he himself is also benefited; just as the pilot both saves and is saved. Therefore, when someone who asks receives, he does not say to the giver, "You gave well," but "I received well." Thus the giver receives, and the receiver gives. The just pity and have compassion, the good will be inhabitants of the earth, the innocent will be left upon it, but the lawless will be destroyed from it. And it seems to me that Homer, prophesying the faithful man, has said, "Give to a friend." One must share with a friend, so that he may remain even more a friend, and one must help an enemy, so that he may not remain an enemy; for by help goodwill is bound together, and enmity is dissolved. But if readiness is present, it is acceptable according to what one has, not according to what one does not have. For it is not that there may be ease for others but distress for you; but from equality in the present time and thereafter. "He scattered, he gave to the poor, his righteousness remains forever," the scripture says. For according to image and likeness, as we have said before, it is not indicated by the body, for it is not lawful for the mortal to be likened to the immortal, but rather according to mind and reason, by which the Lord appropriately stamps the likeness for doing good and for ruling.

For leadership is not perfected by qualities of bodies, but by judgments of the mind; for cities are well governed and a household is well ordered by the counsels of holy men. Moreover, endurance itself forces its way toward divine likeness, reaping impassibility through patience, if one has in mind the stories told about those around Ananias, of whom Daniel the prophet was one, filled with divine faith. Daniel dwelt in Babylon, just as Lot dwelt in Sodom, and Abraham in the land of the Chaldeans, he who was soon after the friend of God. So the king of the Babylonians cast Daniel into a pit full of wild beasts, but the faithful Lord, the king of all, brought him up unharmed. The gnostic, insofar as he is gnostic, will acquire this endurance; he will bless when tempted like the noble Job; like Jonah he will pray when swallowed by the whale, and faith will restore him to prophesy to the Ninevites; and if he is shut up with lions, he will tame the beasts; if he is thrown into fire, he will be bedewed, but not burned; he will bear witness by night, he will bear witness by day; he will bear witness in word, in life, in manner; dwelling with the Lord, he will remain as his intimate and table-companion in spirit, pure in flesh, pure in heart, sanctified in word. The world, it is said, is crucified to him, and he to the world. Bearing the cross of the Savior, he follows the Lord step by step, so as to become divine, holy of holies.

Since the divine law, mindful of every virtue, especially anoints man for self-control, laying this down as a foundation of virtues, it indeed pre-educates us for the acquisition of self-control from the use of animals, forbidding us to partake of those which are naturally fat, such as the race of swine, which is very fleshy; for such use is provided for the luxurious. At any rate, some of the philosophers are said to have etymologized, declaring that the sow (ὗς) is for sacrifice (θῦς), as being fit only for sacrifice and slaughter; for this animal is said to have been given a soul for no other purpose than to make its flesh plump. Likewise, it forbade partaking of fish, restraining our desires from those which have neither fins nor scales; for these surpass other fish in fleshiness and fatness. Hence, I think, the founder of the mysteries not only forbids touching certain animals, but also excludes from use some parts of the sacrificial victims, for reasons known to the initiates. If, then, we must control the belly and the parts below the belly, it is clear that we have received from the Lord through the law, from above, the command to cut off desire. This would be perfectly accomplished if we sincerely condemned the fuel of desire, I mean pleasure. They say that its concept is a smooth and gentle motion accompanied by some sensation. They say that Menelaus, enslaved to this, after the capture of Troy, rushed to kill Helen as the cause of so many evils, yet could not bring himself to do it, being overcome by her beauty, through which he arrived at the recollection of pleasure.

Hence the tragedians mockingly reproached him: "But you, when you saw a breast, casting aside your sword, received a kiss, fawning on a treacherous bitch." And again: "Are swords then deafened by beauty?" But I accept Antisthenes, who says of Aphrodite, "I would shoot her down if I could, because she has ruined many of our noble and good women." And he calls love a vice of nature; those who are unfortunate and inferior to it call the disease a god. For it is shown through these that the more ignorant are overcome through ignorance of pleasure, which one ought not to admit, even if it is called a god, that is, even if it is given from God for the need of procreation. And Xenophon, directly calling pleasure a vice, says: "Wretch, what good do you know, or what beauty do you contemplate? You who do not even wait for the desire of pleasures, eating before you are hungry, drinking before you are thirsty, and contriving cooks so that you may eat pleasantly, and preparing expensive wines so that you may drink pleasantly, and in summer you run about seeking snow; and so that you may sleep pleasantly, you prepare not only soft beds but also footstools for the beds." Hence, as Ariston said concerning the whole tetrachord—pleasure, pain, fear, desire—there is need of much training and struggle, for these, these go even through the entrails within and stir up the heart of men. For even the passions of those who think themselves dignified, pleasure makes them waxen, according to Plato, because each pleasure and pain nails the soul to the body of one who does not separate and crucify himself from the passions.

The one who has lost his own soul, says the Lord, will save it, either by recklessly offering it up for the sake of the Savior, as he himself has done for us, or by releasing it from its communion with customary life. For if you are willing to release, separate, and isolate (for this is what the cross signifies) the soul from the pleasure and delight in this life, you will have it found and at rest in the hoped-for expectation. This would be a practice of death, if we were willing to be content with only the measured natural appetites, which do not overstep the bounds of nature toward excess or perversion, where the sinful element arises. Therefore, one must put on the full armor of God in order to be able to stand against the machinations of the devil, since the weapons of our warfare are not fleshly, but powerful through God for the demolition of strongholds, demolishing reasonings and every elevation raised against the knowledge of God, and taking every thought captive into the obedience of Christ, says the divine apostle. There is need, then, of a man who will use without wonder or confusion those things from which the passions arise, such as wealth and poverty, fame and obscurity, health and sickness, life and death, toil and pleasure. For in order to use indifferent things indifferently, we need much discrimination, since we have been previously weakened by great weakness and pre-existing distortion from bad upbringing and nurture, having already enjoyed them in advance with ignorance.

Now the simple account of our philosophy says that all passions are impressions of the soul, of the soft and yielding soul, and, as it were, imprints of the spiritual powers against which our struggle lies. For it is the work, I think, of the malicious powers to endeavor at every turn to effect something of their own character, in order to overpower and appropriate to themselves those who have renounced them. And it naturally follows that some are overthrown, while those who handle the contest more athletically, having fought an all-in struggle and advanced as far as the crown, cause the aforementioned powers, in much gore, then to desist, marveling at the victors. For of things that are moved, some are moved by impulse and imagination, as animals are, others by transposition, as inanimate things. And they say that even among inanimate things, plants are moved in a progressive manner for growth, if one grants that plants are inanimate. Stones, then, are of habit, plants of nature, and of impulse and imagination are both the aforementioned two and

Irrational animals share in them. The rational faculty, being proper to the human soul, ought not to be impelled in the same way as irrational animals, but also to distinguish impressions and not be carried away by them. The powers, then, of which we have spoken, present beauties, reputations, adulteries, pleasures, and certain other such enticing impressions to souls that are easily led, just as those who drive off flocks wave branches, and then, having deceived those unable to distinguish true from false pleasure and the perishable and contemptible from holy beauty, they lead them away enslaved. And each deception, continuously pressing upon the soul, stamps its impression in it. And so the soul unconsciously carries the image of the passion, the cause arising both from the bait and from our assent. Those around Basilides are accustomed to call the passions appendages, and they say that these exist in substance as certain spirits attached to the rational soul according to some primordial disturbance and confusion, and that other bastard and heterogeneous natures of spirits, such as of wolf, ape, lion, goat, grow upon these, whose characteristics, when imagined around the soul, they say assimilate the desires of the soul in a manner resembling the animals; for they imitate the works of those whose characteristics they bear, and they not only appropriate the impulses and impressions of irrational animals, but also emulate the movements and beauties of plants because they bear the characteristics of plants attached to them, and further also the characteristics of a state, such as the hardness of adamant.

But we will discuss this doctrine later, when we take up the subject of the soul. For now, only this must be noted: that the man according to Basilides preserves the image of a sort of wooden horse from the poetic myth, having enclosed within a single body a host of so many different spirits. Indeed, Basilides' own son Isidorus, in his work On the Adherent Soul, as if accusing himself of the doctrine, writes verbatim: "For if you give someone the conviction that the soul is not uniform, but that by the violence of the attachments the passions of the worse elements arise, wicked men will have no ordinary pretext to say, 'I was forced, I was carried away, I acted unwillingly, I did not act by choice,' themselves having taken the lead in the desire for evil and not having fought against the violences of the attachments. But it is necessary, having become superior by the rational faculty, to be seen to rule over the lesser creation in us." For this man also posits two souls in us, like the Pythagoreans, whom we will examine later. And Valentinus, writing to some, says in these very words concerning the attachments: "There is one good, whose frankness is the revelation through the Son, and through him alone could the heart become pure, every evil spirit being expelled from the heart. For many spirits dwelling in it do not allow it to be pure, and each of them performs its own works, insulting in many ways with inappropriate desires. And it seems to me that the heart suffers something like an inn.

For that place is both bored into and dug up and often filled with the dung of men who remain wantonly and take no forethought for the place, as if it were something alien. In this way also the heart, so long as it does not receive forethought, being impure, is the dwelling-place of many demons; but when the only good Father visits it, it is sanctified and shines with light, and thus the one who has such a heart is blessed, because he will see God. What then is the cause of such a soul not being provided for from the beginning? Let them tell us. For either it is not worthy (and how does forethought approach it as if from repentance?) or it is a nature that is being saved, as he himself wishes, and it is necessary that this soul, being provided for from the beginning on account of kinship, should allow no infiltration to impure spirits, unless it be forced and shown to be weak. For if he grants that she, having repented, chooses the better things, he will unwillingly say this, which the truth among us teaches, that salvation comes from a change of obedience, not from nature. For just as exhalations, both from the earth and from marshes, form into mists and cloudy masses, so the emissions of fleshly desires inflict bad condition on the soul, scattering the images of pleasure in front of the soul. They at any rate darken the intellectual light, as the soul draws in the emissions from desire and thickens the masses of passions by the persistence of pleasures. But a lump of gold is not lifted from the earth; rather, it is smelted and strained, and then, having become pure, it is called gold, purified earth.

It is said, "Ask, and it will be given to you, who are able to choose the best things from yourselves." But how we say that the devil's energies and the unclean spirits are sown into the soul of the sinner, I need not set forth many words, having as witness the apostolic Barnabas (who was one of the Seventy and a fellow worker of Paul) speaking somewhat as follows word for word: "Before we believed in God, the dwelling-place of our heart was corrupt and weak, truly a temple built by hand; for it was full of idolatry and was a house of demons, because we did everything that was contrary to God." Therefore he says that sinners perform the energies corresponding to the demons, but he does not say that the spirits themselves dwell in the soul of the unbeliever. For this reason he also adds: "Take heed, that the temple of the Lord may be built gloriously. How? Learn: having received the remission of sins and having hoped in the name, let us become new, being created anew from the beginning." For it is not the demons that are driven away from us, but the sins, he says, are remitted, which we performed similarly to them before believing. Naturally, therefore, he has set in opposition what follows: "Hence in our dwelling-place truly God dwells in us. How? His word of faith, his calling of promise, the wisdom of the ordinances, the commandments of the teaching.

I have encountered a certain heresy, and its leader claimed, through the use of pleasure, to fight pleasure with pleasure, deserting to pleasure under the pretense of battle—this noble Gnostic (for he claimed to be a Gnostic himself), since he said it was no great thing to abstain from pleasure without having experienced it, but to be in it and not be mastered, and therefore to train through it and in it. The wretch did not realize that he was deceiving himself with his pleasure-loving art. It was evidently to this opinion that Aristippus of Cyrene attached himself, against the sophist who boasted of the truth. At any rate, when reproached for constantly consorting with the courtesan Lais of Corinth, he said, "I have Lais, and am not had by her." Such also are those who claim to follow Nicolaus, bearing a saying of the man, perverted from its meaning, that one must abuse the flesh. But the noble man meant that one must cut short pleasures and desires, and by this exercise wither the impulses and attacks of the flesh. But they, poured out into pleasure like goats, as if insulting the body, live in luxury, not knowing that the body is naturally worn away as it is fluid, while their soul is buried in the mire of vice, pursuing the doctrine of pleasure itself, not that of an apostolic man. For how do these differ from Sardanapalus? His life is shown by the epitaph: "These I have: what I ate, what I wantonly enjoyed, and what I experienced with love's delight; but those many and wealthy things are left behind. For I am dust, who reigned over great Ninus.

For in general the passion of pleasure is not necessary, but is a consequence of certain natural needs—hunger, thirst, cold, marriage. If, for instance, it were possible to drink or take food or produce children without this, no other need for it would be shown. For pleasure is neither an activity nor a disposition nor any part of us, but came into life for the sake of service, just as they say salt is for the seasoning of food. But it, having become rebellious and taken control of the household, first generates desire—an irrational longing and appetite for what gratifies it—which also persuaded Epicurus to set up pleasure as the end of the philosopher. Indeed, he deifies the stable condition of the flesh and the confident expectation concerning it. For what else is luxury but pleasure-loving gluttony and excessive curiosity given over to voluptuousness? Diogenes writes vividly in some tragedy: "Those who, stuffed under pleasures with the heart of unmanly and darkened luxury, wish to labor not even a little," and the things that follow, which are shamefully spoken but worthy of the pleasure-lovers. Therefore it seems to me that the divine law necessarily suspends fear, so that the philosopher may acquire and preserve freedom from care through caution and attention, remaining unerring and sinless in all things. For it is not otherwise that peace and freedom are attained except through the unceasing and unremitting struggle against our passions.

