Stromata

You will know the ethereal nature and all the signs in the aether, and the invisible works of the pure, holy lamp of the sun, and whence they came to be; you will learn the works of the revolving moon and its nature, and you will know the heaven encompassing all, whence it grew and how Necessity, leading it, bound it to hold the limits of the stars. And Metrodorus, although an Epicurean, has spoken these things divinely: "Remember, Menestratus, that, being mortal and having received a limited life, you have ascended in soul up to eternity and the infinity of things, and have seen both what will be and what was before." When, with the blessed chorus according to Plato, we shall behold a blessed vision and spectacle, following with Zeus, we, and others with other gods, being initiated into the most blessed of rites, as is lawful to say, which we celebrate, ourselves whole and unaffected by the evils that awaited us in later time, and beholding whole and unshaken apparitions in pure light, pure and unmarked by that which we now call body, carrying it about, bound like an oyster. The Pythagoreans call the heaven the counter-earth, concerning which earth through Jeremiah: "I will set you among children, and I will give you chosen land, the inheritance of the almighty God, which those who inherit will rule the earth." And countless things upon countless things upon countless things flow to me to set forth, but for the sake of proportion the discourse must now cease, lest we suffer the same as the tragedian Agathon: "Regarding the bywork as work, and working out the work as bywork.

Since it has been clearly demonstrated, as I think, how the term "thieves" is to be understood as spoken by the Lord concerning the Greeks, I willingly pass over the doctrines of the philosophers. For even if we were to go through their expressions, we would not reach the end, collecting such a multitude of commentaries, showing that all the wisdom among the Greeks is derived from barbarian philosophy. We will take up this inquiry again no less, as necessary, whenever we review the opinions concerning principles that are current among the Greeks. Moreover, from what has been said, it is quietly suggested to us to consider in what manner one should approach Greek books, swimming through their waves as it were. Blessed, it seems, according to Empedocles, is he who has acquired a wealth of divine thoughts, but wretched is he to whom obscure opinion about the gods is a concern. He divinely defined knowledge and ignorance as the boundaries of happiness and unhappiness. For it is necessary that philosophers be well versed in many things, according to Heraclitus, and indeed it is necessary to wander much in seeking the good. Now it is already clear to us from what has been said before that the

Beneficence occurs, and from the beginning without beginning natural justice is equally, simply, in accordance with the worth of each kind, having come to be, never having begun; for God did not take a beginning of being Lord and good, being always what he is, nor will he ever cease doing good, even if he leads each thing to its end. Each of us partakes of beneficence according to what he wills, since the difference of choice, worth having become of the soul, both choice and training have produced. Here, then, let the fifth Stromateus of our Gnostic commentaries according to true philosophy be concluded. Clement's Stromateis, Book Six. The sixth and at the same time the seventh Stromateus of our Gnostic commentaries according to true philosophy, having delineated as much as possible the ethical discourse being concluded in these, and having set forth who the Gnostic would be in respect to life, proceeds to show to the philosophers that this one is by no means godless, as they have supposed, but alone truly god-fearing, setting forth summarily the manner of worship of the Gnostic, as many things as it is safe to inscribe in a reminder for writing; for the Lord commanded to work the food that remains for eternity, and somewhere the prophet says: Blessed is the one who sows on every water, whose calf and donkey tread, the people gathered from law and from nations into the one faith. But the weak one eats vegetables, according to the noble apostle.

Our Pedagogue, having anticipated us in three books, presented the education and nurture from childhood, that is, from catechesis, a polity growing together with faith and preparing the soul for virtue, for the reception of gnostic knowledge, for those enrolled as men. Clearly, then, when the Greeks learn from what will be said by us through these writings how impiously they persecute the God-beloved and themselves commit impiety, then, as the notes proceed according to the character of the Stromata, we must resolve the difficulties raised by both Greeks and barbarians concerning the Lord's advent. Now in the meadow the flowers bloom in variety, and in the orchard the planting of fruit trees is not separated by species from those of other kinds (just as some have compiled collections called Meadows, Helicons, Honeycombs, and Peploi, culling diverse learned materials). But for things that have come to memory as they chanced, neither purified in order nor in expression, but deliberately scattered and mixed, our outline of the Stromata is variegated like a meadow. And indeed, being thus, they would be for me memoranda, live coals, and for one suited to knowledge, if he should happen upon these, the search will be for benefit and advantage with toil; for it is right to consider not only the labor of food, but much more that of knowledge, for those who are sent along the truly narrow and constrained way of the Lord to eternal and blessed salvation.

Our knowledge and our spiritual paradise is our Saviour himself, into whom we are planted, being transferred and grafted into the good land from the old life; the change of planting contributes to good fruitfulness. Therefore the Lord is light and true knowledge, into whom we have been transferred. Knowledge is also spoken of in another way as twofold: one common, the understanding and perception alike in all men according to the recognition of each of the subjects manifestly common to all, of which not only the rational faculties but perhaps also the irrational will partake, which I would never call knowledge, that which is naturally apprehended even through the senses; the other, knowledge specially named, is characterized by judgment and reason, according to which only the rational faculties become knowledges, those which apply purely to intelligible things by the bare activity of the soul. "The good man," says David, "is the one who pities those perishing in error and lends from the impartation of the word of truth, not at random, but will manage his words with judgment, with deep reasoning; this one scattered, gave to the poor." But before proceeding to the subject at hand, in the form of a preface, we must add to the end of the fifth Stromateus what is lacking. For since we have shown that the symbolic form is ancient, and that it was used not only by our prophets but also by most of the ancient Greeks and not a few of the other barbarians among the nations, it was also necessary to go through the mysteries of the initiations.

I defer these matters for clarification, when we come to examine and refute what has been said by the Greeks concerning first principles; for we shall show that even the mysteries adhere to this theory. And having set forth the illumination of Greek thought from the truth given to us through the Scriptures, in accordance with which meaning we understand that the theft of truth penetrated to them—if it is not offensive to say so—we have demonstrated it. Come, let us present the Greeks themselves as witnesses of the theft against themselves; for those who so openly steal from one another confirm that they are thieves, yet they are shown to appropriate even unwittingly the truth from us and secretly transmit it to their own kind. For those who do not even spare their own, will scarcely refrain from ours. And I shall pass over in silence the doctrines concerning philosophy, since those who distribute the heresies themselves confess in writing, lest they be convicted of ingratitude, that they received the most important doctrines from Socrates. But using a few testimonies from men who are familiar and esteemed among the Greeks, and having refuted their thievish character, I shall proceed to the next matters, making indiscriminate use of chronology. So when Orpheus wrote: "There is no more shameless and chilling thing than woman," Homer says outright: "There is no more dreadful and shameless thing than woman." And when Musaeus wrote: "Skill is always far better than strength," Homer says: "No woodcutter surpasses by might." Again, when Musaeus wrote: "Just as the life-giving earth puts forth leaves—some on the ash trees wither, others grow—so too does the race and tribe of men revolve.

Homer rewrites: "Some leaves the wind scatters on the ground, but others the flourishing wood puts forth, when the season of spring comes; so it is with the generation of men: one grows, another ceases." Again, when Homer said: "It is not holy to boast over slain men," Archilochus and Cratinus write, the former: "For it is not good to mock dead men," and Cratinus in his *Lacones*: "This is fearful for men, to boast greatly over slain warriors." And again Archilochus, transferring that Homeric line: "I was foolish, nor do I deny it," instead of "many," writes something like this: "I erred, and some other such folly overtook me." Just as, of course, that verse: "Common is Enyalios, and he who kills is killed," he himself adapting it, brought it out something like this: "I will do; for truly Ares is common to men." And again, translating that: "The victory of men lies in the trial of the gods," he is evident through this iambic line: "And encourage the young, for the limits of victory are in the gods." Again, when Homer said: "Unwashen-footed, sleeping on the ground," Euripides in his *Erechtheus* writes: "They sleep on an unstrewn floor, and do not moisten their feet in springs." And Archilochus having similarly said: "But one man's heart is warmed by one thing, another's by another," from the Homeric: "For one man takes pleasure in one work, another in another," Euripides in his *Oeneus* says: "But one man delights more in one way, another in another." I have heard Aeschylus saying: "The man who is truly fortunate must stay at home—and the man who fares badly must also stay at home," and Euripides shouting similar things on the stage: "Blessed is he who

The one who is fortunate stays at home, but also Menander, in some such way, in comedy: "One must stay at home and remain free, or else the one who is truly blessed no longer exists." Again, Theognis saying: "There is no friend and faithful companion for a fugitive," Euripides has written: "Every friend flees from a fleeing poor man." And Epicharmus saying: "O daughter, alas for your fortune; you are living with a young man, though you are older," and adding: "For he indeed takes another young woman, and she seeks another man," Euripides writes: "It is an evil to yoke a woman to a young man; for he desires to take the bed of another, and she, being in need of this, devises evils." Further, Euripides in the *Medea* saying: "The gifts of a bad man bring no benefit," Sophocles in the *Ajax the Whip-Bearer* says that iambic line: "The gifts of enemies are gifts not to be received and not beneficial." And Solon having composed: "For satiety gives birth to insolence, when great prosperity follows," Theognis writes directly: "Satiety gives birth to insolence, when evil prosperity follows." Whence also Thucydides in his *Histories* says: "Most people, to whom unexpected good fortune comes especially and in the shortest time, are accustomed to turn to insolence." And Philistus similarly imitates the same things, speaking thus: "Most things that happen to people according to reason and with good fortune are safer than those contrary to expectation; and misfortune... for those who act contrary to expectation and unexpectedly well are especially accustomed to turn to insolence." Again, Euripides having composed: "For from a father and mother who labor at hard ways of life, the offspring are better," Critias writes: "I begin from the birth of a man.