For these opponents are thick and, as it were, more stinging than Olympic wasps, and especially pleasure, not only by day but also by night, in dreams themselves, with sorcery, enticingly plotting and biting. How then are the Greeks still just in running down the law, when they themselves teach that pleasure is to be enslaved through fear? At any rate, Socrates bids us beware of things that persuade us to eat when not hungry and drink when not thirsty, and of the glances and kisses of the beautiful, as being more dangerous than scorpions and spiders, naturally injecting their venom. And Antisthenes chooses to be mad rather than to feel pleasure; and the Theban Crates says, "But master these things with a soul exulting in character, neither enslaved by gold nor by melting desires, nor if anything is a companion to insolence." And he adds in summary: "Slavish to pleasure, unenslaved and unshaken, they love an immortal kingdom and freedom." This same writer elsewhere writes plainly that hunger is a plaster for the unrestrained impulse toward sexual acts, and if not, a noose. And the comic poets, though mocking, bear witness to Zeno the Stoic's teaching in some such way: "For he philosophizes a new philosophy; he teaches hunger and takes pupils: one loaf, dried figs as relish, water to drink." All these then are not ashamed to confess clearly the benefit derived from caution.

But true and not irrational wisdom, trusting not in bare words and oracles, but in invulnerable defenses and effective means of protection—the divine commandments—and practicing through joint training and exercise, receives divine power according to the part of it that is inspired by the Word. Indeed, even the poets depict the aegis of Zeus as terrible, crowned all around with Fear, and in it Strife, in it Valor, in it chilling Pursuit, and the Gorgon head of the dread monster, terrible and grim, the portent of aegis-bearing Zeus. To those able to see correctly what is salvific, I do not know if anything will appear more dear than the solemnity of the law and its daughter, reverence. But when it is said that he sings a strain too high-pitched, just as the Lord also did to some, so that some of those who emulate him might not sing a strain that is slack and out of tune, I understand it not as too high-pitched, but as too high-pitched for those unwilling to take up the divine yoke; for to the slack and weak, the moderate seems too high-pitched, and to the unjust, the just measure seems too strict. For all those to whom leniency insinuates itself because they are kindly disposed toward sins, they consider truth harshness, severity harshness, and the one who does not sin along with them nor sink down with them as pitiless. Well, then, tragedy writes of Hades: "To what sort of daimon you will come, as to a love, who knew neither fairness nor grace.

It loved only simple justice. For even if we are not yet able to do what is commanded us by the law, yet by perceiving that the finest examples are set before us in it, we can nourish and increase the desire for freedom; and we would thus be benefited, according to our ability, by being more eagerly provoked, imitating, and also shamed. For the ancient righteous who lived according to the law were not from an ancient oak nor from a stone. At any rate, by genuinely willing to philosophize, they offered their whole selves to God and were counted as faithful. Zeno rightly said of the Indians that he would rather see one Indian roasted than learn all the proofs about pain. But for us, there are abundant springs of martyrs daily seen before our eyes, of those who are roasted, racked, beheaded. All these, the fear derived from the law, having educated them for Christ, trained them to display reverence even through blood. God stood in the assembly of gods, and in the midst he will judge the gods. Who are these? Those superior to pleasure, those who overcome the passions, those who are aware of each thing they do, the gnostics, those greater than the world. And again I said, "You are gods and sons of the Most High"—to whom does the Lord say this? To those who renounce everything human as far as possible. And the apostle says: "For you are no longer in the flesh, but in spirit." And again he says: "Being in the flesh, we do not serve according to the flesh; for flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor can corruption inherit incorruption.

Behold, how you die as men, the Spirit has said, convicting us. Therefore, we must train ourselves in caution regarding things that fall under the passions, banishing, as true philosophers do, the lustful foods, the dissolute relaxation in bed, luxury, and the passions for luxury. ** For others it is a heavy burden, but for us no longer; for self-control is the greatest gift of God. For He Himself has said, "I will not abandon you nor forsake you," having judged you worthy because of your genuine choice. Thus, then, when we try to approach reverently, the kindly yoke of the Lord will receive us, driving each of us from faith to faith under one charioteer, according to progress, toward salvation, so that the fitting fruit of happiness may be produced. Training, according to Hippocrates of Cos, is not only of the body but also of the soul: "unweariedness in labors, insatiability in food." But Epicurus, placing happiness, which is equal to that of the gods, in not being hungry, not being thirsty, and not being cold, uttered an impious cry, saying that in these things he would even fight with father Zeus, thus dogmatizing the blessed victory of dung-eating swine and not of rational and philosophical men. For those who begin from pleasure include the Cyrenaics and Epicurus; for they explicitly say that the end is to live pleasantly, and that the only perfect good is pleasure. And Epicurus says that the removal of pain is also pleasure; and he says that what is choiceworthy is that which first from itself draws everything to itself, clearly being in motion.

Deinomachus and Calliphon said that the end is to do everything in one's own power for the sake of attaining and achieving pleasure; and Hieronymus the Peripatetic said that the end is to live without disturbance, but that the final good is only happiness. And Diodorus, likewise belonging to the same school, declares the end to be living without disturbance and honorably. Epicurus, then, and the Cyrenaics say that the primary object of affinity is pleasure; for virtue, they say, produced pleasure for the sake of pleasure that has passed. According to those around Calliphon, virtue entered for the sake of pleasure, but later, having observed its own beauty, it made itself equal in honor to the principle, that is, to pleasure. Those around Aristotle give the end as living according to virtue, but they say that neither happiness nor the end is present in everyone who possesses virtue; for the wise man, when tortured and falling into undesired misfortunes, and because of these willingly escaping from life, is neither blessed nor happy. For virtue also requires some time; it is not acquired in a single day, and it is constituted in a complete person, since, as they say, a child is never happy; and the complete time would be the whole human life. Thus happiness is completed from the threefold class of goods. Therefore, according to them, neither the poor man nor the obscure man, nor the sick man, nor if one is a slave, is happy.

Again, Zeno the Stoic holds that the end is to live in accordance with virtue; Cleanthes, that it is to live in agreement with nature; Diogenes held that the end lies in right reasoning, which he understood to consist in the selection of things according to nature. And Antipater, his pupil, supposes that the end lies in continuously and unswervingly choosing things according to nature and rejecting things contrary to nature. Archedemus, again, explained the end to be to live selecting the greatest and most principal things according to nature, which are not such as to be exceeded. In addition, Panaetius declared the end to be to live according to the starting points given to us from nature; and finally, Posidonius, to live contemplating the truth and order of the whole and co-constructing it as far as possible, being led in no respect by the irrational part of the soul. Some of the later Stoics defined the end thus: to live in accordance with the constitution of man. Why should I recount Ariston for you? He said the end is indifference, and he leaves the indifferent simply indifferent. Or should I bring Herillus’ views forward? Herillus posits that the end is to live according to knowledge. For some demand that the more recent members of the Academy assign the end as the secure suspension of judgment regarding impressions. Indeed, Lyco the Peripatetic said that the end is the true joy of the soul, as Leucippus said it is joy in things noble. Critolaus, also himself a Peripatetic, said that the end is perfection of a life flowing well according to nature, indicating a threefold perfection completed from the three genera.

We must not be content with these, but must strive as much as possible to set forth also the doctrines of the natural philosophers concerning the subject. For they say that Anaxagoras of Clazomenae declared the end of life to be contemplation and the freedom arising from it, and Heraclitus of Ephesus to be contentment. Heraclides of Pontus records that Pythagoras handed down that the knowledge of the perfection of numbers is the happiness of the soul. Moreover, the Abderites teach that the end exists: Democritus in his On the End declares it to be cheerfulness, which he also called well-being (and he often adds: "For pleasure and its absence are the limit of † those who have reached their prime"), Hecataeus self-sufficiency, and Apollodotus of Cyzicus mental composure, just as Nausiphanes declares it to be imperturbability—for he said this is called by Democritus "fearlessness." Furthermore, Diotimus declared the end to be the perfection of goods, which he said is called well-being. Again, Antisthenes declared it to be freedom from conceit, while those called Annicereans from the Cyrenaic succession posited no definite end of the whole life, but held that each action has its own end, namely the pleasure arising from the action. These Cyrenaics reject Epicurus's definition of pleasure, that is, the removal of pain, calling it a corpse-like state; for they say we rejoice not only in pleasures, but also in conversations and in ambitions. Epicurus, however, thinks that every joy of the soul arises from the flesh as the primary subject.

Metrodorus, in his work *On the Superiority of Our Own Responsibility for Happiness over That Derived from External Goods*, says: "What else is the good of the soul than the stable condition of the flesh and the confident expectation concerning it?" Indeed, Plato the philosopher says that the end is twofold: one is the participated and primary end existing in the forms themselves, which he also calls the Good; the other is that which participates in that and receives likeness from it, which occurs among men who pursue virtue and true philosophy. Hence Cleanthes, in the second book of his *On Pleasure*, says that Socrates taught on each occasion that the same man is both just and happy, and that he cursed the first person who separated justice from advantage as having done something impious; for those who separate advantage from justice according to law are truly impious. Plato himself says that happiness is having one's daemon well, and that the daemon is called the ruling part of our soul, and he calls happiness the most perfect and most complete good. At times he calls it a life that is consistent and harmonious, and at other times the most perfect life according to virtue, which he places in knowledge of the good and in assimilation to God, declaring that likeness is to be just and holy with prudence. For do not some of our own accept that man receives the image immediately at birth, but is to receive the likeness later at perfection?

Plato, teaching that this likeness will be accompanied by humility for the virtuous man, interprets that somewhere: "Everyone who humbles himself will be exalted." He says, then, in the *Laws*: "God, as the ancient account has it, holding the beginning, middle, and end of all things, proceeds straight, traveling around according to nature; and Justice always follows him, the punisher of those who fall short of the divine law." Do you see how he himself introduces reverence toward the divine law? He adds, then: "He who is to be happy, clinging to her, follows humble and orderly." Then, having connected the consequences to these and having admonished with fear, he adds: "What action, then, is dear and agreeable to God? One, and having a single ancient account, that like is friendly to like when it is moderate, while immoderate things are friendly neither to each other nor to moderate things. Therefore, he who is to become dear to God must, as far as possible, become himself such as that. And according to this account, the temperate man among us is dear to God, for he is like him, while the intemperate man is unlike and different." Having said that this doctrine is ancient, he hinted at the teaching that came to him from the law. And in the *Theaetetus*, having granted that evils necessarily roam around mortal nature and this place, he adds: "Therefore one must try to flee from here to there as quickly as possible; flight is likeness to God as far as possible; and likeness is to become just and holy with wisdom.

Speusippus, the nephew of Plato, says that happiness is a perfect state in those who are in accordance with nature, or a state of goods, for which condition all human beings have a desire, but the good aim at freedom from disturbance. The virtues would be productive of happiness. Xenocrates of Chalcedon defines happiness as the possession of one's own virtue and of the power that serves it. Then, as that in which it occurs, he appears to name the soul; as that by which, the virtues; as that from which, as parts, the noble actions and the excellent habits, dispositions, movements, and relations; as that without which, the bodily and external things. For Polemon, the disciple of Xenocrates, seems to wish happiness to be self-sufficiency in all goods, or in the majority and greatest. He at any rate dogmatizes that without virtue happiness could never exist, but that even without bodily and external things virtue is sufficient for happiness. And let these matters stand thus; the objections to the stated opinions will be set forth at the proper time, but it is our purpose to arrive at an endless end, obeying the

commands, that is, to God, and having lived blamelessly and knowledgeably in accordance with them through the knowledge of the divine will. The assimilation to right reason as far as possible is the end, and restoration through the Son to perfect adoption, always glorifying the Father through the great high priest who has deemed us worthy to be called brothers and fellow heirs. And the apostle, succinctly describing the end in the Epistle to the Romans, says: "But now, having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you have your fruit for sanctification, and the end is eternal life." Knowing that hope is twofold—the one expected, the other already received—he teaches that the end is the restoration of hope. For patience, he says, is a test, and the test is hope; and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God is poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit given to us. On account of this love, there is also the restoration to hope, which elsewhere he says is reserved for us as rest. You would find similar things in Ezekiel, stated thus: "The soul that sins—this one will die.

And a man who becomes just and performs judgment and justice, who has not eaten on the mountains, and has not lifted his eyes upon the idols of the house of Israel, and has not defiled his neighbor's wife, and has not approached a woman in the separation of her uncleanness (for it does not wish the seed of man to be contemptible), and, it says, does not harm a man, will return a pledge from a debtor, will not seize plunder, will give his bread to the hungry, and will clothe the naked, will not lend his money at interest, and will not take increase, will turn his hand from injustice, will make a true judgment between a man and his neighbor, will walk in my ordinances and has kept my ordinances to do truth: he is just, he will live in life, says Adonai the Lord. And Isaiah, exhorting the one who believes to a dignity of life, and the gnostic to understanding, representing that the virtue of man and of God is not the same, speaks thus: Seek the Lord, and when you find him, call upon him; and when he approaches you, let the impious one leave his ways, and the lawless man his ways, and let him turn to the Lord, and he will be pitied until even your thoughts are from my thought. We therefore, according to the noble apostle, from faith await the hope of righteousness. For in Christ neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails, but faith energized through love. And we desire each of you to show the same zeal for the fulfillment of the hope, until, according to the order of Melchizedek, you become high priest for eternity.

Similar things to Paul the all-virtuous wisdom also says: "He who hears me will encamp in hope, trusting; for the restoration of hope is homonymously called hope; therefore he fittingly added 'trusting' to the word 'encamp,' showing that such a man has rested, having received the hope he hoped for, and therefore he adds: 'and he will be quiet without fear from every evil.'" Directly the apostle in the first of the letters to the Corinthians explicitly says: "Become imitators of me as I am of Christ, so that this may happen: if you are of me, and I of Christ, then you become imitators of Christ, and Christ of God." He thus posits assimilation to God as far as possible, being just and holy with prudence, as the goal of faith, and the end as the restoration of the promise upon faith. From these, then, the sources of those who have dogmatized about the end, which we have previously mentioned, flow. But enough of these. Since marriage seems to fall under pleasure and desire, we must also discuss this. Marriage, then, is the union of a man and a woman, the first according to law for the procreation of legitimate children. At any rate, the comic poet Menander says: "For the plowing of legitimate children, I give you my own daughter." We inquire whether

One must marry, which is among the things named as having a certain relation to something. For to whom must one marry, and in what state, and what sort of woman and in what state? For one must not marry everyone nor always, but there is a time when it is fitting, and a person to whom it is appropriate, and an age up to which it is suitable. Therefore one must not marry every woman nor always, nor yet indiscriminately and without restraint, but only when one is in a certain state and with a woman of a certain kind and at the right time, for the sake of children and for a partnership that is in all respects harmonious, and with a woman who loves her husband willingly, not by force or necessity. Hence Abraham says, referring to his wife as a sister: "She is my sister from my father, but not from my mother, and she became my wife," teaching that one must not take uterine sisters in marriage. Let us briefly review the history. Now Plato ranks marriage among external goods, having provided for the immortality of our race and a kind of continuity transmitted through children's children. Democritus, however, declines marriage and childbearing because of the many annoyances and distractions from more necessary things arising from them. Epicurus and all who place the good in pleasure and freedom from disturbance, and also in absence of pain, agree with him. Furthermore, according to the Stoics, both marriage and child-rearing are indifferent, while according to the Peripatetics, they are good. In sum, these people, having brought their doctrines only to the level of talk, were enslaved to pleasures, some using concubines, others courtesans, and most using boys. That wise tetrad in the garden, together with the courtesan, glorified pleasure by their deeds.

Therefore, those who, without testing whether something benefits themselves, urge others to do these things—or conversely—would not escape the Bouzygian curse. Scripture has briefly indicated this by saying: "What you hate, do not do to another." Yet those who approve of marriage say that nature has made us suited for marriage, as is evident from the construction of male and female bodies, and they continually invoke "increase and multiply." But even if this is so, let it be shameful to them that the human being created by God is more incontinent than the irrational animals, which do not engage in intercourse with many and indiscriminately, but with one and of the same kind, such as doves, ringdoves, the turtledove family, and all similar to these. Furthermore, they say, the childless person falls short of natural perfection by not having set up a proper successor in his place; for one who has produced a likeness from himself is perfect, and even more so when he sees that one having done the same—that is, when he has brought the offspring into the same nature as the parent. Therefore, one must marry absolutely, for the sake of the fatherland, the succession of children, and the completion of the world insofar as it depends on us, since the poets pity a marriage that is incomplete and childless, but bless one that is flourishing on both sides. Bodily diseases especially show marriage to be necessary.

The care of a wife and the constancy of her attendance seem to surpass the attentions of other relatives and friends, inasmuch as she chooses to differ in sympathy and to be present more than all others, and is in truth, according to Scripture, a necessary helper. The comic poet Menander, after attacking marriage, yet sets against it the useful things and answers the one who says, "I am in a bad way regarding this matter," with: "You take it perversely." Then he adds: "You see in it the disagreeable and the things that will grieve you, but you do not look at the good things," and so on. Marriage also helps those advanced in years, by providing a wife who cares for them and by rearing children from her who will support their old age. Children, for a man who has died, have become his memorials; like corks that guide a net, preserving the thread from the deep, as the tragic poet Sophocles says. And the lawgivers do not permit those who have not married to hold the highest offices. For instance, the lawgiver of the Lacedaemonians does not

He established a penalty not only for not marrying, but also for bad marriage, late marriage, and living alone. And the noble Plato orders that a man who does not marry pay a woman's maintenance to the public treasury and give the appropriate expenses to the magistrates. For if those who do not marry also do not produce children, they will, as far as it depends on them, create a scarcity of men and destroy both the cities and the world that comes from them. Such a thing is impious, as it destroys divine generation. Moreover, it is cowardly and weak to flee from living together with a wife and children. For where loss is an evil, there possession is certainly a good; and this is the case with other things as well. But indeed, the loss of children is among the greatest evils, they say. Therefore, the possession of children is a good. And if this is so, then marriage is also a good. Without a father, they say, a child could never exist, and without a mother, not even the conception of a child. Marriage makes a father, just as a husband makes a mother. Therefore, Homer also sets the greatest prayer as a husband and a household, but not simply, rather with noble concord. For the marriage of others is in harmony for the sake of pleasure, while that of philosophers leads to harmony according to reason, which does not permit women to be adorned in form but in character, nor does it command men to use their wedded wives as mistresses, having made the abuse of bodies their aim, but to secure marriage for the assistance of the whole of life and for the best temperance.

For I think that a man who is sown is more valuable than wheat and barley, when seeds are deposited at their proper times, since everything grows for him, and farmers, even when sober, deposit those seeds. Therefore, every base and polluted practice must be purified from marriage, so that we are not reproached for the union of irrational animals harmonizing with the human conjugal union according to nature, in accordance with the acknowledged definition. At any rate, some of them, after emitting seed at the commanded time, immediately depart, leaving the creation to its administration. But among the tragedians, Polyxena, although being slaughtered, is recorded as having taken great care, even while dying, to fall decorously, hiding what male eyes ought to hide. And for her, the calamity was a marriage. Therefore, to succumb and yield to the passions is the ultimate slavery, just as, of course, mastering them is the only freedom. Indeed, divine Scripture says that those who transgress the commandments are sold to foreigners, that is, to sins alien to nature, until they turn back and repent. Therefore, marriage must be kept pure, like a sacred statue, guarded from defilements, as we rise from sleep with the Lord, and as we go to sleep with thanksgiving and prayer, both when we lie down and when the sacred light comes, calling the Lord to witness throughout our whole life, possessing piety in the soul, and bringing self-control even to the body.

It is truly god-loving to guide seemliness from the tongue to deeds, while foul speech is a path to shamelessness, and the end of both is foul action. That Scripture advises marriage and does not permit ever withdrawing from the union, it legislates outright: You shall not dismiss a wife except on grounds of adultery; and to marry again while one of the separated spouses is alive is considered adultery. It shows a woman to be above suspicion of slander if she does not beautify herself nor adorn herself beyond what is proper, but devotes herself earnestly to prayers and supplications, avoiding most departures from the house, and shutting herself off as much as possible from the sight of those who are not appropriate, valuing household management more than untimely chatter. And he who takes a divorced woman commits adultery, it says; for if someone dismisses a wife, he commits adultery against her, that is, he forces her to be adulterated. Not only does the one who dismisses become the cause of this, but also the one who receives her, providing the woman with an occasion to sin.

If she does not accept, she will return to her husband. What then does the law command? It orders that the adulteress, convicted of this, be put to death to restrain the impetuosity of the passions; and if she is a priestess, it orders that she be delivered to the fire. The adulterer is also stoned, but not in the same place, so that even death is not common to them. The law does not conflict with the Gospel, but is in harmony with it. For how could it not be, since both have the same Lord as their provider? For the woman who has committed fornication lives in sin, but has died to the commandments; while she who repents, having been, as it were, reborn through the conversion of her life, has a regeneration of life, the old fornicatress having died, and she who was born through repentance having come again into life. The Spirit bears witness to what has been said through Ezekiel, saying: I do not desire the death of the sinner, but his return. Thus they are stoned, as having died to the law through hard-heartedness, since they were not persuaded by it; and for the priestess the punishment is intensified, because to whom more was given, from that one more will be required. Let the second Stromateus be concluded by us here, on account of the length and number of the chapters.

The followers of Valentinus, then, having brought down their conjugal unions from above, from the divine emanations, are well pleased with marriage; while those from Basilides say that when the apostles inquired whether it is not better not to marry, the Lord answered: Not all can bear this saying; for there are eunuchs, some from birth, some from necessity. And they interpret the saying somewhat as follows: Some have a natural aversion to woman from birth, who, using this natural constitution, do well not to marry. These, they say, are the eunuchs from birth; those from necessity are the ascetics of the theatre, who restrain themselves for the sake of the counterpull of good repute; while those who have been mutilated by misfortune have become eunuchs by necessity. Those, then, who become eunuchs by necessity do not become so by reason. But those who have castrated themselves for the sake of the eternal kingdom, on account of the things that happen from marriage, adopt this calculation, fearing the distraction concerning the provision of necessities. And as for the saying that it is better to marry than to burn, they say the apostle says: Do not cast your soul into the fire, holding out night and day and fearing lest you fall from continence; for a soul that has come to hold out is divided from hope. Hold out, then, says Isidorus verbatim in his Ethics, against a contentious wife, that you may not be drawn away from the grace of God, and having discharged the fire, pray with a good conscience. But when your thanksgiving, he says, falls into petition and you ask not to accomplish the rest but not to fail, then marry.

But if someone is young or poor or prone to lust and does not wish to marry according to the Word, let him not be separated from the brother. Let him say, "I have entered into the holy things; I can suffer nothing." But if he has a suspicion, let him say, "Brother, lay your hand on me, that I may not sin." And he will receive help both intelligible and sensible. Let him only wish to complete the good, and he will succeed. Sometimes we say with the mouth, "We do not wish to sin," but the mind is set on sinning. Such a person does not do what he wants out of fear, so that punishment may not be charged against him. But humanity has some things that are necessary and natural, and others that are merely natural. It has covering as necessary and natural, but the matter of sexual intercourse is natural, not necessary. I have set forth these sayings for the refutation of those Basilidians who do not live rightly, as though they either have license even to sin because of their perfection, or will certainly be saved by nature even if they sin now, because of their inborn election, since even the founders of their doctrines do not permit them to do the same things. Let them not, then, under the name of Christ, living more dissolutely than the most incontinent among the Gentiles, bring blasphemy upon the name. For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, until the end will be according to their works. Self-control, therefore, is contempt of the body according to the confession toward God. For self-control is concerned not only with sexual matters, but also with the other things which the soul desires wrongly, not content with necessities. And there is self-control concerning the tongue, concerning acquisition, concerning use, and concerning desire.

This teaching does not only instruct us to be temperate, but it also provides us with temperance, being a power and a divine grace. What then seems to our people concerning the matter at hand must be stated: we bless both continence and those to whom this has been granted by God, and we admire monogamy and the dignity concerning a single marriage, saying that we must sympathize with one another and bear each other's burdens, lest someone who seems to stand well should himself fall. Concerning a second marriage, if it burns, the apostle says, marry. But those who derive from Carpocrates and Epiphanes maintain that women should be common, from which the greatest blasphemy against the name has flowed. This Epiphanes, whose writings are also current, was the son of Carpocrates and of a mother named Alexandria; on his father's side he was an Alexandrian, on his mother's side a Cephallenian; he lived only seventeen years in all, and is honored as a god in Same of Cephallenia, where a temple of hewn stones, altars, precincts, and a museum have been built and consecrated to him, and the Cephallenians, gathering at the temple on the new moon, sacrifice a deification birthday to Epiphanes, pour libations, feast, and hymns are sung. He was educated by his father in both general education and the works of Plato, and he taught the monadic knowledge, from which also comes the heresy of the Carpocratians. This man says, then, in his work On Justice that the justice of God is a kind of communion with equality.

The heaven, stretched out equally from all sides, surrounds the whole earth in a circle, and the night shows all the stars equally, and God poured out from above the sun, the cause of day and father of light, equally upon the earth for all who are able to see. And all see in common, since it does not distinguish rich or poor, commoner or ruler, foolish or wise, female or male, free or slave. Nor does it make any distinction among the irrational animals in this regard, but having poured it out from above equally for all, common to all living beings, it establishes justice for good and bad alike, since no one can have more nor take away from his neighbor, so that he might have double the light of that other. The sun provides common nourishment for all living beings, and justice, given equally to all, is common; and in such matters, the race of cattle comes to be like cows, and of swine like pigs, and of sheep like sheep, and all the rest; for justice in them is revealed as commonality. Then, according to commonality, all are sown alike according to kind, and common food is granted on the ground to all grazing beasts and to all equally, not governed by any law, but present to all in accordance with justice, in harmony with the provision of the giver and commander. But not even the matters of generation have a written law (for it would have been rewritten), but they sow and give birth equally, having an innate fellowship under justice.

The creator and father of all, having legislated with justice from himself, provided the eye for seeing equally in common to all, not distinguishing female from male, nor rational from irrational, and absolutely nothing from anything, but having distributed sight by equality and commonality, he has granted it to all alike by a single command. The laws of men, he says, being unable to punish ignorance, taught transgression; for the particularity of the laws cut up and nibbled away at the commonality of the divine law, not understanding the saying of the apostle, who says, "Through the law I came to know sin"; and he says that "mine" and "thine" were introduced through the laws, no longer into commonality; for common things are neither land nor possessions, nor even marriage; for he made the vines common to all, which deny neither a sparrow nor a thief, and likewise the grain and the other fruits. And commonality, when transgressed, gave birth to the thief of flocks and fruits. So God, having made all things common to man, and having joined the female to the male in common, and having yoked all animals alike, revealed justice as commonality with equality. But those who were born in this way denied the commonality that unites them and say: "Let the one who marries one keep her," although all are able to share, as the rest of the animals show. Having said these things word for word, he again adds in the same words: "For he implanted in the males a strong and more vehement desire for the continuance of the races, which neither law nor custom nor anything else that exists can destroy. For it is a decree of God.

And how could this person be examined in our reasoning, directly overturning both the law and the gospel through these statements? For one says, "You shall not commit adultery," while the other says, "Everyone who looks with desire has already committed adultery." For the commandment "You shall not desire," spoken by the law, shows the one God proclaimed through law, prophets, and gospel; for it says, "You shall not desire the wife of your neighbor." The neighbor is not the Jew to the Jew, for there is brotherhood and identity of spirit; it remains, then, that "neighbor" means the foreigner. For how is he not a neighbor who is able to partake of the spirit? For Abraham is the father not only of Hebrews but also of nations. And if the adulteress and the one who fornicates with her are punished by death, it is clear that the commandment saying "You shall not desire the wife of your neighbor" prescribes concerning the nations, so that one who abstains according to the law from both the wife of his neighbor and his sister may directly hear from the Lord, "But I say, you shall not desire." The addition of the particle "I" shows the more immediate force of the commandment, and that both Carpocrates and Epiphanes are fighting against God. Epiphanes, in his much-talked-about book, I mean *On Justice*, adds something like this verbatim: "Hence, as if the lawgiver had spoken this ridiculous word, 'You shall not desire,' one must hear it as even more ridiculous, 'the wife of your neighbor.' For he who gave desire as that which sustains the processes of generation commands that it be taken away, yet he has removed it from no living creature. And the phrase 'of the neighbor's wife,' compelling a particularity in community, he spoke even more ridiculously." And these are the doctrines of the noble Carpocratians.