How could one become best in body and strongest? If the one who begets exercises and eats vigorously, and endures hardship in body, and the mother of the child to be born is strong in body and exercises. Again, when Homer said of the shield wrought by Hephaestus: "In it he wrought earth, in it heaven, in it sea; in it he placed the great strength of the river Ocean," Pherecydes of Syros says: "Zas makes a great and beautiful robe, and on it he embroiders Earth and Ogenus and the dwelling places of Ogenus." And when Homer said: "Shame, which greatly harms and helps men," Euripides in the Erechtheus writes: "I myself am at a loss to judge about shame; for it is both necessary and also a great evil." You could take in parallel the passages of theft from those who flourished and competed with each other, such as these: from Euripides' Orestes: "O dear charm of sleep, ally against sickness," and from Sophocles' Eriphyle: "Go away; you disturb sleep, the healer of sickness"; and from Euripides' Antigone: "The name 'bastard' is blameworthy, but nature is equal," and from Sophocles' Aleadae: "Everything good has the same nature"; again from Euripides' Temenus: "For the one who labors, even a god helps," and from Sophocles' Minos: "Fortune is no ally to those who do nothing"; and indeed from Euripides' Alexander: "Time will show you; by this evidence, learning, I will know you either as good or bad," and from Sophocles' Hipponous: "Hide nothing from this, since time, which sees all and hears all, unfolds all." But let us also run through those similarly. For when Eumelus composed:

Mnemosyne and Olympian Zeus have nine maidens, Solon begins his elegy thus: "Mnemosyne and Olympian Zeus, glorious children." Again, Euripides paraphrasing the Homeric line: "Who and whence are you among men? What is your city and your parents?" He uses these iambic lines in the Aegeus: "What land shall we say you have left, to be a stranger in this city? What is the boundary of your fatherland? Who is your begetter? Of what father are you proclaimed?" What then? When Theognis said: "Wine drunk in large quantity is bad; but if one uses it with knowledge, it is not bad but good," Panyassis writes: "Wine is the best gift from the gods to mortals, drunk in measure, but immoderate it is worse." And again, when Hesiod says: "But I will give you an evil in return for fire, in which all delight," Euripides composes: "Instead of fire, another fire, greater and more difficult to fight, sprang forth: women." In addition, when Homer says: "The belly cannot be filled, though it is ravenous, accursed, which gives many evils to men," Euripides composes: "Need conquers me, the accursed belly, from which all evils arise." Further, when the comic poet Callias writes: "They say one must go mad along with the mad, all alike," Menander in the Sold Woman parallels it, saying: "Prudence is not fitting everywhere when present; and one must sometimes join in madness." And when Antimachus of Teos said: "For from gifts many evils come to men," Hagias composed: "For gifts have deceived the mind of men and also their deeds." When Hesiod said: "A man takes nothing better than a good woman; but of a bad woman there is nothing worse," Simonides said:

but a man takes nothing better than a good woman, nor worse than a bad one. Again, when Epicharmus said, "Whether you will live a long time or a short time, think in this way," Euripides writes, "Why, when we stand on an uncertain fortune, do we not live as pleasantly as possible without grieving?" Similarly, when the comic poet Diphilus said, "The life of men is changeable," Posidippus says, "No one has gone through life without pain, being human, nor has anyone remained unfortunate to the end." And Plato writes in accordance with this, speaking of man as a changeable animal. Again, when Euripides said, "O much-toiling life for mortals, how you lie treacherous in everything, and you increase some things and diminish others, and there is no fixed limit to which mortals must attain, except when the chilling end sent from Zeus by death comes," Diphilus writes, "There is no life that does not possess evils, pains, cares, robberies, tortures, diseases. Death, like a physician appearing, has released those who have them, giving them rest in sleep." Again, when Euripides said, "Many are the forms of the divine, and many things the gods accomplish unexpectedly," the tragic poet Theodectes similarly writes, "That the fortunes of mortals are not secure." And when Bacchylides said, "To few mortals has the deity given to reach, acting in due season, a gray-haired old age before encountering misfortune," the comic poet Moschion writes, "That man is most blessed who throughout life has practiced a smooth life." And you would find that when Theognis said, "A young wife is not useful for an old man; for she does not obey the helm like a boat," the comic poet Aristophanes writes, "It is shameful for a young woman to have an elderly husband.

When Anacreon wrote, "I sing of delicate Eros, blooming with many-flowered fillets; he is master even of the gods, and he subdues mortals," Euripides writes, "Eros attacks not only men, nor yet women, but also disturbs the souls of the gods above and comes over the sea." But in order that our argument may not proceed further, as we are ambitious to show the facility of the Greeks for theft in both words and doctrines, let us bring forward Hippias the sophist of Elis, who comes to the same argument as I have concerning the matter before me, speaking somewhat as follows: "Perhaps some of these things have been said by Orpheus, some by Musaeus, briefly one here and another there, some by Hesiod, some by Homer, some by the other poets, and some in writings, some by Greeks, some by barbarians; but I, combining the greatest and most kindred of all these, will make this new and manifold discourse." And so that we may not overlook philosophy and history, nor even rhetoric, as being without a share of the same refutation, it is reasonable to set forth a few of these as well. For when Alcmaeon of Croton said, "It is easier to guard against an enemy than a friend," Sophocles wrote in his Antigone, "What greater wound could there be than a bad friend?

Xenophon said, "One could not harm enemies in any other way than by seeming to be a friend." And indeed, in Euripides' *Telephus*, when he says, "Being Greeks, shall we be slaves to barbarians?" Thrasymachus in his speech *On Behalf of the Larissaeans* says, "Shall we, being Greeks, be slaves to the barbarian Archelaus?" And when Orpheus composed, "There is water for the soul, and death for waters is an exchange; from water comes earth, and from earth again water; from this the soul, changing entirely into aether," Heraclitus, drawing from these, writes his accounts somewhat as follows: "For souls, death is to become water; for water, death is to become earth; from earth water comes to be, and from water, soul." Indeed, when Athamas the Pythagorean said, "The beginning and roots of all things are four: fire, water, air, earth; for from these come the generations of things that come to be," the Acragantine Empedocles composed, "Hear first the four roots of all things: fire and water and earth and the vast height of aether; for from these come all that was, all that will be, and all that are." And when Plato says, "For this reason also the gods, being knowledgeable about human affairs, those whom they hold most dear they more quickly release from life," Menander composed, "Whom the gods love dies young." And when Euripides in his *Oenomaus* writes, "We infer the unseen from what is present," and in his *Phoenix*, "The unseen is reasonably captured by evidence," Hyperides says, "What is unseen, those who teach must seek by means of evidence and probabilities." And when Isocrates says, "One must infer the future from what has happened before," Andocides does not hesitate to say,

For it is necessary to use as evidence things that have happened before concerning things that will be. Furthermore, when Theognis wrote: "Of counterfeit gold and silver there is a grievous harm, Cyrnus, and it is easy for a wise man to detect; but if the mind of a friend in a man's breast is hidden, being false, and he has a treacherous heart in his thoughts, this the gods have made the most counterfeit thing for mortals, and to know this is the most painful of all things," Euripides writes: "O Zeus, why for gold, when it is counterfeit, have you given men clear signs, but for men, by whom one must discern the bad man, has no character been implanted in the body?" And Hyperides himself says: "No character is placed on the face of the mind for men." Again, when Stasinus wrote: "Foolish is he who, killing the father, leaves the children behind," Xenophon says: "For it seems to me now that I have acted similarly, as if someone, having killed the father, should spare his children." And when Sophocles in *Antigone* wrote: "Since mother and father are in Hades, no brother could ever be born," Herodotus says: "Mother and father no longer being, I will have no other brother." In addition to these, when Theopompus wrote: "Old men are twice children, in the true sense of the word," and before him Sophocles in *Peleus*: "I alone, a housekeeper, tend Peleus the son of Aeacus in his old age and educate him again; for again an old man becomes a child," the orator Antiphon says: "For the care of the aged resembles the care of children," and also the philosopher Plato: "So, as it seems, the old man would become a child twice." Indeed, when Thucydides said: "At Marathon alone they took the foremost risk," Demosthenes said: "By those who took the foremost risk at Marathon.

Nor will I pass over these: Cratinus in *Pytine* said, "You perhaps know the preparation," and Andocides the orator says, "You, O men of the jury, will almost all know the preparation and the eagerness of my enemies." Similarly Nicias in his speech against Lysias concerning a deposit says, "You see, O men of the jury, the preparation and the eagerness of the opponents," and after him Aeschines says, "You see, O men of Athens, the preparation and the array." Again, when Demosthenes said, "How great, O men of Athens, the zeal concerning this contest and the summons has been, I think almost all of you have perceived," Philinus similarly says, "How great, O men of the jury, the zeal and array concerning this contest have been, I consider not one of you ignorant." Isocrates again having said, "Of the money, but not being a relative of that man," Lysias in the *Orphanicus* says, "And he has become manifest as not being a relative of the bodies, but of the money." Since Homer composed, "O wretch, if indeed fleeing this war we were always going to be ageless and immortal, neither would I myself fight among the foremost nor would I send you into battle that brings glory to men; but now, since countless fates of death stand over us, which it is not possible for a mortal to flee or escape, let us go, whether we will bestow glory on someone or someone on us," Theopompus writes: "For if it were possible, having escaped the present danger, to pass the rest of our time without fear, it would not be surprising to love life; but now so many fates have grown around life that death in battle seems preferable.

What then? Did not Chilon the sophist utter the saying "Give a pledge, and ruin is at hand," and Epicharmus expressed the same opinion under a different name, saying: "A pledge is the daughter of ruin, and a pledge is disaster." And again, when the physician Hippocrates writes "One must therefore consider both the season and the region and the age and the diseases," Euripides in some hexameter speech says: "He who knows how to heal well must, with regard to the regimens of those dwelling in a city, having seen the land, consider the diseases." Again, when Homer composed: "I say that no man has escaped fate," Archinus says: "All men are owed death, either sooner or later," and Demosthenes: "For all men the end of life is death, even if one shuts himself up in a small room and guards himself." And when Herodotus in his account of Glaucus the Spartan said that the Pythia declared that to test the god and to act are equal, Aristophanes said: "For thinking is equal to doing," and before him Parmenides of Elea: "For the same thing is both thinking and being." Or is it not that when Plato said "We would perhaps not speak absurdly in saying that the beginning of love is sight, hope diminishes the passion, memory nourishes it, and habit preserves it," the comic poet Philemon writes: "All see first, then they marvel, then they observe, then they fall into hope; thus love arises from these things." And again, when Demosthenes said "For death is owed to all of us," and so forth, Phanocles in *Erotes* or *Kaloi* writes: "But the thread of the Fates is unbroken, and it is never possible to escape, for all of us who live upon the earth.

You would also find, when Plato said, "For every plant, the first shoot, if it has started well toward virtue, is most capable of imposing a fitting end upon its own nature," the historian Ephorus writing: "But none of the wild plants is naturally tamed when they have passed their younger age." And that saying of Empedocles, "For once I was a boy and a girl, a bush and a bird and a voiceless fish in the sea," Euripides in his *Chrysippus* rewrites: "Nothing that comes into being dies, but being separated one from another, it shows a different form." And when Plato in the *Republic* said that women should be common, Euripides in his *Protesilaus* writes: "For the bed of women ought to be common." But when Euripides writes, "Since what suffices is enough for the temperate," Epicurus says outright: "Self-sufficiency is the wealthiest of all things." And again, when Aristophanes writes, "You will have a secure life if you are just, and without turmoil and fear you will live well," Epicurus says: "The greatest fruit of justice is tranquility." So then, let these be sufficient as a clear example for one who can discern, of the kinds of Greek theft in thought. And now, not only have they been caught stealing and paraphrasing thoughts and expressions, as has been shown, but also the plagiarisms

...the men who have whole books will be refuted; for they have taken the works of others in their entirety and published them as their own, just as Eugammon of Cyrene took the whole book about the Thesprotians from Musaeus, and Peisander of Camirus took the Heracleia from Peisinus of Lindus, and Panyassis of Halicarnassus took the Sack of Oechalia from Creophylus of Samos. You would also find that the great poet Homer transferred those verses—"What a flourishing shoot of olive a man tends"—and the following, word for word, from Orpheus' poem on the disappearance of Dionysus. And in the Theogony, Orpheus composed concerning Cronus: "He lay, bending his thick neck, and sleep, the tamer of all, seized him," and Homer transferred these lines to the Cyclops. And Hesiod, concerning Melampus, writes: "It is sweet to learn what the immortals devised for mortals, a clear sign of both the wretched and the noble," and the following, taking them word for word from the poet Musaeus. And the comic poet Aristophanes, in the first Thesmophoriazusae, transferred verses from Cratinus' Men on Fire. And the comic poet Plato and Aristophanes, in the Daedalus, steal from each other. Moreover, the Coccalus, written by Araros the son of Aristophanes, was altered by the comic poet Philemon and produced as his own in the Hypobolimaeus. And the historians Eumelus and Acusilaus altered the works of Hesiod into prose and published them as their own.