They say that these and certain other zealots of similar evils gather at their dinners (for I would not call their assembly an agape), men and women together, and after they are sated (for in satiety is Cypris, as they say), having removed the light by turning the lamp, which shames this their profligate justice, they have intercourse, however they wish, with whomever they desire, and having practiced communion in such an agape, by day they already demand from whatever women they wish obedience to the law of Carpocrates—for it is not lawful to say divine. Such things, I think, Carpocrates ought to have legislated for the lusts of dogs and swine and goats. And it seems to me that he has misheard Plato, who in the Republic says that women are common to all, meaning common before marriage for those who are about to ask, just as he says the theater is common to the spectators, but that each woman, when taken by someone, belongs to that one and is no longer common. And Xanthus, in the works entitled Magika, says, "The Magi have intercourse with mothers and daughters and sisters, and it is lawful to have intercourse with them, and women are common, not by force and in secret, but with the consent of both.

when one wishes to marry the wife of another. Concerning these and similar sects, I think that Jude spoke prophetically in his epistle. Likewise, these people, dreaming (for they do not truly grasp reality while awake), even their mouths speak extravagant things. Now, if Plato himself and the Pythagoreans, as later also the followers of Marcion, considered generation evil (far be it from him to propose community of women), yet the followers of Marcion posit a nature that is evil, generated from evil matter and from a just creator. For this reason, not wishing to complete the world made by the creator, they choose to abstain from marriage, opposing their own maker and hastening toward the good who has called them, but not toward the god, as they say, in another manner. Hence, wishing to leave nothing of their own here, they become continent not by choice but by enmity toward the creator, not wanting to use the things created by him. But these people, impious in their battle against God, having abandoned natural reasoning, despising the patience and goodness of God, even if they do not wish to marry, yet they use created foods and breathe the air of the creator, being themselves his works and remaining in his domain, and they proclaim the foreign knowledge, as they call it, even though in this they ought to have acknowledged gratitude to the lord of the world, in that they were evangelized here. But concerning these, when we take up the discourse on principles, we will discuss them most precisely.

The philosophers whom we have mentioned, from whom the followers of Marcion impiously learned that birth is evil, now boast of this as if it were their own doctrine. They do not wish this to be evil by nature, but to the soul that discerns the truth; for they bring the soul, which is divine, down here as into a place of punishment, the world, and it is fitting for the souls that are embodied to be purified, according to them. And this doctrine belongs no longer to the followers of Marcion alone, but is proper to those who maintain that souls are embodied, re-embodied, and transfused, against whom there would be another occasion to speak, whenever we treat of the soul. Heraclitus, at any rate, appears to censure birth when he says: "Having come into being, they wish to live, and to have their portions, but rather to rest, and they leave children to have their portions." And Empedocles clearly agrees with him, saying: "I wept and wailed when I saw the unfamiliar place." And again: "For from living things he set dead forms changing." And again: "Alas, alas, the wretched race of mortals, the ill-fated; from what strifes and groans you have come into being." And the Sibyl also says: "Mortals, fleshly and of no account, being nothing," like the poet who writes: "The earth nourishes nothing more feeble than man." Indeed, Theognis also shows that birth is evil, speaking thus: "For all those on earth, the best is not to be born, nor to behold the rays of the sharp sun; but once born, to pass through the gates of Hades as quickly as possible." And in agreement with them, the tragic poet Euripides writes: "For we ought, when we gather, to lament the one who is born for the evils into which he comes; but the one who has died and ceased from toils, we ought to send forth from the house with joy and praise.

And again he will speak similarly thus: "Who knows whether to live is to die, and to die is to live?" Indeed, Herodotus also appears to make the same point when Solon says, "O Croesus, every man is a misfortune." And his myth about Cleobis and Biton clearly intends nothing other than to blame birth and praise death. "As the generation of leaves, so also that of men," says Homer. Plato in the Cratylus attributes to Orpheus the account concerning the soul being punished in the body, and he speaks thus: "For some say it is a tomb of the soul, as if buried in the present body; and because by this the soul signifies whatever it signifies, it is rightly called a sign." However, those around Orpheus seem especially to have established this name, as if the soul pays a penalty for the sake of which it suffers. It is also worth mentioning the wording of Philolaus; for the Pythagorean says thus: "The ancient theologians and seers also testify that the soul is yoked to the body on account of certain punishments and is buried as in a tomb." Moreover, Pindar, speaking about the mysteries at Eleusis, adds: "Blessed is he who, having seen those things, goes beneath the earth; he knows the end of life, and he knows the god-given beginning." And Plato accordingly in the Phaedo does not hesitate to write something like this: "And those who established the initiations for us were not worthless, but have indicated from ancient times that whoever arrives in Hades uninitiated and without initiation will lie in mud; but whoever arrives there purified and initiated will dwell with the gods." And what about when he says: "As long as we have the body and our soul is mingled with such an evil, we will never sufficiently acquire that which we desire"? Does he not hint that birth is the cause of the greatest evils?

In the Phaedo he bears witness: "For those who happen to be rightly engaged in philosophy run the risk of escaping the notice of others, that they themselves practice nothing other than dying and being dead." And again: "Therefore also here the soul of the philosopher most of all disdains the body and flees from it, and seeks to be by itself." And does this not agree with the divine apostle saying: "Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death?" unless he speaks tropically of the body of death as the concord of those dragged down into vice. And Plato appears to reject sexual intercourse, which is the beginning of generation, even before Marcion, in the first book of the Republic. For praising old age, he adds: "Know well that for me, as the other pleasures of the body wither away, so much do the desires and pleasures concerning discourses increase." And having mentioned the use of sexual pleasures: "Hush, man, I have most gladly escaped it, as if escaping some raging and savage master." Again in the Phaedo, censuring generation, he writes: "Now the account spoken about them in secret, that we men are in some kind of prison." And again: "But those who seem to have lived preeminently piously, these are the ones who, freed and released from these places in the earth as from prisons, arrive above into the pure dwelling." Yet, being thus, he perceives the governance to be well-ordered and says: "One must not release oneself from this nor run away.

And to sum up, he gave no occasion to Marcion to consider matter evil, having himself piously spoken about the cosmos as follows: from the one who composed it, it possesses all that is beautiful; but from its prior condition, it has whatever harsh and unjust things occur in heaven, and these it both has from that condition and produces in living beings. And he adds more clearly: the cause of these things for it is the bodily nature of its mixture, the congenital element of its ancient nature, because it partook of much disorder before it arrived at the present cosmos. No less does he lament the human race in the Laws, speaking thus: the gods, pitying the human race, which is by nature prone to toil, ordained for them the alternations of festivals as respites from their labors. And in the Epinomis he goes through the causes of this pity and says this: that from the beginning, coming into being is difficult for every living thing, first in partaking of the condition of those being gestated, then in being born, and further in being nourished and educated, all of which come about through countless toils, as we all say. What then? Does not Heraclitus also call birth death, similarly to Pythagoras and to Socrates in the Gorgias, where he says: death is what we see when awake, and what we see when asleep is sleep? But enough of these things; when we take up the discussion of principles, then we will examine these oppositions which both the philosophers hint at and the followers of Marcion dogmatize; nevertheless, I think it has been shown not obscurely by us that Marcion took the starting points of his foreign doctrines from Plato, ungratefully and

They have taken it ignorantly. But let our discourse on self-control proceed. We were saying that the Greeks, looking askance at the difficulty, uttered many things concerning the procreation of children, while those around Marcion, taking these things in an impious manner, are ungrateful to the creator. For the tragedy says: "Not to be born is better than to be born a mortal." Then: "I bear children with bitter pains; but if I bear them foolish, I groan in vain, seeing them evil; if good, I lose them; and if they are saved, I melt my wretched heart with fear. What then is this good? Is it not enough that one soul is distressed and has toils over this?" And again similarly: "It has seemed to me, now and long ago, that men should never have begotten children, seeing the toils into which we beget them." In what is said next, he also clearly traces the cause of evils back to the beginnings, speaking thus: "O to be born unfortunate and to have fared badly, you became a man and took the misfortune of life from there, whence for all it began, when this aether gave forth breaths to mortals; do not now, being mortal, be ignorant of mortal things." And again he gives similar things thus: "No mortal is blessed or happy; for no one has ever been born without pain." And then again: "Alas, alas, what fortunes of mortal woes, what forms, no one could tell their end." And again similarly: "For among mortals nothing is happy to the end." On this account, they say, the Pythagoreans also abstain from sexual intercourse. But to me, on the contrary, they seem to marry for the sake of procreation, but to wish to control the pleasure from sexual intercourse after procreation.

They mystically forbid the use of beans, not because the legume is flatulent, indigestible, and produces disturbed dreams, nor yet because a bean is likened to a human head in that little verse, "It is equal to eat beans and the heads of parents," but rather because beans when eaten render women barren. Theophrastus, at any rate, in the fifth book of his *Causes of Plants*, records that the husks of beans placed around the roots of newly planted trees dry up the growths, and domestic fowls when continually fed on them become barren. Of those who are led by heresy, we have mentioned Marcion of Pontus, who, through his opposition to the Creator, rejects the use of worldly things. But the cause of his self-control, if indeed this is to be called self-control, is the Creator himself, against whom this god-fighting giant, thinking to stand in opposition, is involuntarily continent, while he runs down both creation and the creature. And if they use the Lord's word, when he says to Philip, "Let the dead bury their own dead, and follow me," yet let them consider that Philip also bears the same formation of flesh, not having a dead thing polluted. How then, having a body, did he not have a dead thing? Because he rose from the tomb, the Lord having put his passions to death, and he lived in Christ. We have also mentioned the lawless community of women according to Carpocrates, and, while discussing the saying of Nicolaus, we omitted that point.

They say that this man, having a beautiful wife, after the ascension of the Savior was reproached by the apostles for jealousy, and bringing his wife forward, he permitted her to marry whomever wished. For they say that this action is consistent with that saying, that one must use the flesh, and indeed, following both the event and the saying, those who follow his heresy simply and uncritically indulge in promiscuous intercourse. But I for my part understand that Nicolaus used no other woman than the one he married, and that of his children, the females grew old as virgins, and the son remained uncorrupted. This being so, the bringing forward of the jealousied wife into the midst of the apostles was a rejection of passion, and the continence with regard to eagerly sought pleasures taught the use of the flesh. For I think he did not wish, according to the Savior's command, to serve two masters, pleasure and God. They say, then, that Matthias also taught thus: to fight against the flesh and to use it, yielding nothing to it for licentious pleasure, but to increase the soul through faith and knowledge. There are those who proclaim the common Aphrodite as a mystical communion, insulting even the name; for doing something evil is also called working, just as doing something good is homonymously called working; and similarly, communion is good in the giving of money, food, and clothing, but some have impiously called any kind of sexual intercourse communion. They say, then, that one of them approached a virgin of ours, beautiful in appearance, and said:

It is written, "Give to everyone who asks you." And she, not understanding the man's licentiousness, answered very modestly, "But discuss marriage with my mother." O the godlessness! And the partners in licentiousness, the brothers of lust, falsify the words of the Lord, a disgrace not only to philosophy but to all life, who counterfeit the truth, or rather undermine it as far as they can. For these thrice-wretched ones make a sacred mystery of both carnal and sexual communion, and think that this leads them into the kingdom of God. Such communion, indeed, leads into brothels, and the pigs and goats would be their fellow participants; and in their greater hopes would be the prostitutes who preside over the rooftops, receiving all who wish without restraint. But you have not learned Christ in this way, if indeed you have heard him and have been taught in him, that as truth is in Christ Jesus, you must put away the things of your former way of life, the old man who is corrupted by the desires of deceit; renew yourselves in the spirit of your mind and put on the new man, who is created according to God in righteousness and holiness of truth, according to the likeness of the divine. Therefore, become imitators of God, as beloved children, and walk in love, just as Christ loved you and gave himself as an offering and sacrifice to God for us, as a sweet-smelling fragrance. Let fornication and all impurity or greed not even be named among you, as is fitting for saints, nor obscenity and foolish talk.

For from the voice he teaches to practice chastity, the apostle writes: "For this you know, recognizing that every fornicator and so forth, up to 'rather also reprove them.'" Their doctrine flowed from some apocryphal work, and I shall indeed set forth the passage that is the mother of their licentiousness. And whether they themselves are the authors of the book (see the folly, if they also lie about God through incontinence), or whether they encountered others and understood this fine doctrine having heard it perversely, the words run thus: "All things were one; but since it seemed good to its unity not to be alone, an emanation went out from it, and it consorted with it and produced the beloved; and from this an emanation went out from it, with which it consorted and produced powers that could neither be seen nor heard, up to each by its own name." For if even these, like the followers of Valentinus, posited spiritual unions, perhaps someone might have accepted their supposition; but to refer a union of carnal outrage to holy prophecy is the act of one who has despaired of salvation. Such are the doctrines also of the followers of Prodicus, who falsely call themselves Gnostics, claiming to be sons by nature of the first god; and abusing their nobility and freedom, they live as they wish—and they wish voluptuously—considering themselves restrained by nothing, as if lords of the Sabbath and born above every race, royal children, and they say, "For a king there is unwritten law.