Melisagoras was stolen from by Gorgias of Leontini and Eudemus of Naxus, the historians, and in addition to these, Bion of Proconnesus, who also rewrote the works of the ancient Cadmus in summary form; also Amphilochus, Aristocles, Leandrius, Anaximenes, Hellanicus, Hecataeus, Androtion, and Philochorus; and Dieuchidas of Megara altered the beginning of his discourse from Hellanicus's Deucalionia. I say nothing of Heraclitus of Ephesus, who took most of his material from Orpheus. And from Pythagoras, Plato stole the doctrine that the soul is immortal, which Pythagoras in turn took from the Egyptians. Many of Plato's followers have composed writings in which they demonstrate that the Stoics, as we said at the beginning, and Aristotle took most and the most important of their doctrines from Plato. But also Epicurus fabricated his leading doctrines from Democritus. So much for that; life will fail me if I should choose to go through each case, refuting the self-loving theft of the Greeks, and how they appropriate the discovery of the finest doctrines among them, which they have taken from us. Already they are refuted not only for surreptitiously taking doctrines from the barbarians, but also for imitating the things among us that are wrought from above by divine power through those who have lived holy lives for our conversion, and for embellishing them with Greek mythology as marvels. And indeed we shall ask them whether these things they record are true or false. But they would not say they are false (for they would not willingly pass the severest folly upon themselves, that of writing falsehoods).

It would necessarily be admitted to be true. And how can the things exhibited in a miraculous manner through Moses and the other prophets still appear incredible to them? For the almighty God, caring for all men, turns some by commandments, others by threats, some by miraculous signs, and others by gentle promises, towards salvation. But the Greeks, when a drought was long destroying Greece and a failure of crops was pressing, say that the survivors, coming as suppliants to Delphi, asked the Pythia how they might be delivered from the evil. She gave them one remedy for the calamity: if they would use the prayer of Aeacus. So Aeacus, persuaded by them, went up to the Greek mountain, stretched his pure hands to heaven, called God the common father, and prayed that he might take pity on Greece, which was worn out. And as he prayed, a tremendous thunder pealed, and all the surrounding air was filled with clouds, and violent and continuous rains, bursting forth, filled the whole land; from this, abundant and rich fertility was produced, cultivated by the prayers of Aeacus. And it is said that Samuel called upon the Lord, and the Lord gave thunder and rain on the day of harvest. Do you see that the one who rains upon the just and the unjust through the subordinate powers is one God? And our entire scripture is full of instances where, according to the prayers of the righteous, God hears and fulfills each of the requests. Again, the Greeks relate that when the Etesian winds once failed, Aristaeus in Ceos sacrificed to Zeus Icmaius.

For there was great destruction, as everything was being consumed by fire, and even the winds that usually cool the crops were not blowing; but he easily recalled them. And the Delphians, when Xerxes marched against Greece, after the Pythia proclaimed, "O Delphians, pray to the winds and it will be better," made an altar and sacrifice to the winds, and had them as allies; for blowing strongly around the Sepiad promontory, they shattered the entire equipment of the Persian fleet. And Empedocles of Acragas was called "Wind-Stopper." It is said, then, that from Mount Acragas a wind once blew heavily and pestilentially upon the inhabitants, and also caused barrenness in their women, and that he stopped the wind; wherefore he himself writes in his verses: "You will stop the might of the tireless winds, which, rushing upon the earth, destroy the fields for mortals;" and again, "Whenever you wish, you will cause the winds to return." And he claimed that those who had consulted oracles followed him, and those who were afflicted with grievous diseases. At any rate, they have believed from our scriptures that the righteous perform cures and signs and wonders outright. For even if certain powers move the winds and distribute the rains, let them hear the Psalmist: "How beloved are your tabernacles, Lord of the powers." This is the Lord of the powers and the principalities and the authorities, concerning whom Moses says, that we may understand him: "And you shall circumcise your hardness of heart, and you shall no longer harden your neck.

For this Lord God of yours is Lord of lords and God of gods, the great and mighty God, and so forth. And Isaiah says, "Raise your eyes to the height and see: who showed forth all these things?" Now some say that plagues, hailstorms, whirlwinds, and the like occur not only from the disorder of matter, but also from the wrath of certain demons or even of angels that are not good. For instance, they say that the Magi at Cleonae, watching the clouds that were about to hail, avert the threat of wrath by songs and sacrifices. And indeed, if ever a shortage of an animal occurs, they are content to draw blood from their own finger as a sacrifice. Also, the Mantinean Diotima, by sacrifices of the Athenians before the plague, procured a ten-year postponement of the disease, just as the sacrifices of Epimenides the Cretan postponed the Persian war for the same Athenians for an equal time. And they think it makes no difference whether we call these souls gods or angels. For instance, those experienced in the doctrine, in many temples and nearly all, have installed the tombs of the departed, calling these souls demons, and teaching that they are to be worshipped by men, as having received authority through purity of life to roam the earthly region in the service of divine providence; for they knew that some souls are naturally bound to the body. But concerning these matters we will discuss in due course in the discourse on angels as the writing proceeds.

Democritus, from his observation of celestial phenomena, was called Sophia because he often made predictions. When his brother Damasus received him kindly, Democritus, having inferred from certain stars that there would be a great rain, predicted it. Those who believed him gathered in their crops (for it was still harvest time and they were on the threshing floors), but the others lost everything when an unexpected and heavy rain burst forth. How then will the Greeks still disbelieve in the divine manifestation on Mount Sinai, when fire blazed, consuming none of the plants on the mountain, and the sound of trumpets was borne without any instruments being blown? For that so-called descent on the mountain is a manifestation of divine power extending throughout the whole world and proclaiming the inaccessible light. Such is the allegory according to scripture. Nevertheless, the fire was seen, as Aristobulus says, by the whole multitude of no less than a hundred myriads, apart from those under age, who were assembled in a circle around the mountain, the circuit around the mountain being no less than five days. In every place of the vision, to all of them around, as if they were encamped, the blazing fire was visible, so that the descent was not local; for God is everywhere. And those who have compiled histories concerning the British island speak of a certain cave lying under a mountain, with a chasm on the summit; when the wind falls into the cave and dashes against the hollows of the excavation, a sound is heard like cymbals struck rhythmically.

Often, too, when leaves are stirred among the woods by a sudden gust of wind, a sound resembling the song of birds arises. But those who have compiled the Persian histories record that in the upper regions of the Magian country there lie three mountains in a row on a long plain; and that those who traverse the place, upon reaching the first mountain, hear a confused sound, as of many thousands shouting, as in a battle array; when they come to the middle, they perceive a louder and clearer tumult; and at the end they hear paeans, as of victors. The cause, I think, of all this sound is both the smoothness of the places and their cavernous nature. At any rate, the wind that enters, being repelled and returning to the same place, sounds more violently. So much for this. But to God the Almighty, with nothing underlying, it is possible to generate voice and phantasy in hearing, displaying his own majesty beyond the usual natural sequence, for the conversion of the soul not yet believing and for the reception of the commandment given. And when there is a cloud and a high mountain, how is it not possible for a varied sound to be heard, when wind is moved through the efficient cause? Therefore the prophet says: "You heard the voice of words, but you saw no likeness." You see how the Lord's voice is formless speech; for the power of the word, the luminous utterance of the Lord, truth come from heaven above to the assembly of the church, acted through the luminous proximate ministry.

We would also find another testimony to confirm that the best of the philosophers appropriated the most beautiful of our doctrines and boasted of them as their own, and that they also culled some things from the other barbarians who contributed to each heresy, especially from the Egyptians, among other things the doctrine concerning the transmigration of the soul. For the Egyptians pursue a certain philosophy of their own; this is particularly manifested by their sacred worship. First, the singer proceeds, bearing one of the symbols of music. They say that he must take up two books from those of Hermes, one of which contains hymns to the gods, and the second a reckoning of the royal life. After the singer, the horoscope proceeds, holding in his hand a timepiece and a palm branch, symbols of astrology. He must always have on his lips the four astrological books of Hermes, of which one is concerning the arrangement of the fixed stars, another concerning the order of the sun and moon and the five planets, another concerning the conjunctions and illuminations.

of the sun and moon, and the remainder concerning the risings. Next the sacred scribe proceeds, having wings on his head, a book in his hands, and a basket in which are the writing ink and the reed with which they write. This one knows the so-called hieroglyphics concerning cosmography and geography, the order of the sun and moon, and the five planets, the chorography of Egypt and the delineation of the Nile, the description and construction of the temples and the lands dedicated to them, and the measures and things useful in the temples. Then the stolist follows the aforementioned, holding the cubit of justice and the libation vessel. This one knows all the educational matters and the so-called calf-sealing rites; there are ten things pertaining to the honor of their gods and encompassing Egyptian piety, such as concerning sacrifices, first-fruits, hymns, prayers, processions, festivals, and things similar to these. After all, the prophet comes forth, carrying the water vessel conspicuously in his arms, followed by those bearing the distribution of the loaves. This one, as overseer of the temple, thoroughly learns the ten so-called priestly books (which contain laws, gods, and the entire education of the priests); for the prophet among the Egyptians is also the superintendent of the distribution of revenues. Thus there are forty-two books altogether necessary for Hermes.

Of these, the thirty-six that encompass the entire philosophy of the Egyptians are learned by those previously mentioned, while the remaining six, which are medical, concerning the construction of the body, diseases, instruments, drugs, eye ailments, and finally women's matters, are learned by the pastophoroi. Such, in brief, are the matters of the Egyptians. The philosophy of the Indians is also renowned. Alexander the Macedonian, having taken ten Indian gymnosophists who seemed to be the best and most concise, set problems before them, threatening to kill anyone who did not answer aptly, and ordered the eldest of them to judge. The first, when examined whether he thought the living or the dead were more numerous, said the living, for the dead do not exist. The second, whether the earth or the sea nourishes larger beasts, said the earth, for the sea is a part of it. The third, which animal is the most cunning, said man, who has not yet been known. The fourth, when asked by what reasoning they had deposed Sabbas, their ruler, answered: desiring that he live well or die well. The fifth, when asked whether he thought day or night came first, said: night is one day older; for difficult questions necessarily have difficult answers. The sixth, when asked how one might be most loved, said: if, being most powerful, he is not fearsome. The seventh, when asked how one might become a god from a man, said: if he does what is not possible for a man to do.

The eighth, when asked what is stronger, life or death, said, “Life, bearing so many evils.” The ninth, when examined, up to what point it is well for a man to live, said, “Until he no longer thinks that dying is better than living.” And when Alexander ordered the tenth also to say something (for he was a judge), he said, “One spoke worse than another.” And when Alexander said, “Then will you not be the first to die for judging such things?” he replied, “And how, O king, would you be truthful, having said that you would first kill the one who answered worst?” And that the Greeks have been thieves of every scripture has, I think, been sufficiently demonstrated through many proofs. But that the most esteemed among the Greeks do not know God by full knowledge, but by a periphrasis of the Greeks, Peter says in the *Kerygma*: “Know then that there is one God, who made the beginning of all things, and has authority over the end; and: the invisible, who sees all things, the uncontained, who contains all things, the needless, of whom all things have need and through whom they exist, the incomprehensible, everlasting, imperishable, uncreated, who made all things by the power of his word, that is, by the gnostic scripture of the Son.” Then he adds: “Worship this God not as the Greeks do”—as is clear, since the same God is worshipped by us and by the esteemed among the Greeks, but not with full knowledge, because they have not learned the tradition through the Son. “Do not,” he says, “worship”—he did not say “the God whom the Greeks worship,” but “not as the Greeks do,” changing the manner of worship of God, not proclaiming another. What then is “not as the Greeks do”? Peter himself will clarify, adding:

that, carried by ignorance and not knowing God as we do according to perfect knowledge, they have formed into shape the things over which he gave them authority for use—wood and stones, bronze and iron, gold and silver—and, forgetting their matter and use, they have set up the slaves of existence and worship them; and the things which God gave them for food—the birds of the air, the swimmers of the sea, the creeping things of the earth, and the wild beasts together with the four-footed domestic animals of the field, as well as weasels and mice, cats and dogs and apes—they sacrifice their own foods as offerings to edible things, and bringing dead things to dead things as to gods, they are ungrateful to God, through these things denying that he exists. And that, since we and the Greeks have come to know the same God, it is borne, but not in the same way, he will again adduce something like this: "Do not worship even according to the Jews; for they too, thinking they alone know God, do not understand, serving angels and archangels, the month and the moon. And if the moon does not appear, they do not keep the so-called first Sabbath, nor do they keep the new moon, nor the unleavened bread, nor the feast, nor the great day." Then he adds the crowning point of the inquiry: "So that you also, learning piously and justly what we deliver to you, keep yourselves, worshiping God in a new way through Christ; for we have found in the scriptures, as the Lord says: 'Behold, I am establishing for you a new covenant, not as I established for your fathers on Mount Horeb.'" He established a new covenant for us; for the things of the Greeks and Jews are old, but we who worship him in a new way as a third race are Christians.

clearly, I think, he indicated that the one and only God is known by the Greeks in a national manner, by the Jews in a Jewish manner, and by us in a new and spiritual manner. And further, that the same God is the provider of both testaments, and also the giver of Greek philosophy to the Greeks, through which the Almighty is glorified among the Greeks, he demonstrated. This is also evident from the following. For from Greek education, as well as from the legal, those who accept the faith are gathered into the one race of the saved people, the three peoples not being divided by time, so that one might suppose three natures, but being educated by different covenants of the one Lord, ** by the word of the one Lord; since, just as God wished to save the Jews by giving prophets, so also he raised up for the most excellent of the Greeks prophets in their own language, as they were able to receive the benefaction from God, he separated them from the common people, as the apostle Paul will show in the Kerygma of Peter, saying: Take also the Greek books. Recognize the Sibyl, as she reveals one God and the things that will come to pass, and take Hystaspes and read, and you will find the son of God written much more clearly and plainly, and how many kings will array themselves against Christ, hating him and those who bear his name and his faithful, and his endurance and his coming. Then in one word he asks us: And the whole world and everything in the world, whose is it? Is it not God's? Therefore Peter says that the Lord said to the apostles:

If, then, someone from Israel, having repented, wishes to believe in God through my name, his sins will be forgiven. After twelve years, go out into the world. Let no one say, "We did not hear." But just as the proclamation comes at the right time now, so law and prophets were given at the right time to barbarians, and philosophy to Greeks, habituating their ears for the proclamation. The Lord who delivered Israel says, "At an acceptable time I heard you, and on a day of salvation I helped you; I gave you into a covenant of nations to settle the land and inherit a desert inheritance, saying to those in bonds, 'Come out,' and to those in darkness, 'Be uncovered.'" For if the Jews are prisoners, concerning whom the Lord said, "Come out of bonds, those who wish," speaking of those who have voluntarily bound themselves and taken upon themselves unbearable burdens through human meddling, it is clear that those in darkness would be those who have their ruling principle buried in idolatry. For those righteous according to law lacked faith, which is why the Lord, healing them, said, "Your faith has saved you." But for those righteous according to philosophy, not only faith in the Lord was needed, but also to abandon idolatry. Immediately, when the truth is revealed, they themselves repent of their past deeds; therefore the Lord proclaimed the good news even to those in Hades. For Scripture says, "Hades says to Destruction: 'We did not see his form, but we heard his voice.'

It is not the place, I suppose, that, having received a voice, spoke the things foretold, but those who have been consigned to Hades and have delivered themselves over to destruction, as if willingly casting themselves from a ship into the sea, these are the ones who have heard the divine power and voice. For who, being of sound mind, would suppose that in a single judgment the souls of both the righteous and the sinners exist, pouring out injustice against providence? What then? Do they not make clear that the Lord proclaimed the gospel to those who perished in the flood, or rather to those who were bound, and to those confined in prison and guard? And it has been shown in the second Stromateus that the apostles, following the Lord, also proclaimed the gospel to those in Hades. For it was necessary, I think, that just as here, so also there, the best of the disciples should become imitators of the teacher, so that he might lead those from the Hebrews, and they the nations, to conversion, that is, those who have lived in righteousness according to the law and according to philosophy, but not perfectly, having completed their life in a sinful manner. For this was fitting for the divine economy: that those who have had greater worth, having lived in righteousness and preeminently, and having repented of their transgressions, even if they happen to confess in another place, being in the domain of the almighty God, should be saved according to the appropriate knowledge of each. And the savior, I think, also acts, since saving is his work; which indeed he has done, drawing to salvation those who have wished to believe in him through the proclamation, wherever they happened to have been born.

If then the Lord descended into Hades for no other reason than to proclaim the gospel, as he did descend, then either he proclaimed the gospel to all or to the Hebrews alone. If therefore to all, then all who believed will be saved, even if they happen to be from the Gentiles, having made confession there already, since the punishments of God are salvific and disciplinary, leading to conversion and choosing the repentance of the sinner rather than death, and this the souls, freed from bodies, are able to perceive more clearly, even if they are darkened by passions, because they are no longer obstructed by the flesh. But if he proclaimed the gospel to the Jews alone, to whom the knowledge and faith through the Savior were lacking, it is clear that, since God is impartial, the apostles also, just as here, so also there, would have proclaimed the gospel to those from the Gentiles who are suitable for conversion. And it is well said in the Shepherd: "They went down with them into the water, but these went down alive and came up alive; but those who had previously fallen asleep went down dead.

But they ascended alive. Indeed, the Gospel says that many of those who had fallen asleep were raised, evidently transferred to a better rank. Therefore, a universal movement and transposition occurred according to the economy of the Savior. Thus, a just man does not differ from a just man insofar as he is just, whether he be a Jew or a Greek; for God is Lord not of Jews alone, but of all men, and more intimately Father of those who have come to know him. For if living well is living lawfully, and living reasonably is living according to law, and those who lived rightly before the law were accounted as having faith and judged to be just, it is clear that even those who were outside the law, because of the peculiarity of their soul, and who lived rightly, even if they happened to be in Hades and in prison, upon hearing the voice of the Lord—whether the authentic voice or that operating through the apostles—would quickly turn and believe. For we remember that the Lord is the power of God; and power could never be weak. Thus, I think it is shown that God is good, and the Lord is able to save with justice and equality toward those who turn, whether here or elsewhere. For the active power does not reach only here, but is everywhere and always at work. For instance, in the *Kerygma Petri* the Lord says to the disciples after the resurrection:

I have chosen you twelve, deeming you worthy disciples of mine, whom the Lord desired, and considering you faithful apostles, sending you into the world to proclaim the gospel to the people throughout the inhabited world, that they may know that there is one God, making known through my faith in Christ the things to come, so that those who hear and believe may be saved, while those who do not believe, having heard, may bear witness, having no excuse to say, 'We did not hear.'" What then? Did not the same economy occur in Hades, so that there also all souls, having heard the proclamation, might either show repentance or acknowledge that the punishment is just, because they did not believe? And it would have been an act of no ordinary injustice for those who departed before the Lord's coming, not having been evangelized and not having themselves provided the cause, according to whether they believed or not, to partake either of salvation or of punishment. For it is not right that some should be condemned without judgment, while only those after the coming of divine justice have enjoyed it. To all rational souls it has been said from above: "Whatever any of you did in ignorance, not clearly knowing God, if upon recognizing him you repent, all your sins will be forgiven you." For behold, he says, I have set before you death and life, to choose life, saying that God has placed them for comparison of choice, not that he has made both. And in another scripture he says: "If you listen to me and are willing, you will eat the good things of the earth; but if you do not listen to me and are not willing, a sword will devour you; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken these things.

Again, David speaks directly—or rather, the Lord speaks through the person of the holy one (and this one is from the foundation of the world, every person saved and to be saved through faith at different times): "My heart rejoiced, and my tongue exulted. Moreover, my flesh will dwell in hope," he says, "because you will not abandon my soul to Hades, nor will you allow your holy one to see corruption. You have revealed to me the ways of life; you will fill me with joy in the presence of your face." Just as the people are precious to the Lord, so the entire people is holy, both the Jew and the convert from the Gentiles, who was prophesied as the proselyte. Reasonably, therefore, the Scripture says that the ox and the bear will be together. For the ox is said to be the Jew, from the animal judged clean under the yoke according to the law, since the ox is both cloven-hoofed and chews the cud. The Gentile is indicated by the bear, an unclean and wild beast. This animal gives birth to unformed flesh, which it shapes into the likeness of the beast by its tongue alone; for it is formed by speech into

The taming from a bestial life is what the one who converts from the Gentiles undergoes, already domesticated and himself purified like an ox. Immediately the prophet says: "Sirens will bless me, and the daughters of ostriches, and all the wild beasts of the field." The wild beasts of the field are known as unclean animals, that is, of the world, since he calls those who are wild and foul in their life, not even purified by the justice according to the law, beasts. Having changed, however, from being beasts through the Lord's faith, they become people of God, from having initially willed to change, progressing toward becoming. For the Lord urges some on, and to those who have already undertaken the task he reaches out a hand and draws them up; for the master of all does not shrink from anyone's face nor will he be ashamed of greatness, because he made small and great alike and provides for all. And David says: "But even if nations were caught in the destruction they wrought, in this snare which they hid their foot was caught, yet the Lord became a refuge for the poor, a helper in good time and in distress." So those in distress were opportunely evangelized. And for this reason he says: "Proclaim among the nations his practices, so that they may not be unjustly judged." If, then, he evangelized those in the flesh for this reason, so that they might not be unjustly condemned, how did he not also evangelize those who departed before his coming for the same reason? For the Lord is just and loved justice; "righteousness saw his face." But the one who loves injustice hates his own soul.