First, then, they do not do all that they wish, for many things will hinder them even when they desire and attempt them; and what they do, they do not do as kings, but as whipped slaves, for they commit adultery in secret, fearing detection and shunning exposure and dreading punishment. How is licentiousness and foul speech freedom? For everyone who sins is a slave, the apostle says. But how does one who has surrendered himself to every desire live according to God, when the Lord said, "But I say, do not desire"? And does one willingly choose to sin and lay down a doctrine of committing adultery, indulging in pleasure, and corrupting the marriages of others, when we even pity others who sin unwillingly? Even if they have arrived in a foreign world, not having become faithful in the alien place, they will not possess the truth. Does a foreigner insult citizens and wrong them, and not rather, as a sojourner, use necessities without offense and live unobjectionably among the citizens? And how, when they do the same things as those hated by the nations for not doing what the laws prescribe—that is, the unjust, the incontinent, the greedy, and the adulterers—do they alone claim to have known God? For they ought, even when present among foreigners, to live well, so as truly to display the royal character. Moreover, they incur the hatred of human lawgivers and of the divine law, having taken up an unlawful life. Indeed, the one who pierces the fornicator is shown to be blessed by God in the book of Numbers.

And if we say, says John in his epistle, that we have communion with him, that is with God, and yet walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; but if we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have communion with him, and the blood of Jesus his son cleanses us from sin. Whence then are those who do such things better than the worldly, when they are like the worst of the worldly? For those who are alike in actions are, I think, alike in natures. And those whom they claim to surpass in nobility ought to surpass also in character, so as to escape confinement in prison. For truly as the Lord said, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of God. Concerning abstinence from foods, it is shown in Daniel. To sum up, concerning obedience David says in his psalm: How shall a young man set right his way? And he immediately hears: By guarding your word in his whole heart. And Jeremiah says: Thus says the Lord: Do not walk in the ways of the nations. From this some others, moved, foul and worthless, say that man is fashioned by different powers, and that the parts down to the navel are of a more godlike art, while those below are of an inferior one, for the sake of which they desire intercourse.

They are unaware that even the higher parts of food desire and lust after certain things, and they also oppose Christ when he said to the Pharisees that the same God made both the external man and the inner man. But appetite is not of the body, even if it occurs through the body. Some others, whom we call Antitactae, say that the God who is the father of all is our father by nature, and that everything he has made is good; but that one of those who came into being from him sowed the tares, generating the nature of evils, with which he then encompassed all of us, setting us in opposition to the father. Therefore we ourselves oppose this one in vengeance for the father, acting contrary to the will of the second. Since, then, this one has said, "You shall not commit adultery," we, they say, let us commit adultery for the purpose of abolishing his commandment. We would say also to these that we have received that the false prophets and all who pretend to the truth are known by their works. But your works are slandered; how will you still say that you hold to the truth? For either evil is nothing and the one you accuse as being set in opposition to God is no longer worthy of blame, nor has he become the creator of any evil (for with the fruit the tree is also destroyed), or, if evil exists in

Let them tell us, if they will, what they say the given commandments concerning justice, self-control, endurance, forbearance, and the like are—base or noble. If the commandment that forbids most shameful actions is base, then vice will legislate against itself for its own destruction, which is impossible. But if it is good, then by opposing the good commandments they confess that they are opposing the good and doing evil. Moreover, the Savior himself, whom they claim to obey alone, has forbidden hatred and abuse, and says, "While walking with your opponent, try to become his friend and be reconciled." Either, then, they will deny Christ's exhortation by opposing what is opposed, or, becoming friends with him, they will not oppose. What then? Do you not know, noble sirs (as I would say to those present), that by fighting against the well-given commandments you resist your own salvation? For you do not overthrow what has been usefully ordained, but you destroy yourselves. And the Lord said, "Let your good works shine," but you make your debaucheries manifest. Besides, if you wish to annul the lawgiver's commandments, why do you attempt to annul "You shall not commit adultery" and "You shall not corrupt boys" and all that contributes to self-control, through your own incontinence, but you do not annul the winter he made, so as to create summer while winter is still at its height, nor do you make the land navigable and the sea passable, as those who compiled the histories say the barbarian Xerxes wished to do? Why do you not oppose all the commandments?

For when he said "increase and multiply," you who oppose him ought not to have any intercourse at all; and when he said "I have given you everything for food and enjoyment," you ought to enjoy nothing. And when he says "an eye for an eye," you ought not to give back opposition for opposition; and when he commanded the thief to repay fourfold, you ought to give even more to the thief. Likewise, in the case of the commandment "you shall love the Lord," you who oppose him ought not to love the God of all; and again, when he said "you shall not make a carved or molten image," it would have been consistent for you to worship carved images. How then are you not impious, opposing, as you say, the creator, yet emulating the likes of prostitutes and adulterers? And how do you not perceive that you make greater the one you consider weak, if what he wills comes to pass, but not what the good one willed? On the contrary, your own father, as you say, is shown to be weak by you yourselves. These people also collect from certain prophetic passages, culling phrases and stitching them together badly, taking literally what was said allegorically. For they say it is written: "They opposed God and were saved." And some even add "to the shameless god," and they receive this saying as an enjoined counsel and count it as salvation for themselves to oppose the creator. Now it is not written "to the shameless god"; but even if it were so, you fools, understand that the one called the devil is called shameless either as slandering man or as accuser of sinners or as apostate.

The people, then, concerning whom the passage is spoken, being disciplined for their sins, took it heavily and groaned, murmuring the said phrase, that other nations that transgress are not punished, while they alone are curtailed at every turn, as Jeremiah said, "Why is the path of the impious made smooth?" Similar to this is the passage in Malachi, the one previously mentioned, "They opposed God and were saved." For the prophets, when delivering oracles, are said not only to hear certain things from God, but are themselves shown to proclaim, by way of objection, what is bruited about by the people, as if they were raising certain inquiries on behalf of men, from which the text in question also happens to be derived. And does not the Apostle, in his Epistle to the Romans, write to these people, saying: "And not as we are blasphemed, and as some say we teach, that we should do evil that good may come, whose judgment is just"? These are the ones who, in reading, distort the Scriptures by the tone of their voice to suit their own pleasures, and by the transposition of certain accents and stops, force what has been commanded soberly and profitably into conformity with their own voluptuousness. "Those who provoke God by your words," says Malachi, "and you say, 'Wherein have we provoked him?' In your saying, 'Everyone who does evil is good before the Lord, and in them he himself has taken delight'; and, 'Where is the God of justice?'

Lest we continue to pick at the passage and recall more absurd heresies, or be forced to speak against each one individually, and be ashamed of them, and prolong our notes to an excessive length, let us divide all the heresies into two classes and answer them. For either they teach living indifferently, or they proclaim an excessive asceticism through impiety and contentiousness. First, we must discuss the former division. If it is possible to choose any life, it is clear that the life with self-control is also possible; and if every life is without risk for the elect, it is clear that the life with virtue and temperance is much more without risk. For if authority is given to the Lord of the Sabbath, so that if he lives licentiously he is not liable, much more will the one who lives orderly not be liable. For all things are possible, but not all things are beneficial, says the apostle. And if all things are possible, it is clear that self-control is also possible. Just as the one who uses the authority to live according to virtue is praiseworthy, so much more is the one who gave us free and sovereign authority and allowed us to live as we wish, solemn and worthy of adoration, not allowing our choices and avoidances to be enslaved by necessity. And if each one, both the one who chooses intemperance and the one who chooses self-control, has freedom from fear, yet the dignity is not the same. For the one who slides into pleasures gratifies the body, while the temperate one frees the soul, the master of the body, from the passions. And even if they say we are called to freedom, let us not provide freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, according to the apostle.

If one must gratify desire and consider a reproachful life indifferent, as they themselves say, then either one must yield to all desires, and if so, one must do everything most lascivious and unholy, following those who persuade us; or we will reject some desires and no longer live indifferently nor slavishly serve the most dishonorable parts of us, the belly and the genitals, flattering our corpse through desire. For desire is nourished and kept alive when served for enjoyment, just as, conversely, it withers when checked. How is it possible, having been defeated by the pleasures of the body, to be assimilated to the Lord or to have knowledge of God? For desire rules over every pleasure, and desire is a kind of pain and anxiety reaching out for something due to lack. So it seems to me that those who have adopted this way of life are doing nothing other than this very thing: suffering pains for shame, choosing for themselves an evil now and later that is drawn upon them. If, then, everything were permitted and there were no fear of failing to attain hope because of evil deeds, perhaps they would have some pretext for living badly and wretchedly.

Since a blessed life has been shown to us through the commandments, which all must follow, not disregarding any of the things said nor neglecting what is fitting, even if it be the least, and to follow wherever reason leads, but if we should stray from it, we must necessarily fall into an immortal evil; and following the divine scripture, by which those who have believed travel, we are to be likened as much as possible to the Lord. One must not live indifferently, but must purify oneself as much as possible from pleasures and desires, and care for the soul, which must be occupied only with the divine. For the mind, being pure and freed from all evil, is somehow receptive of the power of God, the divine image rising up in it. And everyone who has this hope in the Lord purifies himself, it is said, as that one is pure. But it is impossible for those still led by the passions to obtain knowledge of God; therefore, they cannot attain the hope either, if they have acquired no knowledge of God. And the failure to achieve this end seems to accuse ignorance of God, while ignorance of God is demonstrated by one's conduct of life. For it is utterly impossible to be at the same time both knowledgeable and not ashamed of the flattery of the body; nor can it ever be consistent that pleasure is good, when only the beautiful is good, or only the Lord is beautiful, and only God is good, and only He is worthy of love. And in Christ you have been circumcised with a circumcision not made by hands, in the stripping off of the body of the flesh, in the circumcision of Christ. Therefore, if you have risen with Christ, seek the things above, think of the things above, not the things on the earth.

For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God, not the fornication which they practice. Therefore mortify the members that are upon the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, desire, through which wrath comes. Let them also put away wrath, anger, malice, blasphemy, foul speech from their mouth, having stripped off the old man together with his desires, and having put on the new man who is renewed into knowledge according to the image of him who created him. For the conduct of life clearly convicts those who have known the commandments, since the life is not such as the word is; the tree is known from its fruits, not from its flowers and leaves. Knowledge therefore is from the fruit and from the conduct, not from the word and the flower; for we do not say that knowledge is bare speech, but a certain divine science and that light which is engendered in the soul from obedience according to the commandments, which makes all things manifest, both those in generation and the man himself, and prepares him to know himself and establishes him as a partaker of God by teaching. For what the eye is in the body, that knowledge is in the mind. And let them not call freedom the slavery under pleasure, as those who call bile sweet; for we have learned freedom which the Lord alone gives us, releasing us from pleasures and desires and the other passions. He who says, I have known the Lord, and does not keep his commandments is a liar, and in this the truth is not, says John.

To those who, under the fair name of continence, impiously sin against both creation and the holy creator, the only almighty God, and teach that one ought not to accept marriage and procreation, nor introduce into the world others who will be unfortunate, nor supply food for death, this must be said: first, the saying of the apostle John: "And now many antichrists have arisen, whence we know that it is the last hour. They came out from us, but they were not of us; for if they were of us, they would have remained with us." Then one must also refute them by dissolving the arguments they bring, somewhat as follows: To Salome, when she inquired, "How long shall death prevail?" the Lord replied, not as if life were evil and creation wicked, "As long as you women bear children," but as teaching the natural sequence; for generation is always followed by destruction. Now the law aims to lead us away from luxury and all disorder, and this is its end, to bring us from injustice to righteousness, choosing temperate marriages, procreation, and civil life. And the Lord did not come to destroy the law, but to fulfill it; to fulfill it, not as if it were deficient, but so that the prophecies according to the law might be accomplished by his presence, since the principles of right living were proclaimed through the Word even to those who lived righteously before the law. Therefore many, not knowing continence, live according to the body, but not according to the spirit. And the body without spirit is earth and ashes. For instance, the Lord judges adultery even from intention; for what? Is it not also in marriage

use it continently and not attempt to dissolve what God has joined together; for such are the teachings of those who divide the union, through whom the name itself is blasphemed. And if they say that intercourse is defiled, how can those who themselves have received their constitution from intercourse not be defiled? I think that the seed of those who have been sanctified is also sanctified. For not only the spirit, but also the manner, the life, and the body ought to be sanctified by us; for on what account does the apostle Paul say that the wife is sanctified by the husband or the husband by the wife? And what is it that the Lord said to those who inquired about divorce, whether it is permitted to dismiss a wife, as Moses allowed? To your hard-heartedness, he says, Moses wrote these things; but have you not read that God said to the first-formed: you two shall be one flesh? So that he who dismisses his wife without reason for adultery makes her commit adultery. But after the resurrection, they say, they neither marry nor are given in marriage. For it is also said about the belly and foods: foods are for the belly and the belly for foods, but God will abolish both this and these; thus rebuking those who think to live like boars and goats, so that they might not eat and copulate without restraint. If, then, they have received the resurrection, as they themselves say, and for this reason reject marriage, let them neither eat nor drink; for the apostle said that the belly and foods are abolished in the resurrection.

How then do they hunger and thirst and suffer the other things of the flesh, which one who has received through Christ the perfect resurrection that is hoped for will not suffer? But even those who worship idols abstain from foods and from sexual intercourse. The kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, he says. Indeed, it is a concern even for the Magi to abstain from wine, from living things, and from sexual intercourse, as they serve angels and demons. And just as humility is gentleness, not bodily mortification, so too is continence a virtue of the soul, not in the visible, but in the hidden. There are those who openly call marriage fornication and dogmatize that it was handed down by the devil, and they boast that they themselves, the arrogant, imitate the Lord, who neither married nor possessed anything in the world, claiming to have understood the Gospel more than others. But Scripture says to them: God sets himself against the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Moreover, they do not know the reason why the Lord did not marry: first, he had his own bride, the Church; second, he was not an ordinary man, so as to need some helper according to the flesh; nor was it necessary for him to produce children, since he is eternal and alone, having become the Son of God. This same Lord says: What God has yoked together, let man not separate. And again: Just as it was in the days of Noah—they were marrying and giving in marriage, building and planting—so will be the coming of the Son of Man. And that he does not speak to the Gentiles, he adds:

Will the Son of Man then come and find faith on the earth? And again: Woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing in those days. Yet these things too are allegorized. For this reason he did not even define the times which the Father established in his own authority, so that the world might continue through the generations. But not all can receive this word; for there are eunuchs who were born that way, and there are eunuchs who were castrated by men, and there are eunuchs who castrated themselves for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let him who can receive it receive it. They do not know that after the saying about divorce, when some asked whether, if the cause of the woman were such, it was not beneficial for the man to marry, then the Lord said: Not all can receive this word, but only those to whom it is given; for those who were asking wished to learn whether he permitted marrying another woman after a wife had been condemned for fornication and cast out. They say also that not a few athletes

abstain from sexual intercourse for the sake of bodily training, practicing self-control, like Astylus of Croton and Crisson of Himera. And Amoebeus the citharode, though newly married, abstained from his bride. And Aristotle of Cyrene alone disregarded the loving Laïs; having sworn to the courtesan that he would not take her to his homeland if she would cooperate with him against his rivals, when he had accomplished this, wittily fulfilling the oath, he painted a portrait of her as like as possible and set it up in Cyrene, as Istrus relates in his work On the Peculiarity of Contests. So even eunuchism is not virtuous, unless it occurs for love of God. For instance, concerning those who abominate marriage, the blessed Paul says: in later times some will depart from the faith, attending to deceitful spirits and demonic teachings, forbidding marriage, abstaining from foods. And again he says: let no one rob you of your prize in willful religion of humility and neglect of the body. And the same writes also: are you bound to a wife? Do not seek release; are you released from a wife? Do not seek a wife. And again: let each have his own wife, so that Satan may not tempt you. What then? Did not the ancient righteous partake of creation gratefully? They also married and had children temperately. And to Elijah ravens brought food, loaves and meat; and the prophet Samuel, taking the thigh that was left from what he ate, gave it to Saul to eat. But those who claim to surpass these in conduct and life will not even be able to be compared with their deeds.

Let not the one who does not eat despise the one who eats, nor let the one who eats judge the one who does not eat; for God has taken him to himself. But also the Lord, speaking about himself, came, says John, neither eating nor drinking, and they say: He has a demon. The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say: Behold a man gluttonous and a wine-bibber, a friend of tax collectors and sinners. Or do they also reject the apostles? For Peter and Philip had children, and Philip also gave his daughters in marriage to men, and Paul does not hesitate in some epistle to address his own wife, whom he did not take about with him because of the lightness of his service. He says therefore in some epistle: Do we not have authority to take about a sister as a wife, as also the other apostles? But these, in keeping with their ministry, devoting themselves undistractedly to the proclamation, did not take about women as wives, but as sisters, to be fellow ministers to the women who kept house, through whom the Lord's teaching entered the women's quarters without reproach. For we know also what the noble Paul ordains about deaconesses in the other epistle to Timothy. But indeed this same man cries out that the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, nor yet abstinence from wine and meats, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Who among them goes about with a sheepskin and a leather belt like Elijah? Who is clad in a sack, otherwise naked and unshod, like Isaiah? Or with only a linen loincloth, like Jeremiah? And who will imitate the gnostic steadfastness of John's life?

But even living in this way, the blessed prophets gave thanks to the Creator. The justice of Carpocrates, however, and the licentious communion of those who pursue the same path as him, is dissolved in some such manner as this. For along with the saying, "To the one who asks you, give," he adds, "And do not turn away the one who wishes to borrow," teaching this communion, not the lascivious one. But how can the one who asks and receives and borrows from one who has nothing, who gives and lends? And what of when the Lord says, "I was hungry and you fed me, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you took me in, I was naked and you clothed me"? Then he adds, "Insofar as you have done this for one of these least ones, you have done it for me." Does not the same law also appear in the Old Testament? "The one who gives to a poor man lends to God, and do not refrain from doing good to the needy," it says. And again, "Let alms and faithfulness not fail you," it said. "Poverty humbles a man, but the hands of the brave enrich." And it adds, "Behold, a man who did not lend his money at interest is acceptable; and a man's own wealth is considered a ransom for his soul." Does it not clearly explain this? So just as the world is composed of opposites, like hot and cold, dry and wet, so also it is composed of those who give and those who receive. And again, when it says, "If you wish to become perfect, sell your possessions and give to the poor," it refutes the one who boasts of having kept all the commandments from youth; for he had not fulfilled, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." Then, being perfected by the Lord, he was taught to share out of love.

He has not, then, forbidden to be rich in a good way, but to be rich unjustly and insatiably; for possession hastened with lawlessness becomes less. For there are those who by sowing make more, and those who by gathering make less; concerning whom it is written: He scattered, he gave to the poor, his righteousness remains forever. For the one who sows and gathers more is he who, through earthly and temporary distribution, acquires heavenly and eternal things; the other is he who gives to no one, but vainly hoards on the earth where moth and decay destroy (concerning whom it is written: Gathering the wages, he gathered into a perforated bag). The Lord says in the Gospel that this man's land was fertile, and then, when he wished to store the fruits, intending to build larger storehouses, he said to himself in the personification: You have many goods laid up for you for many years; eat, drink, be merry. Fool, then, he said, for this very night they demand your soul from you. What you have prepared, for whom will it become? Now human self-control, I mean that according to the Greek philosophers, promises to fight against desire and not to serve it in deeds; but our self-control is not to desire, not that one should endure while desiring, but that one should also be continent of desiring itself. It is not possible to obtain this self-control otherwise than by the grace of God. Therefore he said: Ask, and it shall be given to you. Moses also received this grace, though clothed in a needy body, so that for forty days he neither hungered nor thirsted.

As it is better to be healthy than to discourse about health when sick, so it is better to be light than to speak about light, and true self-control is better than that taught by the philosophers. For where light is, there is no darkness; but where desire is seated alone, even if it is inactive in the activity through the body, it consorts in memory with what is not present. In general, let our principle proceed: concerning marriage, concerning food, and concerning other things, to do nothing according to desire, but to will only those things that are necessary. For we are not children of desire, but of will. And the one who marries for the sake of childbearing must practice self-control, so as not even to desire his own wife, whom he ought to love, begetting children with a chaste and temperate will. For we have not learned to take thought for the flesh for desires, but to walk decorously as in the daytime, with Christ and the luminous conduct of the Lord's Day, not in revels and drunkenness, not in beds and licentiousness, not in strife and jealousies. But indeed it is fitting to observe self-control not only concerning one kind of thing, that is, sexual matters, but also concerning all other things which our soul, indulging itself, desires, not being content with necessities, but busying itself with luxury. Self-control is to despise money, to look down on luxury, possessions, and spectacle, to master the mouth, to rule over evil thoughts. And already some angels, having become incontinent and caught by desire, have fallen from heaven down here. And Valentinus, in his letter to Agathopous, says that he who endured everything was self-controlled; Jesus worked divinity, he ate and drank in a peculiar way, not excreting the food.

Such was his power of self-control that even his food was not corrupted in him, since he himself had no corruption. We, then, embrace self-control through love for the Lord and for the sake of the good itself, sanctifying the temple of the Holy Spirit; for it is good to castrate oneself of every desire for the sake of the kingdom of heaven and to purify one's conscience from dead works in order to serve a living God. But those who, through hatred of the flesh, ungratefully desire to be rid of marriage and the partaking of appropriate foods, being ignorant and godless, practice self-control without reason, like most of the other nations. The Brahmans, at any rate, eat no living thing and drink no wine; but some of them take food daily as we do, while others do so every three days, as Alexander Polyhistor says in his Indian History; they despise death and regard life as nothing, for they believe in reincarnation, and they worship Heracles and Pan as gods. Those called the Semnoi among the Indians live naked their whole life; they practice truth, foretell the future, and worship a certain pyramid, beneath which they believe the bones of some god lie. Neither the gymnosophists nor those called the Semnoi have intercourse with women; for they consider this contrary to nature and law, for which reason they keep themselves pure, and the Semnai also remain virgins. They seem to observe the heavens and through the observation of these to foretell certain future events.

Since those who introduce indifference think they are forcing a few scriptures to support their own self-indulgence—such as, “For sin will not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace” (and some other such passages, which it is not reasonable to recall in such contexts, for I am not equipping a pirate ship)—come, let us briefly cut short their attempt. For the noble apostle himself, by adding to the aforementioned phrase, will dismiss the charge: “What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means.” Thus he divinely and prophetically dissolves at once the sophistic art of pleasure. They do not understand, it seems, that all of us must appear before the tribunal of Christ, so that each may receive through the body according to what he has done, whether good or evil, in order that one may receive back through the body what one did through the body. Therefore, if one is in Christ, a new creation, he is no longer sinful; the old things have passed away, we have washed away the old life; behold, they have become new: chastity from fornication, self-control from licentiousness, righteousness from injustice. For what share has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what communion has light with darkness? What agreement has Christ with Beliar? What part has a believer with an unbeliever? What concord has a temple of God with idols? Therefore, having these promises, let us purify ourselves from every defilement of flesh and spirit, accomplishing holiness in fear of God. And those who oppose the creation of God through well-spoken self-control also cite those words spoken to Salome, which we mentioned earlier.

It is also, I think, cited in the Gospel according to the Egyptians. For they say that the Savior himself said: I came to destroy the works of the female, the female being desire, and the works being generation and decay. What then would they say? Was this administration destroyed? They would not claim so; for the world continues under the same economy. But the Lord did not lie; for he truly destroyed the works of desire: love of money, love of strife, love of glory, woman-madness, pederasty, gluttony, profligacy, and the like. The generation of these is corruption of the soul, since we become dead through transgressions; and this female was incontinence. Generation and decay must necessarily occur preeminently in creation until the complete separation and restoration of the elect, on account of which the substances mingled with the world are assigned to their own proper kind. Hence, when the Word indicated the end, Salome says: Until when will people die? And Scripture calls man in two ways: the visible man and the soul, and again the one who is saved and the one who is not. And the death of the soul is called sin. Therefore the Lord answers precisely: Until women bear children, that is, until desires are active. For this reason, just as sin entered the world through one man, and through sin death passed to all men, on which account all sinned; and death reigned from Adam until Moses, says the apostle; by natural necessity of divine economy, death follows generation, and the dissolution of soul and body follows their union.

If generation is for the sake of learning and knowledge, and dissolution for restoration; and as woman is considered the cause of death because she gives birth, so too for the same reason she will be called the leader of life. Indeed, the one who first began the transgression was called Life, and through the cause of succession she becomes mother alike of those who are born and those who sin, of the just as of the unjust, each of us either justifying himself or, on the contrary, rendering himself disobedient. Hence I for my part do not think the apostle abhors life in the flesh, whenever he says: but with all frankness, as always and now, Christ will be magnified in my body, whether through life or through death. For to me living is Christ, and dying is gain. But if living is in the flesh, and this too is for me the fruit of labor, I do not know which I shall choose; I am constrained by both, having the desire to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better; but remaining in the flesh is more necessary for your sake. For through these words, I think, he clearly indicated that departure from the body is the perfection of love for God, while presence in the flesh is the grateful endurance for the sake of those who need to be saved. And why do not those who follow every rule rather than the canonical one according to the truth of the gospel also adduce the following words spoken to Salome? For when she said, "Then I did well not to bear children," as if generation were not taken up appropriately, the Lord answers, saying: "Eat every herb, but do not eat the one that has bitterness.

For through these things he indicates that it is within our power and not by necessity, whether by the prohibition of a commandment, either continence or marriage, and that marriage cooperates in some way with creation, further clarifying. Therefore, let no one consider marriage according to reason a sin, unless he supposes child-rearing to be bitter (for to many, conversely, childlessness is most grievous), nor, if childbearing appears bitter to someone, distracting from divine things through necessary preoccupations, should he, not bearing the solitary life easily, desire marriage, since what is pleasing with temperance is harmless, and each of us is master of the choice concerning the procreation of children. I observe how, under the pretext of marriage, some who have abstained from it, not according to holy knowledge, have lapsed into misanthropy, and love has perished among them, while others, entangled and having indulged in pleasure through the law's accommodation, as the prophet says, have become like beasts. Who are the two and three who gather in the name of Christ, among whom the Lord is in the middle? Does he not mean man, woman, and child as the three, because a woman is joined to a man through God? But even if someone wishes to be lightly equipped, not choosing childbearing because of the preoccupation in childbearing, let him remain unmarried, says the apostle, as I do. For they interpret the Lord as meaning to say that with the many, the creator is the generative god, but with the one elect, the savior, being the son of another god, namely the good one. But this is not so.

But God is with those who have married and produced children temperately, and the same God is likewise with the one who has practiced continence rationally. And the three—spirit, desire, and reason—would be otherwise, and flesh, soul, and spirit according to another account. Perhaps the aforementioned triad also hints at the calling, the second election, and the third class assigned to the first honor; with these the all-surveying power of God is indivisibly divided. Therefore, the one who uses the natural energies of the soul in due measure desires what is appropriate and hates what is harmful, as the commandments prescribe; for it says, you will bless the one who blesses and curse the one who curses. But when one rises above these—spirit and desire—and in deed loves creation for the sake of the God and maker of all, he will live gnostically, having acquired a habit of continence without toil through assimilation to the Savior, uniting knowledge, faith, and love, being one from here on, truly spiritual and a judge, wholly and completely unreceptive of the reasonings that pertain to spirit and desire, the one who is being perfected in the image of the Lord by the craftsman himself, a perfect human, already worthy of being called brother by the Lord, and is at once friend and son. Thus the two and the three are brought together into the same thing, the gnostic human. And the concord of the many would be numbered from the three, with whom the Lord is—the one church, the one human, the one race.