If, then, in the flood every sinful flesh perished, their punishment having become a means of discipline, first it must be believed that the will of God, being both educative and effective, saves those who convert; and further, the more subtle element, the soul, could never suffer anything terrible from the coarser water, since it is not held fast due to its fineness and simplicity, on account of which it is also called incorporeal. Whatever coarseness has been thickened by sin is cast off together with the carnal spirit that lusts against the soul. Already the chief of those who champion commonality, Valentinus, in his discourse On Friends, writes verbatim: "Many of the things written in the public books are found written in the church of God; for these common things are the words from the heart, the law written in the heart; this is the people of the beloved, the one loving and being loved by him." For whether he calls the Jewish scriptures or the writings of the philosophers "public books," he makes the truth common. And Isidore, the son and disciple of Basilides, in the first of his Exegetics of the Prophet Parchor, writes verbatim as follows: "The Attics say that some daimon attending Socrates was revealed to him, and Aristotle says that all men use daimones accompanying them during the time of embodiment, having taken this prophetic teaching and deposited it in his own books, without confessing whence he stole this teaching." And again in the second of the same treatise he writes something like this:

And let no one think that what we say is proper to the elect has been previously stated by certain philosophers; for it is not their discovery, but they appropriated it from the prophets and added it to what is not, according to them, wise. Again, in the same work: For it seems to me that those who pretend to philosophize, in order to learn what the winged oak is and the embroidered robe upon it, all that Pherecydes allegorized and theologized, taking the subject from the prophecy of Ham, * * as we have noted long ago, we do not mean the training according to each heresy, but what is truly philosophy, † rightly the technical wisdom that provides experience of the things of life, and wisdom as steadfast knowledge of divine and human matters, being a certain secure and unchangeable comprehension, embracing both the things that are and the things that have passed and the things that will be, which the Lord taught us through his presence and through the prophets. And it is unchangeable by reason, handed down to the same; and it is altogether true, by will, as known through the Son. And one is eternal, another is beneficial in time; and one is one and the same, others are many and indifferent; and one is without any passionate movement, another is with passionate desire; and one is perfect, another is deficient. Therefore, philosophy desires this wisdom, * * being disposed lovingly and affectionately toward wisdom, with regard to the soul and the correctness of reason and the purity of life, and doing everything for the sake of attaining it.

Philosophers are called among us those who love wisdom, which is the creator and teacher of all things, that is, knowledge of the Son of God, but among the Greeks they are those who take up discourses concerning virtue. Philosophy would be the irreproachable doctrines from each of the sects (I mean those according to philosophy), gathered together with a consistent life into a single selection. These very things, stolen from the barbarian God-given grace, are adorned with Greek speech; for some they are thieves, of others they have misheard; in other matters, some they have spoken while being moved, but have not worked out completely, while others they have spoken by human conjecture and reasoning, in which they also go astray; they think they fully hit upon the truth, but as we perceive them, they do so partially. At any rate, they know nothing beyond this world. And just as geometry, which deals with measures, magnitudes, and shapes through drawing on planes, and painting, which seems to take up the whole optical field in scene-painting, and this deceives the eye, using points according to the incidence of optical lines in a technical manner (whence appearances, disappearances, and phases are preserved, and some things seem to project, others to recede, and others to be imagined otherwise in a smooth and level surface), so also philosophers imitate the truth like painting. Self-love is the cause of all sins for each person on each occasion. Therefore, one should not, by choosing reputation among men, be self-loving, but by loving God become truly pious with prudence.

If, then, someone uses the partial as if it were the universal, and honors the slave as lord and master, he misses the truth, not understanding what was said by David in confession: "I ate earth and ashes like bread." Self-love and conceit are for him earth and error. If this is so, knowledge and science come from learning. And since learning exists, it is necessary to seek the teacher. For Cleanthes claims Zeno, and Theophrastus claims Aristotle, and Metrodorus claims Epicurus, and Plato claims Socrates. But even if I come to Pythagoras, Pherecydes, Thales, and the first wise men, I stop, seeking their teacher. And if you speak of Egyptians, or Indians, or Babylonians, or the Magi themselves, I will not cease demanding their teacher. I lead you back even to the first generation of humans, and from there I begin to seek: who is the teacher? No human, for they had not yet learned; nor any angel, for just as angels announce as angels, so humans do not hear, nor do they have, as we have ears, so they have a tongue. Nor if one were to give organs of speech to angels—I mean lips and the parts adjacent to them, and the pharynx, and the windpipe, and the lungs, and the breath, and the air that is struck. Far be it that God should shout, separated as he is by inaccessible holiness even from the archangels themselves. And we have received that the angels themselves learned the truth, and the rulers over them; for they are created. It remains, therefore, for us to rise above them and long for their teacher.

Since the unbegotten is one, the almighty God, and the one pre-begotten is also one, through whom all things came to be and without whom nothing came to be (for God is truly one, who made the beginning of all things, Peter writing indicates the firstborn son, understanding precisely: "In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth"), and this one is called wisdom by all the prophets, he is the teacher of all generated things, the counselor of God who foreknew all things. He from above, from the first foundation of the world, has taught and perfects in manifold and various ways. Hence it is rightly said: "Do not call anyone on earth your teacher." You see from where true philosophy takes its hold. Even if the law is an image and shadow of the truth—yet the law is a shadow of the truth—the self-love of the Greeks proclaims certain human beings as teachers. Just as every lineage runs back to the creator God, so too does the teaching of good things and that which justifies and leads by the hand and assists in this run back to the Lord. But if some, having taken seeds of truth from some creation in whatever manner, did not nurture them, but handed them over to barren land and lack of rain, and were choked by wild weeds, just as the Pharisees deviated from the law by introducing human teachings, the teacher is not responsible for these, but those who chose to disobey. Those who are persuaded by them, through the presence of the Lord and the clarity of the scriptures, come to knowledge of the law, just as those from philosophy, through the teaching of the Lord, are established in knowledge of true philosophy.

The oracles of the Lord are pure oracles, silver refined in the test, purified sevenfold by the earth. That is, either as silver often purified becomes a standard, the righteous man, having become a coin of the Lord and having received the royal stamp; or, since Solomon also says the tongue of the righteous is refined silver, indicating that tested and wise teaching is praiseworthy and acceptable, when it happens to be richly purified by the earth, that is, when the gnostic soul is sanctified in many ways through the abstention from earthly fires. The body also, in which it dwells, is purified, being appropriated into the sincerity of a holy temple. This purification of the soul in the body is the first, the abstention from evils, which some consider perfection, and this is simply the perfection of the common believer, both Jew and Greek. But for the gnostic, after the perfection supposed by others, righteousness proceeds into the activity of beneficence. And for whomever the intensity of righteousness has advanced to doing good, for him perfection remains in an unchangeable state of beneficence, in likeness to God. For those who are the seed of Abraham are still servants of God; these are the called. But the sons of Jacob are his elect, who have heeled the activity of wickedness.

If, then, we call Christ himself wisdom, and his activity through the prophets, by which it is possible to learn the gnostic tradition, as he himself taught the holy apostles at his coming, then knowledge would be wisdom, being a sure and certain science and comprehension of things that are, that will be, and that have been, as transmitted and revealed by the Son of God. And indeed, if the goal of the wise person is contemplation, the one still philosophizing yearns for divine science but does not yet attain it, unless he receives through learning the prophetic voice clarified to him, by which he apprehends things that are, that will be, and that have been, how they are, were, and will be. This knowledge, transmitted in succession to a few from the apostles without writing, has come down. Hence, then, one must practice knowledge or wisdom into a state of eternal and unchangeable contemplation; since Paul in his epistles does not appear to disparage philosophy, but deems that the one who has partaken of the height of the gnostic should no longer turn back to Greek philosophy, allegorizing this as elements of the world, it being a kind of elementary instruction and preparatory education for the truth. Therefore, writing to the Hebrews who return to the law from faith, he says again, you have need of someone to teach you what are the elements of the beginning of the oracles of God, and

You have become in need of milk and not solid food. Likewise, then, also to those from among the Greeks who are turning, the Colossians: see that there is no one who will lead you astray through philosophy and empty deceit according to the tradition of men, according to the elements of this world and not according to Christ, enticing you again to go back to philosophy, the elementary teaching. And if someone says that philosophy was discovered by the understanding of men among the Greeks, yet I find the scriptures saying that understanding is divinely sent. The psalmist, at any rate, considers understanding the greatest gift and asks, saying: I am your servant; give me understanding. And David, asking not for the much-experienced knowledge, writes: Teach me goodness and discipline and knowledge, because I have trusted in your commandments. The covenants are acknowledged to be authoritative and to be given to the more honorable. The psalm, at any rate, says again concerning God: He did not do thus to any nation, and he did not reveal his judgments to them. The phrase "he did not do thus" shows that he did do, but not thus. In comparison, then, the "thus" refers to the preeminence that occurs in our case; the prophet could, of course, have simply said "he did not do" without the addition of "thus." Indeed, Peter in the Acts says: I understand in truth that God is not a respecter of persons, but in every nation the one who fears him and practices righteousness is acceptable to him.

Not in time, then, is God's impartiality, but from eternity; nor did his beneficence ever begin, nor is it limited to places or to certain people, for his goodness is not partial. "Open for me the gates of righteousness," it says; "entering through them, I will confess to the Lord." This is the gate of the Lord; the righteous will enter through it. And interpreting this saying of the prophet, Barnabas adds: "Of the many gates that are opened, this one in righteousness is the one in Christ, through which all who enter are blessed." That prophetic saying also holds the same thought: "The Lord is over many waters," not only of the different covenants, but also of the modes of teaching, both among Greeks that lead to righteousness and among barbarians. And David clearly already, bearing witness to the truth, sings: "Let the sinners turn back to Hades, all the nations that forget God." They forget, evidently, him whom they previously remembered, and whom they knew before they forgot, they dismiss. There was, then, some dim knowledge of God also among the nations. And let these matters stand thus. But the gnostic must be learned; and since the Greeks say that, beginning with Protagoras, every argument has an opposing argument, he must be prepared also for such arguments, to say what is fitting. For Scripture says: "He who speaks much will also be heard in return." And who will understand the Lord's parable, unless he is wise and knowledgeable and loves his Lord? Let such a one be faithful, let him be capable of expounding knowledge, let him be wise in discerning arguments, let him be swift in deeds, let him be pure.

The more one seems to be greater, the more one ought to be humble, says Clement in his Epistle to the Corinthians. Such a person is one who obeys that commandment: "And those whom you snatch from the fire, pity them as they are being judged." Of course, the pruning hook was made primarily for pruning, but we also separate entangled branches in it and cut thorns from vines that have grown together, which are not easy to approach. All these things have reference to pruning. Again, man was made primarily for the knowledge of God, but he also farms, measures land, and philosophizes; of these, one is for living, one for living well, and one for practicing demonstrative reasoning. Indeed, those who say that philosophy originates from the devil should also consider this: that scripture says the devil transforms himself into an angel of light. What will he do? Clearly, he will prophesy. If he prophesies as an angel of light, then he will speak truth. If his works are angelic and luminous, he will prophesy and speak beneficially at that time when he transforms himself in likeness of activity, even if he is otherwise in the underlying substance of apostasy. For how could he deceive anyone, unless by leading the lover of learning through truths to familiarity and thus later dragging him into falsehood? Moreover, he will be found to know the truth, even if not comprehensively, yet he is certainly not ignorant of it.

Philosophy is not false, then, even if the thief and the liar speak the truth through a transformation of activity; nor, because of the speaker, should one ignorantly prejudge what is said, which must also be observed in the case of those now said to prophesy; rather, one must examine what is said to see if it holds to the truth. Moreover, speaking in a universal sense, we would not err in saying that all things necessary and beneficial for life come to us from God; and philosophy, especially for the Greeks, has been given as a kind of covenant to them, being a foundation for the philosophy according to Christ, even if those who philosophize in the Greek manner deliberately turn a deaf ear to the truth, disparaging the voice of the barbarians or even fearing the danger of death that hangs over the faithful according to the civil laws. Just as in barbarian philosophy, so also in Greek philosophy, tares have been sown by the farmer who is master of tares. Hence, heresies have sprung up among us alongside the fruitful wheat, and those who proclaim Epicurus' atheism and pleasure and all other things contrary to right reason have been sown into Greek philosophy as bastard fruits of the divinely given cultivation for the Greeks. This wisdom of this world, which is pleasure-loving and self-loving, the apostle speaks of, as teaching only the things of this world and those concerning it, and being accordingly subject, by way of stewardship, to the rulers of this world.

Therefore, this partial philosophy is a kind of elementary instruction, while the truly perfect science revolves beyond the cosmos, concerning the intelligibles and, even more than these, the more spiritual things, which no eye has seen, no ear has heard, nor have they entered into the heart of any man, before the teacher clarified for us the account concerning these things, revealing the holy of holies and, by progression, even holier things than these to the genuine and not spurious heirs of the Lord’s adoption. For we dare to assert (for here is the gnostic faith) that the true gnostic—such as James, Peter, John, Paul, and the other apostles—is knowledgeable of all things and comprehensive of all things, employing firm apprehension even in matters that are difficult for us. For prophecy is full of knowledge, as given by the Lord and again clarified through the Lord to the apostles. And is not knowledge a property of the rational soul trained for this purpose, so that through knowledge it is enrolled in immortality? For both are powers of the soul: knowledge and impulse. Impulse is found to be a movement following some assent; for one who impels toward some action first receives knowledge of the action, and second, the impulse. Let us further consider this:

For since learning is older than doing (for by nature the one who does something first learns what he intends to do), and knowledge comes from learning, while doing comes from impulse, and knowledge from learning, and impulse follows knowledge, after which comes action, knowledge would be the beginning and creator of every rational action, so that it would reasonably be by this alone that the peculiarity of the rational soul is characterized. For in truth, impulse is like knowledge set in motion concerning beings, and knowledge itself is a kind of vision of the soul of beings, either of some one or some, and when perfected, of all things. Yet some say that the wise man is persuaded that there are some incomprehensible things, so that he also has some comprehension concerning these, comprehending that the incomprehensible things will be incomprehensible. This is common even to those who can foresee only a little; for such a person confirms that there are some incomprehensible things. But that gnostic of whom I speak comprehends the things that seem incomprehensible to others, having believed that nothing is incomprehensible to the son of God, and therefore nothing is unteachable. For he who suffered out of love for us would withhold nothing for the teaching of knowledge. Therefore this faith becomes a firm proof, since truth follows the things handed down by God. And if one also desires wide experience, he knows ancient things and conjectures future ones, he understands turns of arguments and solutions of riddles, he foreknows signs and wonders and outcomes of seasons and times, the disciple of wisdom.

Such is the gnostic, that he falls only into those affections which occur for the preservation of the body, such as hunger, thirst, and the like. But in the case of the Saviour, it would be laughable for the body to demand, as a body, the necessary services for its preservation; for he ate not for the sake of the body, which was held together by a holy power, but so that those with him might not come to think otherwise about him, as indeed later some supposed that he had been manifested in appearance only. He was altogether impassible, into whom no passionate movement, neither pleasure nor pain, could insinuate itself. The apostles, having more gnosticly mastered anger, fear, and desire through the Lord's teaching, did not even admit those things that seem to be good among the passionate movements, such as courage, zeal, joy, and cheerfulness, being in a certain steadfast condition of the mind, changing in no respect whatsoever, but remaining always unaltered in a state of discipline after the Lord's resurrection. For even if one accepts the aforementioned goods as occurring with reason, yet in the case of the perfect man they are not to be admitted, who has no need to be courageous (for he is not in terrible circumstances, considering nothing in life terrible, nor can anything, not even this, turn him from his love for God), nor has he need of cheerfulness (for he does not fall into grief, being persuaded that all things happen well), nor does he become angry (for there is nothing that will move him to anger, since he always loves God and is wholly turned toward him alone, and for this reason hates none of God's creatures); nor does he envy (for he lacks nothing for assimilation to the good and noble).

Nor, then, does he love anyone with this common friendship, but he loves the Creator through the creatures. So he does not fall into any desire or appetite, nor is he in need, at least as regards the soul, of anything else, since he is already united through love with the Beloved, to whom he is assimilated according to his choice, and by the habit formed through training he draws nearer to him more closely, being blessed through the abundance of goods, so that for these reasons he forces himself to become like the Teacher in impassibility. For the Word of God is intellectual, according to which the image of the mind is seen in man alone, by which the good man is godlike and god-formed in soul, and God in turn is man-formed; for the form of each is the mind, by which we are characterized. Hence also those who sin against man are unholy and impious. For it is nonsense to claim that the gnostic and perfect man should not remove anger and courage, as if without these he would not rise up against circumstances nor endure terrors, but if we were to take away his cheerfulness, he would be utterly confounded by painful things and thus come off very badly. And if he did not partake of zeal, as some have thought, he would not acquire a desire for deeds similar to those of the noble and good. For if all appropriation of the good occurs with appetite, how, they say, can he who desires the good remain impassible? But these people, it seems, do not know the divine nature of love; for love is no longer an appetite of the one who loves, but a bonding appropriation, having restored the gnostic to the unity of faith, needing neither time nor place. And he who is

Those who will be, having already become through love, having anticipated hope through knowledge, do not desire anything, possessing as far as possible the object of desire itself. Naturally, then, they remain in the one unchanging state, loving gnosticly, nor will they envy being made like the beautiful, since they have being through love of beauty. What need of boldness and desire does this one still have, having received through love the appropriation to the impassible God and having enrolled himself among the friends through love? We must therefore remove the gnostic and perfect one from every psychic passion; for knowledge produces training, training produces a state or disposition, and such a condition produces apatheia, not metriopatheia; for apatheia is the fruit of a complete cutting off of desire. But the gnostic does not partake even of those celebrated goods, that is, the passible goods that lie alongside the passions, such as cheerfulness (which lies alongside pleasure) and dejection (which is yoked to grief) and caution (which is subordinate to fear), nor even of spirit (which is arrayed alongside anger), even if some say these are no longer evils but already goods. For it is impossible for one who has once been perfected through love and who feasts eternally and insatiably on the unfailing joy of contemplation to still delight in small and lowly things.

For what reasonable cause still remains for this one to run back to worldly goods, who has received the inaccessible light, even if not yet in time and place, but in that gnostic love, through which both the inheritance and the perfect restoration follow, the rewarder confirming through works what the gnostic, by choosing gnosticly through love, has already anticipated by arriving? For is it not so, that while journeying to the Lord through love for him, even if his body is seen on earth, he does not remove himself from life (for this is not permitted to him), but he has removed the soul from the passions (for this is allowed to him), and he lives again, having mortified the desires, and no longer uses the body, but only permits it to use necessities, so as not to provide the cause of dissolution? How then does this one still have need of courage, not being in fearful situations, since he is not present, but is already wholly with the beloved? And what need of temperance for one who does not require it? For having such desires as to require temperance for their restraint is not yet pure, but passionate, and courage is taken up because of fear and cowardice. For it is not fitting that the friend of God, whom God predestined before the foundation of the world to be enrolled in the highest adoption, should fall into pleasures or fears and be occupied with the suppression of passions. For I would dare to say:

Just as it is predetermined through which actions he will act and what he will attain, so he himself has predetermined through which he has come to know whom he loved, not having the future as something difficult to discern, as the many live by conjecture, but having received through gnostic faith what is unclear to others. And for him, through love, the future is already present; for he has believed, both through prophecy and through the presence, in the God who does not lie, and what he has believed, he possesses and holds the promise (and the one who promised is truth), and the end of the promise he has securely received through the trustworthiness of the one who promised, according to knowledge. And he who knows that the stable condition of present things is a secure apprehension of future things, through love anticipates the future. Accordingly, he will not even pray to obtain the things of this world, being persuaded that he will attain the truly good things, but to hold always to the aiming and successful faith. And in addition to these things, he will pray that as many as possible become like him, for the glory of God, which is perfected through knowledge; for one who is made like the savior is salvific, insofar as it is permitted for human nature to receive the image, unswervingly accomplishing what is according to the commandments; and this is to worship the divine through true righteousness, both in works and knowledge. The voice of this one, according to the prayer, does not

The Lord waits, saying, "Ask, and I will do; conceive, and I will give." For in general, it is impossible for the immutable to take on fixity and stability in that which is mutable, and in continuous change, and because of this the ruling principle becomes unstable, the habitual power is not preserved. For how could that which is always altered by things entering and impinging from without ever come to be in a state, disposition, and, in sum, in a possession of knowledge? And yet the philosophers consider the virtues to be states, dispositions, and knowledges. But just as knowledge is not congenital to humans but is acquired, and its learning requires attention at the beginnings, as well as nurture and growth, and then from uninterrupted practice comes into a state, so when perfected in a state, it remains unchangeable through love in the mystical state. For it has not only grasped the first cause and the cause generated by it and holds firmly concerning these, possessing stable, unchangeable, and immovable principles, but also concerning goods and evils, concerning all generation, and in sum, concerning what the Lord spoke, it has the most accurate truth from the beginning of the world to the end, having learned from truth itself, not, if something should appear plausible or compelling according to Greek logic, choosing it before the truth, but it has the things spoken by the Lord as clear and evident, having received them. And even if they are still hidden to others, it has already received knowledge concerning all things. And the oracles among us prophesy concerning things that are, as they are; concerning things that will be, as they will be; and concerning things that have happened, as they happened.

In the domain of knowledge, being alone knowledgeable, he will be preeminent and will champion the discourse concerning the good, always devoted to the intelligible realities, from those archetypes above tracing his own administration of human affairs, just as those who sail and steer the ship by the star, prepared to be ready for every appropriate action, accustomed to disregard all that is troublesome and terrible, whenever it is necessary to endure, never performing anything rash or discordant either with himself or with the common good, being provident and unbending in pleasures both waking and through dreams; for, accustomed to a simple and self-sufficient diet in a temperate manner, he is composed with dignity, needing few necessities for living, busying himself with nothing superfluous, but not even these as primary, rather accepting them from the fellowship of life as necessary for the sojourn of the flesh, to the extent necessary; for knowledge is primary for him. Consequently, as a secondary pursuit, he also devotes himself to the disciplines that train him for knowledge, taking from each branch of learning what is suitable for the truth. From music, he pursues the proportion in harmonies; in arithmetic, he notes the increases and decreases of numbers and their relations to one another, and how most things fall under some proportion of numbers; in geometry, he contemplates substance itself in itself, and becomes accustomed to conceive of a continuous interval and an immutable substance, different from these bodies.