Or is it not that the Lord was legislating with the one Jew, and already prophesying and sending Jeremiah to Babylon, and also calling those from the nations through prophecy, he gathered two peoples, and a third was being built from the two, one into a new man, in whom he walks and dwells in that very church? Law and prophets together with the gospel are gathered into one knowledge in the name of Christ. Therefore, those who out of hatred do not marry or who indiscriminately abuse the flesh out of desire are not among the number of those saved with whom the Lord is. These things having been demonstrated here, come, let us now set forth how many scriptures oppose these sophists of the heresies, indicating the rule of continence preserved according to reason. And the one who understands will use the scripture that stands appropriately against each heresy, at the right time, for the dissolution of those who dogmatize contrary to the commandments. From above, then, the law, as we have previously said, has pre-announced the "you shall not desire" of your neighbor, which is close to the voice of the Lord according to the New Testament, which says in person: "You have heard the law commanding: you shall not commit adultery. But I say: you shall not desire.

That the law intended men to use their wives with self-control and only for the purpose of procreation is clear from the fact that it forbids an unmarried man to have intercourse immediately with a captive woman, and if he desires her once, it permits him to mourn for thirty days, with her hair cut short, and if even then the desire does not fade, then to procreate, the impulse that rules having been tested by the prescribed time into a reasonable appetite. Hence you could not show any of the elders approaching a pregnant woman according to the scripture, but you would find that after both the pregnancy and the nursing of the child, the women are again known by their husbands. Immediately you will find that Moses' own father observed this purpose, having begotten Moses after a three-year interval following the birth of Aaron. Moreover, the Levitical tribe, observing this natural law, was smaller in number than the others when it entered the promised land; for a race does not easily increase to a multitude when the men who have undertaken marriage according to the laws sow their seed, waiting not only for the pregnancy but also for the nursing period. Hence it is reasonable that Moses, gradually leading the Jews toward continence, ordered those who had abstained from sexual pleasure for three consecutive days to listen to the

of divine words. We are therefore temples of God; as the prophet said, that I will dwell in them and walk among them and I will be their God and they will be my people, if we conduct ourselves according to the commandments, whether each of us individually or the whole church together. Therefore, come out from among them and separate yourselves, says the Lord, and do not touch anything unclean; and I will receive you and I will be a father to you, and you will be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty. It is not of the married, as they claim, but of the nations still living in fornication, and also of the aforementioned heresies, that he commands us prophetically to separate ourselves as from unclean and godless people. Hence also Paul, addressing those similar to the ones mentioned, says: Therefore keep these promises, beloved; let us purify our hearts from every defilement of flesh and spirit, accomplishing holiness in fear of God; for I am zealous for you with a divine zeal, for I have betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ. And the church does not marry another, having acquired the bridegroom, but each of us, if he wishes to marry according to the law, I mean the first marriage, has the authority. But I fear that, just as the serpent deceived Eve by its cunning, your thoughts might be corrupted from the simplicity toward Christ, the apostle said very cautiously and didactically. Hence also the admirable Peter says: Beloved, I exhort you as sojourners and strangers to abstain from fleshly desires, which wage war against the soul, having your conduct good among the nations.

that thus is the will of God, that doing good we muzzle the work of foolish men, as free men and not as having freedom as a cover for wickedness, but as servants of God. Likewise also Paul writes in the Epistle to the Romans: we who have died to sin, how shall we still live in it? For our old man was crucified together, so that the body of sin might be abolished, until you no longer present your members as weapons of injustice to sin. And indeed, having come to this point, I think I should not omit to note that the apostle proclaims the same God through law, prophets, and gospel; for the commandment "you shall not covet," written in the gospel, he attributes to the law in the Epistle to the Romans, knowing that the one who proclaimed through law and prophets and the Father who was evangelized through him are one. For he says: what shall we say? Is the law sin? By no means; but I did not know sin except through the law; for I would not have known desire, if the law had not said: you shall not covet. And if the heterodox opponents suppose that Paul, addressing the Creator, said the following: "for I know that good does not dwell in me," that is, in my flesh, but let them read the preceding and following words; for he said beforehand: "but the sin dwelling in me," on account of which it was consistent to say that good does not dwell in my flesh. And accordingly he added:

But if I do what I do not wish, I no longer accomplish it myself, but the sin dwelling in me, which wages war against the law of God and of my mind, he says, takes me captive in the law of sin that exists in my members. Wretched man that I am; who will deliver me from this body of death? And again (for he is not at all weary of being helpful) he does not hesitate to add: For the law of the spirit has freed me from the law of sin and death, since through the Son God condemned sin in the flesh, so that the ordinance of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not according to the flesh but according to the spirit. In addition, further clarifying what was said before, he exclaims: He indicates that the body is dead through sin, as if it were not a temple but a tomb of the soul; for when it is sanctified to God, the spirit, he will say, of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, who will also give life to your mortal bodies through the indwelling spirit in you. Then again, rebuking the pleasure-lovers, he adds these things: For the mind-set of the flesh is death, because those who live according to the flesh think the things of the flesh, and the mind-set of the flesh is enmity toward God; for it does not submit to the law of God. But those who are in the flesh, as some dogmatize, cannot please God, but as we have said before. Then, in contrast to these things, he says to the church: But you are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if indeed the spirit of God dwells in you. And if anyone does not have the spirit of Christ, that one is not his.

If Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of righteousness. Therefore, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh, you are about to die; but if by the spirit you put to death the actions of the body, you will live. For those who are led by the spirit of God, these are sons of God. And with regard to the nobility and the freedom contemptibly introduced by the heterodox who boast in licentiousness, he adds, saying: For you did not receive a spirit of slavery again into fear, but you received a spirit of adoption, in which we cry: Abba, Father; that is, we received this in order that we might know him to whom we pray, the one who is truly father, the only father of beings, the one who educates for salvation as a father and threatens fear. And the conjugal union, by agreement, temporarily devoted to prayer, is a teaching of continence; for he added "by agreement" so that no one might dissolve the marriage, and "temporarily" so that the married man, not practicing continence out of necessity, might never slip into sin, sparing his own spouse but falling into alien desire. By which reasoning he also said that the man who considered himself indecent in the rearing of a virgin would do well to give his daughter in marriage. And the purpose of each—both of the one who has castrated himself and of the one who has joined in marriage for the sake of procreation—must remain unyielding to the inferior. For if he is able to extend his life, he will procure for himself a greater worth in God, having practiced continence purely and with reason.

But if, going beyond the rule he chose for greater glory, he then falls away toward hope. For just as eunuchhood, so also marriage has its own services and ministries to the Lord, differing in kind: I mean the care of children and of a wife. For the intimacy of the union becomes, it seems, a pretext for the one perfected in marriage, who has undertaken the care of all according to the common household. Immediately he says that bishops must be appointed from their own household, having practiced presiding over the whole church. Therefore let each one complete the ministry in the work to which he was called, so that he may become free in Christ, receiving the proper reward of his ministry. Again, speaking about the law, using allegory: "For the married woman," he says, "is bound to her living husband by law," and so forth. And again: "The woman is bound as long as her husband lives; but if he dies, she is free to marry, only in the Lord; but she is blessed if she remains thus, in my opinion." But in the first passage he says: "You were put to death by the law, not by marriage, so that you might become a bride and church for another, the one raised from the dead, which must be pure both from internal thoughts contrary to truth and from external temptations," that is, from those who pursue heresies and persuade to commit fornication from the one husband, the almighty God, so that, as the serpent deceived Eve, called life, we too might not transgress the commandments through the cunning of heresies. The second passage establishes monogamy.

For not, as some have interpreted, should it be supposed that the bond of woman to man signifies the flesh's intertwining with corruption; for it accuses the invention of marriage, which some directly attribute to the devil, as the contrivance of godless men, through which the lawgiver is in danger of being blasphemed. I think Tatian the Syrian dares to dogmatize such things. He writes verbatim in his work On the Arrangement According to the Saviour: "Harmony indeed suits prayer, but communion of corruption dissolves the meeting." He certainly restrains very shamefully through concession; for again, having conceded that the same thing occurs on account of Satan and incontinence, he declared that the one who is persuaded will serve two masters, through harmony serving God, through disharmony serving incontinence and fornication and the devil. He says these things while interpreting the apostle; but he sophistically constructs falsehood through truth, distorting the truth. For we also confess that incontinence and fornication are diabolical passions, but harmony mediates in temperate marriage, leading both to prayer with continence and to procreation with modesty. For knowledge and the time of procreation are spoken of by Scripture, when it says: "And Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore a son, and she named his name Seth; for God raised up for me another seed instead of Abel." Do you see against whom those blaspheme who abominate temperate procreation and attribute generation to the devil? For he did not simply say "god," but by prefixing the article indicated the Almighty.

The apostle's additional statement, that this again occurs for the same reason through Satan, forestalls the possibility of ever being diverted into other desires. For the temporary harmony does not completely repel the natural appetites, which it shames, and for the sake of which it reintroduces the bond of marriage—not for incontinence, fornication, and the work of the devil, but so that one may not fall into incontinence, fornication, and the devil. Tatian, too, separates the old man and the new, but not as we say: we agree with him in calling the old man the Law and the new man the Gospel, and we ourselves say this, except not in the way he wishes, by abolishing the Law as belonging to another god. But the same man and Lord, renewing the old, no longer permits polygamy (for the time then required it, when it was necessary to increase and multiply), but introduces monogamy for the purpose of childbearing and the care of the household, for which the woman was given as a helper. And if the apostle, out of indulgence, grants a second marriage to someone due to incontinence and burning passion, even this person does not sin according to the covenant (for it is not forbidden by the Law), but he does not fulfill the perfection of the Gospel polity in its full intensity. He procures for himself a heavenly glory by remaining by himself and keeping the bond dissolved by death unstained, and by obediently and contentedly following the economy according to which he has become undistracted from the Lord's service. Nor does divine providence through the Lord now command that one be baptized after the marriage bed in the same way as before.

For it is not that the Lord, who encompassed the many things of Moses through one baptism, compels believers to abstain from procreation by means of a single baptism that washes away the entirety of intercourse. From above, then, the law, prophesying our regeneration through fleshly generation, offered baptism at the generative deposit of seed, not abhorring human generation; for what appears as a born human, that the deposit of seed can become. Therefore, not many unions are fertile, but the reception of the womb acknowledges generation, as the seed is shaped into an embryo in the natural womb. How is it that marriage is only old and an invention of the law, while marriage according to the Lord is different, with the same God being preserved by us? For what God has joined together, a human would never reasonably dissolve; much more, what the father has commanded, the son will also observe. If the same legislator is also the evangelist, he never contradicts himself. For the law lives, being spiritual and understood gnosticly. But we have been put to death by the law.

through the body of Christ, so that we might become for another—the one who was raised from the dead, the one prophesied by the law—that we might bear fruit for God. Therefore the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, just, and good. So we have been put to death by the law, that is, by the sin indicated by the law, which the law reveals but does not generate, through the command of what must be done and the prohibition of what must not be done, exposing the underlying sin so that sin may be made manifest. But if marriage according to the law is sin, I do not know how one can claim to have known God while saying that the commandment of God is sin; but if the law is holy, marriage is holy. This mystery, then, the apostle leads into Christ and the Church. Just as what is born from flesh is flesh, so what is from spirit is spirit, not only by generation but also by learning. Thus the children are holy, the acts of pleasing God, when the soul is betrothed by the Lord’s words. Fornication and marriage are separated, since the devil stands far from God. And so you also have been put to death by the law through the body of Christ, so that you might become for another—the one who was raised from the dead; for it is understood that you have become obedient in turn, since also according to the truth of the law we obey the same Lord who commands from afar.

And perhaps in such matters the Spirit directly says that in later times some will depart from the faith, heeding deceptive spirits and demonic teachings, in the hypocrisy of false prophets, whose conscience is branded, and who forbid marriage, and abstain from foods which God created for partaking with thanksgiving by the faithful and those who have recognized the truth. For every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be rejected when taken with thanksgiving. For it is sanctified through the word of God and through prayer. Therefore it is not necessary to forbid marriage, nor to forbid eating meat or drinking wine, for it is written: it is good not to eat meat nor to drink wine, if one eats because of offense; and it is good to remain as I do, but let the one who partakes with thanksgiving and the one who does not partake, also with thanksgiving, live with self-controlled enjoyment according to reason. And in general, all the letters of the apostle, teaching temperance and self-control concerning marriage, concerning childbearing, concerning household management, containing countless commandments, nowhere reject chaste marriage, but, preserving the continuity of the law with the Gospel, they accept both the one who has used marriage with thanksgiving to God in a temperate manner and the one who lives in celibacy as the Lord wills, as each has been called, having chosen blamelessly and perfectly. And the land of Jacob was praised above all the land, says the prophet, glorifying the vessel of his spirit.

He attacks generation, calling it corrupt and perishable, and someone forces the issue, claiming that the Savior said concerning childbearing not to store up treasure on earth where moth and decay destroy, and he is not ashamed to add to these the words of the prophet: "All of you, like us, will grow old like a garment, and a moth will devour you." But we do not deny Scripture either, that our bodies are perishable and by nature fluid; perhaps he prophesies destruction to those he addressed as sinners. The Savior, however, did not speak about childbearing, but exhorting to the sharing of communion those who only amass the abundance of wealth and are unwilling to help those in need. Therefore he says: "Work not for the perishable food, but for that which endures to eternal life." Similarly, they also bring forward this saying: "The sons of that age neither marry nor are given in marriage." But if one examines this question about the resurrection of the dead and those who inquire, he will find that the Lord does not reject marriage, but heals the expectation of carnal desire concerning the resurrection. And "the sons of this age" is not by way of contrast to

of some other age that he spoke of sons, but equally those born in this age, being sons through generation, beget and are begotten, since no one enters this life without generation; but this generation, admitting of similar corruption, no longer awaits the one once separated from this life. There is one father of yours, the one in the heavens, but he is also father of all according to creation. Do not call anyone on earth your father, he says, that is, do not consider the one who sowed the fleshly seed of your substance as the cause, but rather as a co-cause of generation, or rather a servant of generation. Thus he wishes us, having turned back, to become like children again, recognizing the true father, being reborn through water, this being a different kind of sowing from that in creation. Yes, he says, the unmarried one cares for the Lord's affairs; but the married one, how will he please his wife? What then? Is it not possible to please God while also pleasing one's wife according to God? Is it not permitted for the married man, together with his spouse, to care for the Lord's affairs? But just as the unmarried woman cares for the Lord's affairs, so that she may be holy in both body and spirit, so also the married woman cares for her husband's affairs and the Lord's affairs in the Lord, so that she may be holy in both body and spirit; for both are holy in the Lord, one as a wife, the other as a virgin. For the shame and restraint of those prone to second marriage, the apostle speaks with a strained voice and immediately says: every sin is outside the body; but the one who fornicates sins against his own body.