From astronomy, being lifted up from the earth, he will be raised in mind together with the heaven and will revolve with the circuit, always observing the divine things and their mutual harmony, from which starting-point Abraham ascended to the knowledge of the creator. But the gnostic will also make use of dialectic, selecting the division of genera into species, and will apply the distinction of beings, until he touches upon the first and simple things. The many, however, like children with bogies, fear Greek philosophy, afraid that it may lead them away. But if their faith is of such a kind (for I would not call it knowledge), that it may be dissolved by plausible reasoning, let it be dissolved, for by this they especially confess that they do not possess the truth; for truth, it is said, is invincible, while false opinion is dissolved. Just so we choose purple by comparison with another purple. So if someone confesses that he does not have a heart that is articulated, he does not have the table of the money-changers nor the criterion of arguments. And how then is this man a money-changer, being unable to test and distinguish the genuine coin from the counterfeit? And David cries out: that the righteous man will never be shaken; neither by deceitful speech nor by wandering pleasure, whence he will not be shaken from his own inheritance. Therefore he will not be frightened by evil report. So neither by empty slander nor by false opinion about himself, nor will the one able to distinguish them be terrified by the crafty arguments, either for questioning or answering correctly.

Dialectic is like a coping-stone, so that the truth may not be trampled underfoot by the sophists. For it is necessary, according to the prophet, to rejoice in the holy name of the Lord, seeking the Lord with a glad heart. Seek him, therefore, and be strengthened; seek his face in every way and at all times. For having spoken in many parts and in many ways, he is not known simply. The gnostic, then, will not be polymathic as if using these as virtues, but as some co-workers, and in distinguishing what is common and what is proper, he will approach the truth. For the cause of every error and false opinion is the inability to discern where beings share in common and where they differ. And if one does not proceed in discourse according to the distinctions, he will unwittingly confuse what is common and what is proper, and when this happens, it is necessary to fall into pathlessness and error. The distinction of both names and things, even in the scriptures themselves, produces great light in souls; for it is necessary to attend to words that signify more than one thing and to the many words when they signify one thing; hence correct answering also results. But much uselessness must be set aside, as it distracts concerning things that are not at all relevant; the gnostic, using the sciences as quasi co-causes and preliminary exercises for the accurate transmission of the truth, as far as possible, and for an undistracted use, and for the defense against malicious arguments that cut off the truth.

Therefore, he will not be left behind by those who advance in the encyclical studies and Greek philosophy, but not according to the primary account, but according to the necessary, secondary, and circumstantial one. For what the heretics laboriously use with cunning, the gnostic will use well for good. Since the truth manifested in Greek philosophy is partial, the true truth, like the sun shining, reveals colors, both white and black, each as it is, and thus it refutes all sophistical plausibility. Rightly, then, it was proclaimed beforehand even to the Greeks: "Great are the beginnings of virtue, O truth." Just as we have in astronomy the example of Abraham, so in arithmetic we have the same Abraham. For having heard that Lot was taken captive, he counted his own household servants, 318, and having gone forth, he subdues a very great number of the enemy. They say, then, that the sign of the Lord is a type according to the shape of the three-hundredth letter, and that the iota and eta signify the name of the Savior. Thus it is indicated that the household of Abraham are those who, according to salvation, have fled to the sign and the name, having become lords of those who took them captive and of the very many unbelieving nations that follow them. Now the number three hundred is a triad in a hundred, and the decad is acknowledged to be perfect. And the eight is the first cube, equality in all dimensions—length, breadth, depth. And the days of men will be, it says, 120 years.

The number is the fifteenth from the unit by composition, and the moon becomes full on the fifteenth. The number one hundred twenty is also triangular in another way, and it is composed from equality of 64, whose partial composition generates squares—1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15—and from inequality of 56, seven even numbers from the dyad, which generate the heteromekes—2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14. According to another meaning again, the number 120 is composed of four: one triangular of the fifteenth, another square of 25, a third pentagonal of 35, and a fourth hexagonal of 45. For according to the same analogy, 5 is taken in each form: of the triangles from the unit, the fifth is 15; of the squares, 25; and of the rest analogously. Indeed, the number 25, being the fifth from the unit, is said to be a symbol of the Levitical tribe; and 35 itself pertains to the diagram of the doubles—arithmetic, geometric, and harmonic—of 6, 8, 9, 12, whose composition generates 35; in these days the Jews say the seven-month fetuses are formed. And 45 pertains to the diagram of the triples—6, 9, 12, 18—whose composition generates 45, and in these days likewise they say the nine-month fetuses are formed. This, then, is the form of the numerical example.

Let geometry also be a witness: the constructed tabernacle and the crafted ark, built with the most rational proportions, constructed by divine designs, according to the gift of understanding, leading us from the sensible to the intelligible, or rather from these things to the holy and from the holy to the holy of holies. For the squared timbers, because the square shape stands entirely on right angles, signify stability. And the length of the construction is three hundred cubits, the width fifty, and the depth thirty; and the ark is finished at a cubit from above, tapering from the broad base in the manner of a pyramid, a symbol of things purified and tested by fire. This geometric proportion is provided for the transmission of those holy abodes, whose differences the differences of the numbers subjoined indicate. The ratios involved are sextuple, as three hundred to fifty, and decuple, as three hundred is ten times thirty, and epimoric: for fifty to thirty is epimoric. Some say that the three hundred cubits are a symbol of the Lord's sign, the fifty of hope and remission according to Pentecost, and the thirty, or as in some accounts twelve, signify the preaching, because the Lord preached in his thirtieth year, and the apostles were twelve, and that the construction is finished at a cubit, the progression of righteousness ending in unity and in the unity of faith. The table in the temple was made of six cubits, and the four feet each of one and a half cubits.

Thus all the cubits total twelve, in harmony with the annual cycle of the twelve months, according to which the earth brings forth and brings to maturity all things, being adapted to the four seasons. The table, I think, signifies an image of the earth, resting on four feet—summer, autumn, spring, winter—through which the year passes. Hence it is said that the table has wavy mouldings, either because all things revolve in cycles of seasons, or perhaps it indicated the earth surrounded by Ocean. Further, let David be set forth as an example of music, both playing and prophesying, singing hymns to God melodiously. The enharmonic genus is very fitting for the Dorian harmony, and the diatonic for the Phrygian, as Aristoxenus says. The harmony of the barbarian psaltery, then, displaying the solemnity of the melody and being most ancient, becomes a model especially for Terpander in the Dorian harmony when he hymns Zeus somewhat as follows: "Zeus, beginning of all things, leader of all things, Zeus, to you I send this beginning of hymns." And the psaltery's cithara would be allegorized, in the first sense, as the Lord, and in the second, as those who directly strike their souls under the Lord as leader of the Muses. And if the saved people are called a cithara, it is by inspiration of the Word and by knowledge.

of God, praising him musically, is heard, being struck into faith by the Word. You might also understand musical harmony in another way: the ecclesiastical harmony of law and prophets together with the apostles and the gospel, as well as the subordinate harmony, the concord according to each prophet in the transitions of persons. But, as it seems, most of those who inscribe the name, like the companions of Odysseus, pursue the Word boorishly, passing by not the Sirens but the rhythm and the melody, having stopped their ears with ignorance, since they know that once they have yielded their ears to Greek learning they will not be able thereafter to achieve their homecoming. But for one who culls what is useful for the benefit of catechumens, especially those who are Greeks (for the Lord's is the earth and its fullness), one must not abstain from love of learning like unreasoning animals, but must gather as many aids as possible for those who understand. Yet one must by no means tarry over these things except only for the useful part from them, so that having taken this and acquired it, one may be able to go home to true philosophy, having procured for the soul a sure cable, the security derived from all. Therefore one must touch upon music for the adornment of character and for restraint. Indeed, even at a drinking party we pledge one another in song, charming our desirous part and praising God for the bountiful gift of human enjoyments, both those for the growth of the body and those for the growth of the soul, the provisions being supplied eternally.

Excessive music is to be rejected—the kind that breaks down souls and casts them into variety, now into lamentation, now into licentiousness and voluptuousness, now into frenzy and madness. The same argument applies also to astronomy. For this science, after the study of celestial phenomena concerning the shape of the whole and the motion of the heavens and the movement of the stars, brings the soul nearer to the creative power, and teaches it to be perceptive of the seasons of the year, the change of the air, the risings of the stars. Since both navigation and agriculture are filled with the utility derived from this, just as architecture and building are from geometry. This discipline also prepares the soul to be as far as possible observant, discerning of truth and refutative of falsehood, and inventive of agreements and proportions, so as to hunt for the similar in the dissimilar; it leads us to discover length without breadth, surface without depth, and a point without parts, and transfers us from the sensible to the intelligible. The mathematical sciences, then, are co-workers with philosophy, and philosophy itself is co-worker for the apprehension of truth. For instance, the chlamys was originally a fleece, then it became a nap, then a woof and a warp, and then it was woven. The soul, therefore, must be prepared beforehand and worked upon in various ways, if it is to be fashioned in the best manner, since truth has a part that is cognitive and a part that is productive, and it flows from the theoretical; it requires much practice, joint training, and experience. But even of the theoretical, one part concerns what is toward others, the other what is toward itself. Hence education must be so arranged as to be adapted to both.

It is therefore sufficient to have learned the essentials that lead to knowledge, and then to remain at rest in tranquility, directing one’s actions toward contemplation. But for the benefit of one’s neighbors—some being eager to write, others being sent to transmit the word—the rest of education is useful, and the reading of the Lord’s scriptures is necessary for the demonstration of what is said, especially if those who hear are drawn from Greek education. David describes such a church: “The queen stood at your right, in a garment interwoven with gold, clothed in variegated things, both Greek and superfluous, with golden tassels, clothed in variegated things.” But truth is through the Lord. “For who,” he says, “knew your counsel, unless you gave wisdom and sent your holy Spirit from on high? And thus the paths of those on earth were corrected, and men were taught what is pleasing to you, and they were saved by wisdom.” For the gnostic knows, according to scripture, the ancient things and conjectures the future; he understands turns of speech and solutions of riddles; he foreknows signs and wonders and the outcomes of seasons and times, as we have said before. Do you see the fountain of the disciplines springing from wisdom?

To those who object—saying, for instance, what use is it to know the causes of how the sun moves, and the rest of the stars, or to have examined geometrical theorems, or dialectical matters, and each of the other disciplines, since these things contribute nothing to the performance of duties, and that Hellenic philosophy is merely human understanding, and that truth is not teachable—one must reply as follows. First, that these people also err concerning the greatest of beings, that is, the choice of the mind. For, it is said, those who piously guard the sacred things will be sanctified, and those who have been taught them will find a defense. For only the gnostic will reasonably perform all duties piously, as he has learned according to the Lord’s teaching, receiving it through human intermediaries. Again, it is possible to hear: “For in his hand”—that is, in power and wisdom—“are both we and our words, and all prudence and the knowledge of works.” For God loves nothing except the one who dwells with wisdom. Next, they have not read what was said by Solomon. For, after discussing the construction of the temple, he says plainly: “But craftsmansly wisdom constructed it; and your providence, Father, governs it.” And how is it not unreasonable to consider philosophy inferior to carpentry and shipbuilding? Perhaps also the Lord, by that multitude who lay down on the grass opposite Tiberias, fed them with two fish and five barley loaves, hinting at the preparatory education of Greeks and Jews before the divine wheat of the food cultivated according to the law; for barley is more premature for the summer season than wheat.