If anyone dares to call marriage fornication, he again blasphemes by running back to the law and the Lord. For just as greed is called fornication because it is opposed to self-sufficiency, and just as idolatry, being a distribution from the one to many gods, is fornication, so fornication is a falling away from one marriage to many. For, as we have said, both fornication and adultery are taken in three ways by the apostle. Concerning these, the prophet says: "You were sold for your sins," and again: "You were defiled in a foreign land," considering the communion that is defiled, which is entwined with a foreign body and not that which is given according to union for the procreation of children. Hence also the apostle says: "I wish, then, that younger women marry, bear children, manage households, giving no occasion to the adversary for the sake of slander; for already some have turned aside after Satan." Indeed, he also thoroughly approves of the husband of one wife, whether he be a presbyter, a deacon, or a layman, using marriage blamelessly; and he will be saved through the procreation of children. Again, the Savior, calling the Jews a wicked and adulterous generation, teaches that they did not know the law as the law intends, but followed the tradition of the elders and the commandments of men, committing adultery against the law, not having received it as a husband and lord of their virginity. Perhaps he also knows them to be enslaved to strange desires, through which, being continually enslaved to sins, they were sold to foreigners, since among the Jews there were no designated common women, but even adultery was forbidden.

The one who said, "I married a woman and cannot come to the divine supper" was an example for the refutation of those who, because of pleasures, abandon the divine commandment, since by this reasoning neither the righteous before the parousia nor those who have married after the parousia, even if they are apostles, will be saved. And if they again bring forward that the prophet says, "I have grown old among all my enemies," let them understand "enemies" as the sins; and one particular sin is not marriage, but fornication, since let them also call birth a sin and the creator of birth. Such things also the founder of the Docetic sect, Julius Cassianus, attempts. At any rate, in his work On Continence or On Eunuchism he says verbatim: "And let no one say that, since we have such parts, the female being formed in this way and the male in that way, the one for receiving, the other for sowing, intercourse has been permitted by God. For if this arrangement were from God, toward whom we hasten, he would not have blessed the eunuchs, nor would the prophet have said that they are not a barren tree," taking the metaphor from the tree to the man who, by choice, castrates himself from such a thought. And further, contending for his godless opinion, he adds: "How could one not reasonably accuse the Savior, if he remolded us and freed us from error and from the communion of parts and appendages and pudenda?" He dogmatizes things similar to Tatian in this respect. And he was a student of the school of Valentinus. For this reason Cassianus says: "When Salome asked when the things about which she inquired would be known, the Lord said:

When you have trampled upon the garment of shame, and when the two become one and the male with the female is neither male nor female. First, then, we do not have this saying in the four gospels handed down to us, but in the Gospel according to the Egyptians. Next, he seems to me to be ignorant that by male he hints at anger, the impulse, and by female at desire, to which when they have been active, repentance and shame follow. Therefore, when one has indulged neither anger nor desire—which, indeed, having grown from habit and bad nourishment, overshadow and conceal reason—but having stripped off the mist from these, being ashamed through repentance, unites spirit and soul in obedience to the Word, then, as Paul also says, there is in you neither male nor female. For having withdrawn from this form by which male and female are distinguished, the soul is transferred into a unity, being neither. This noble man, in a rather Platonic manner, supposes that the soul, being divine, comes from above, having been feminized by desire, into generation and corruption. Immediately he forces Paul to say that generation consists of deception through these words: "But I fear that, as the serpent deceived Eve, your thoughts may be corrupted from the simplicity toward Christ.

But the Lord also came to those who had gone astray, as is generally agreed—"gone astray" not in the sense of a descent from above into this generation (for generation is created, and a creation of the Almighty, who would never lead a soul from better to worse things), but to those whose thoughts had gone astray, to us the Savior came, who were corrupted by disobedience to the commandments, delighting in pleasure, perhaps because the first-formed man anticipated our time and reached for the grace of marriage before the hour, and failed, since everyone who looks at a woman with desire has already committed adultery with her, not waiting for the time of the will. Therefore, the same Lord was then also judging the desire that anticipated marriage. So when the apostle says, "Put on the new man, who is being created according to God," he speaks to us, who were formed by the will of the Almighty as we were formed; and he speaks of "old" and "new" not with reference to generation and regeneration, but to life lived in disobedience and in obedience. And Cassian considers the "leather tunics" to be the bodies, concerning which we will later show that both he and those who dogmatize similarly are in error, when we take up the exegesis of the generation of man, following what needs to be said beforehand. He further says:

Those ruled by earthly kings both beget and are begotten, but our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also await our savior. We know well, then, that these things have been rightly said, since we ought to live as strangers and sojourners: marrying as if not marrying, acquiring as if not acquiring, begetting children as begetting mortals, as those who will leave behind possessions, as those who would live even without a wife if need be, using creation not with passion but with all gratitude and magnanimity. And again, when he says it is good for a man not to touch a woman, but on account of fornications let each man have his own wife, as if pursuing the matter further he says: so that Satan may not tempt you. For he does not say this to those who use marriage continently for the sole purpose of procreation on account of incontinence, but to those who desire to go even beyond procreation, so that the adversary, having breathed upon them excessively, might not fan their appetite into alien pleasures. Perhaps also, since he opposes those who live righteously out of envy and rivalry, wishing to draw them into his own order, he wants to provide them with occasions through arduous continence. Reasonably, then, he says: it is better to marry than to burn, so that the man may render the debt to the woman and the woman to the man, and they may not deprive each other of the assistance given for generation through divine economy. And whoever does not hate, they say, father or mother or wife or children, cannot be my disciple. He does not command us to hate the family;

Honor, it says, father and mother, that it may be well with you, but do not, it says, be carried away by irrational impulses, nor yet attach yourself to political customs; for a household is constituted from a family, and cities from households, just as Paul said that those occupied with marriage please the world. Again the Lord says: he who is married, let him not cast out, and he who has not married, let him not marry; he who has professed a purpose of continence, let him remain unmarried. To both, then, the same Lord through the prophet Isaiah gives the corresponding promises, speaking somewhat as follows: let not the eunuch say that I am a dry stick. Thus says the Lord to the eunuchs: if you keep my sabbaths and do all that I command, I will give you a place better than that of sons and daughters; for not only does continence justify, nor yet the sabbath of the eunuch, if he does not perform the commandments. And to those who have married he adds and says: my chosen ones will not labor in vain nor produce children for a curse, because their seed is blessed by the Lord. For to him who has produced children according to reason and has reared and educated them in the Lord, just as to him who has given birth through true catechesis, a certain reward is laid up, as also for the elect seed. But others understand childbearing as a curse and do not understand that the scripture speaks against those very persons. For those who are truly the Lord's elect do not dogmatize nor produce children for a curse, as the heresies do. Eunuch, then, is not said of one who has been forcibly deprived of his members, nor yet of the unmarried, but of one barren of truth.

This man was formerly dry wood, but having heeded the word and kept the sabbaths by abstaining from sins and having fulfilled the commandments, he will be more honorable than those educated by word alone without right citizenship. "Children," he says, "I am still with you a little while," the teacher. Therefore Paul also, writing to the Galatians, says: "My children, whom I again bring forth until Christ is formed in you." And again, writing to the Corinthians, he says: "For even if you have countless tutors in Christ, you do not have many fathers; for in Christ through the gospel I begot you." For this reason a eunuch will not enter the church of God—the one barren and unfruitful in both citizenship and word—but those who have castrated themselves from all sin for the sake of the kingdom of heaven are blessed; these are the ones fasting from the world. "Cursed is the day on which I was born, and let it not be prayed for," Jeremiah says, not simply calling birth accursed, but lamenting over the sins of the people and their disobedience; for he adds: "Why then was I born to see toils and labors, and did my days end in shame?" Immediately all who proclaim the truth, because of the disobedience of their hearers, were persecuted and endangered. "For why did the womb of my mother not become a tomb, so that I might not see the toil of Jacob and the labor of the race of Israel?" Ezra the prophet says. "No one is clean from defilement," Job says, "not even if his life is but one day." Let them tell us where the newborn committed fornication.

child? Or how does the curse of Adam fall upon one who has done nothing? It remains for them, it seems, to say consistently that birth is evil, not only of the body but also of the soul, on account of which the body exists. And when David says, "I was conceived in sins, and my mother rocked me in iniquities," he speaks prophetically, calling Eve mother, but Eve became mother of the living, and if he was conceived in sin, yet he himself is not in sin, nor is he sin itself. And if every one who turns from sin to faith turns from the habit of sin, as from a mother, to life, one of the twelve prophets will bear witness for me, saying, "If I give firstborn for impiety, fruit of my womb for sin of my soul." He does not denounce the one who said, "Increase and multiply," but the first impulses from birth, according to which we do not know God, he calls impiety. If someone says on this account that birth is evil, let him also say on that account that it is good, in that through it we come to know the truth: "Awake justly and do not sin"; for some have ignorance of God, namely those who sin, since our struggle is not against blood and flesh, but against spiritual powers, and the world-rulers of darkness are able to tempt, therefore there are pardons.

That is why Paul says, "I oppress and enslave this body of mine," because every athlete practices self-control in everything (meaning he exercises self-control in all things, not abstaining from everything, but using with self-control what he has judged proper). They do so to receive a perishable crown, but we to receive an imperishable one, conquering in the wrestling match, not being crowned without a struggle. Some already prefer the widow to the virgin for self-control, as one who has scorned the pleasure she has experienced. But if generation is evil, the blasphemers place the Lord, who partook of generation, in evil, and the virgin who gave birth in evil. Alas for the evils! They blaspheme the will of God and the mystery of creation, slandering generation. For these reasons Cassian holds to docetism, for these reasons also Marcion, and indeed Valentinus holds to the psychic body, because they say: man is likened to beasts when he comes to copulation; but when, having become frenzied, he truly wishes to enter another's bed, then such a one is truly bestialized. Horses became mad for females, each neighed for his neighbor's wife. And if the serpent, having taken the practice of intercourse from irrational animals, and having persuaded Adam to consent to intercourse with Eve, as if the first-formed did not use this by nature, as some claim, then creation is again blasphemed as having made men weaker than the nature of irrational animals, whom the first-formed followed against God.

If nature led them, like the irrational animals, to procreation, and they were moved more quickly than was fitting, being still young and led astray by deceit, then the judgment of God is just upon those who did not await his will; but holy is generation, through which the world has been constituted, through which substances exist, through which natures, through which angels, through which powers, through which souls, through which commandments, through which law, through which the gospel, through which the knowledge of God. And all flesh is grass, and all human glory is like the flower of grass; the grass withers, and the flower falls; but the word of the Lord abides, which anointed the soul and united it with the spirit. How, without the body, would the economy of the church according to us reach its end? Especially since the head of the church himself came in flesh, but invisible and formless, teaching us to look toward the invisible and incorporeal divine cause. For the tree of life, says the prophet, arises in good desire, teaching that the desires are refined and pure in the living Lord. But now they wish to claim that the marital intercourse of a man with a woman is called knowledge and is a sin; for this is signified by the eating of the tree of

of good and evil, through the meaning of "he knew," teaching the transgression of the commandment. If this is so, then the knowledge of truth is the eating of the tree of life. Therefore it is possible to partake of that tree through temperate marriage. We have already said that marriage can be used both well and badly, and this is the tree of knowledge, if we do not violate the law in marriage. What then? Did not the Savior heal the body of its passions just as he healed the soul? He would not have done so if the flesh were hostile to the soul, fortifying the enemy against it by restoring it to health. I say this, brothers: that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor can corruption inherit incorruption, for sin, being corruption, cannot have communion with incorruption, which is righteousness. "Are you so foolish?" he says. "Having begun with spirit, do you now end with flesh?" Therefore, concerning righteousness and the harmony of the saving ordinance, which is holy and firm, some have strained it, as we have shown, blasphemously interpreting continence with complete godlessness, when it is possible to choose celibacy according to the sound rule with piety, giving thanks for the grace given, not hating creation nor despising those who are married. For the world is created, and celibacy is also created, and both are matters for thanksgiving by those who are placed in their respective stations, if they know and understand the stations in which they have been placed.

But those who rebelled became insolent, becoming truly mares mad for the male and neighing at the wives of their neighbors, both pouring themselves out uncontrollably and persuading their neighbors to love pleasure, wretchedly understanding those scriptures, "Cast your lot among us, and let us all have a common purse, and let one wallet become ours." Because of these, the same prophet advises us, saying: "Do not go on the road with them; turn your foot from their paths; for nets are not unjustly spread for winged creatures; for they, partaking of blood, store up evils for themselves," that is, clinging to impurity and teaching their neighbors the same things, warriors, strikers with their tails, according to the prophet, which Greeks call "kérkoi." These would be those whom the prophecy hints at: prone to fall, incontinent, the warriors with their tails, children of darkness and wrath, murderers of themselves and of their neighbors. "Purge the old leaven, that you may be new dough," the apostle cries out to us. And again, distressed at such persons, he ordains not to mix with them: if anyone called a brother is a fornicator or a covetous man or an idolater or a reviler or a drunkard or a plunderer, not even to eat with such a one. "For I through law died to the law," he says, "that I might live for God. I have been crucified with Christ; I no longer live as I lived according to desires, but Christ lives in me through obedience to the commandments, purely and blessedly; so that then I lived in the flesh fleshly, but now I live in the flesh, I live in faith in the Son of God.