The philosophy born and borne upon the Gentile flood, the Greek philosophy, the fishes signified, given for abundant nourishment to those still lying low; having grown, no longer like fragments of loaves, but having partaken of the Lord's blessing, they were inspired with the resurrection of divinity through the power of the Word. But if you are overly curious, take one of the fishes as signifying the encyclical, and the other that philosophy itself which is more advanced, which are indeed † akin to the Lord's Word; "a chorus of voiceless fishes roared," the tragic Muse has said somewhere. And I must diminish, but only increase henceforth the Lord's Word, into which the law is brought to completion, the prophet John has said. Understand now the mystery of truth with me, granting pardon if I hesitate to proceed further in the treatment, proclaiming only this: all things came to be through him, and without him not one thing came to be. Assuredly, he is called the cornerstone, in which every building, fitted together, grows into a holy temple of God according to the divine apostle. I now pass over in silence the parable in the Gospel which says: the kingdom of heaven is like a man who has cast a net into the sea and from the multitude of fish caught makes a selection of the better ones. And already the four virtues are plainly proclaimed by our wisdom in some such way, so that even the sources of these were given to the Greeks from the Hebrews. It is possible to learn from these things: and if anyone loves justice, the labors of it are virtues.

It teaches self-control and wisdom, justice and courage, than which there is nothing more useful in life for human beings. Above all, they ought to have known this, that by nature we are born for virtue, not indeed so as to possess it from birth, but so as to be fit to acquire it. By this argument the question posed to us by the heretics is resolved: whether Adam was created perfect or imperfect. For if imperfect, how is the work of a perfect God imperfect, and especially man? But if perfect, how does he transgress the commandments? They will hear from us also that he was not created perfect in respect of his constitution, but was fit to receive virtue; for there is a difference, I suppose, between being born fit for virtue and being born for its acquisition. And He wishes us to be saved by our own efforts. This, then, is the nature of the soul: to set out from itself. Then, being rational, and philosophy being rational, we have something akin to it. Fitness is a movement toward virtue, but not virtue itself. All, then, as I said, are by nature for the acquisition of virtue, but one approaches more, another less, by both learning and practice; hence some have reached perfect virtue, others have attained only to a certain point, while some, even if naturally gifted, have been turned to the opposite through neglect. And much more is knowledge, which surpasses all disciplines in magnitude and truth, the most difficult to acquire and is attained only with great labor.

but, as it seems, they did not know the mysteries of God, that God created man for incorruption and made him an image of his own property, according to which property the gnostic, the just, and the holy, with prudence, hastens to arrive at the measure of perfect age. And that not only the actions and thoughts, but also the words are pure for the gnostic, you have tested my heart, you have examined it by night, it says; you have burned me and no injustice was found in me, so that my mouth might not speak the works of men. And what does it mean by the works of men? It recognizes sin itself, not disturbed for repentance (for this is common also to other believers), but what sin is; for it does not condemn this or that particular sin, but simply all sin; nor does it set forth what someone did wrongly, but what ought not to be done. Hence repentance is twofold: one common, for having done wrong; the other, having learned the nature of sin, persuades one to desist from sinning according to a governing principle, which is followed by not sinning. Therefore let them not say that the one who does injustice and sins does so by the activity of demons, since then he would be innocent, but choosing the same things as the demons in respect to sinning, he becomes unstable, light, and changeable in desires, like a demon, a demonic man. Thus the one who is evil by nature, having become sinful through wickedness, is base, having chosen what he willingly chose; and being sinful, he also errs in his actions; conversely, the earnest man succeeds. Therefore we call not only the virtues, but also the good actions, good.

Of good things, we know that some are choiceworthy for their own sake, such as knowledge (for we hunt nothing else from it, when it is present, except only that it is present and that we are in unceasing contemplation and that we strive for it and through it), while others are for the sake of other things, such as faith, on account of the avoidance of punishment and the benefit from recompense that arises from it. For fear is the cause of not sinning for the many, and promise is the occasion for pursuing obedience, through which salvation comes. Therefore, knowledge is the most perfect good, being choiceworthy for its own sake, and as a consequence, the goods that follow through it are also fine. And punishment, for the one being punished, is a cause of correction, and for those able to see from afar, it becomes an example, through which they prevent falling into similar things. Let us therefore accept knowledge, not desiring the outcomes, but embracing it for the sake of knowing itself. For the first benefit is the gnostic state, providing harmless pleasures and exultation both now and hereafter. And they say that exultation is cheerfulness, being a reflection of virtue according to truth, through some kind of mental feasting and diffusion. The works that partake of knowledge are good and beautiful actions. Wealth, on the one hand,

For the true abundance is in actions according to virtue, while poverty is the lack of worldly desires. For possessions and uses of necessities do not have a harmful quality, but rather a quantity beyond measure. Therefore the gnostic circumscribes his desires both in acquisition and in use, not exceeding the limit of necessities. Considering life here as necessary for the increase of knowledge and the acquisition of gnosis, he will value not living, but living well above all, and will not prefer children, marriage, or parents to love for God and justice in life. The wife is a sister to him after childbearing, and is judged as of the same father, remembering her husband only when she looks at the children, as she will truly be a sister after the laying aside of the flesh that separates and distinguishes the knowledge of spiritual things by the particularity of forms. For souls in themselves are equally souls, neither male nor female, when they neither marry nor are given in marriage; and unless the wife is thus transformed into the husband, becoming equally indissoluble, manly, and perfect. This, then, was the laughter of Sarah when the birth of a child was announced, not, I think, because she disbelieved the angel, but because she was ashamed of that intercourse through which she was to become the mother of a child. And was it not from that time that Abraham, when he was in danger before the king of Egypt because of Sarah's beauty, called her his sister and of the same father, but not yet of the same mother?

To those who have repented of sins and do not have firm faith, God grants their requests through prayers; to those who live without sin and in a gnostic manner, He gives even when they merely conceive a thought. For instance, to Hannah, who merely conceived the thought of a child, the conception of Samuel was granted. "Ask," says Scripture, "and I will do; conceive a thought and I will give." For we have received God as a knower of hearts, not judging from a movement of the soul as we humans do, nor even from the outcome (for it would be ridiculous to think so), nor, as the architect praised the work after it was made, did God thus make the light, then see it and say it was good; rather, He, knowing what it would be even before making it, praised this; and it came to be good in potentiality through the maker's good intention from above, by means of the beginningless purpose, what would be good in actuality. Indeed, He already said beforehand that what would be was good, the hyperbaton of the phrase concealing the truth. The gnostic therefore prays every hour according to thought, being united with God through love. And first he will ask for remission of sins, and after that, no longer sinning, for the ability to do good and to understand the entire creation and economy according to the Lord, so that, having become pure in heart, through the knowledge that comes through the Son of God, he may be initiated face to face into the blessed vision, having heard the Scripture that says, "Good is fasting with prayer"; and fastings indicate abstinences from all evils universally, both those in action and in word and in thought itself.

Therefore, justice is foursquare, equal and uniform on all sides—in word, in deed, in abstaining from evil, in doing good, and in gnostic perfection, never limping in any way, lest it appear unjust and unequal. Now, whoever is just is certainly also faithful, but whoever is faithful is not yet just—I mean justice according to progress and perfection, by which the gnostic is called just. For instance, when Abraham became faithful, this was counted toward justice, as he advanced to the greater and more perfect stage of faith. For one who merely abstains from evil action is not just, unless he also accomplishes doing good and knowing, for what reason one must abstain from some things and actively perform others. The apostle says that the just man is escorted through the weapons of justice, both right and left, into the ultimate inheritance—protected by some and active through others. For the mere shelter of the full armor and the abstention from sins is not sufficient for perfection, unless it takes up the work of justice, the activity of doing good. Then the ambidextrous and gnostic man is revealed in justice, already glorified even from here, just as Moses had the face of his soul—which in earlier passages we called the characteristic mark of the just soul. For just as with wool, the fixing of the dye, once it has penetrated, imparts a distinctive quality and difference from other wool, so also with the soul: the labor passes away, but the beauty remains; the pleasure is left behind, but the shame is imprinted.

These are the characteristic qualities of each soul, from which the glorified one is recognized and the condemned one is known. Indeed, just as in the case of Moses, from his righteous action and his continuous converse with God who spoke to him, a certain radiance settled upon his face, glorified, so also in the righteous soul, a certain divine power of goodness, touching it in oversight, in prophecy, and in administrative activity, imprints something like a gleam of intellectual light, like the warmth of the sun, a manifest seal of justice, a light united with the soul through undivided love, of the God-bearing and the God-borne. Here the assimilation to the savior God arises for the gnostic, as far as is lawful for human nature, becoming perfect as the Father, he says, who is in the heavens. It is he who said: "Children, I am still with you a little while," since God also, not by nature being good, remains blessed and incorruptible in this way, neither having affairs nor providing for another, but doing good in a peculiar manner, being truly God and good Father, both being and becoming in unceasing benefactions, remaining inviolably in the identity of goodness. For what use is a good that does not act and does not do good? He, therefore, who has moderated his passions in the first place, and has practiced dispassion, and has advanced to benefaction of gnostic perfection, is equal to angels here.

Now he is luminous and shining like the sun in his beneficence, hastening through righteous knowledge by love of God to the holy abode, just as the apostles did—not because they were chosen and became apostles by some exceptional quality of nature, since Judas was chosen along with them, but because they were such as to become apostles, selected by one who foresees the ends. Matthias, who was not chosen with them, but presented himself as worthy of becoming an apostle, is set in the place of Judas. It is possible, therefore, even now, by training in the Lord’s commandments, by living perfectly according to the Gospel and gnostically, to be enrolled in the election of the apostles. Such a one is truly a presbyter of the church and a genuine deacon of the will of God, if he both does and teaches the things of the Lord, not being ordained by men, nor considered righteous because he is a presbyter, but being enrolled in the presbytery because he is righteous. Even if he is not honored here on earth with the first seat, he will sit on the twenty-four thrones judging the people, as John says in the Apocalypse. For there is in truth one saving covenant, extending from the foundation of the world to us, which is considered different in its gift according to different generations and times. For it is fitting that there be one unchangeable gift of salvation from one God through one Lord, benefiting in many ways, for which reason the dividing wall that separates the Greek from the Jew is removed for the elect people. And thus both come into the unity of faith, and the election from both is one.

and of the elect, he says, the more elect are those who, through perfect knowledge, have been culled from the church itself and honored with the most magnificent glory, judges and administrators, equally from among Jews and Greeks, the twenty-four, the grace having been doubled; since also the progressions here in the church of bishops, presbyters, deacons are imitations, I think, of angelic glory and of that economy which the scriptures say awaits those who have followed in the footsteps of the apostles, having lived in perfection of righteousness according to the gospel. The apostle writes that these are lifted up in clouds to serve first, then to be enrolled in the presbytery according to progress in glory (for glory differs from glory), until they grow into a perfect man. Such persons, according to David, will rest on the holy mountain of God, the highest church, where the philosophers of God are gathered, the true Israelites, pure in heart, in whom there is no guile, who have not remained in the hebdomad of rest, but have risen through beneficence of divine assimilation into the inheritance of ogdoadic beneficence, devoting themselves to the pure contemplation of insatiable vision. And there are other sheep, says the Lord, which are not of this fold, having been deemed worthy of another fold and dwelling proportionally to their faith. But my sheep hear my voice, understanding the commandments gnosticly; and this is to receive them magnanimously and worthily, together with the requital and correspondence of works.

so that when we hear 'your faith has saved you,' we do not simply take him to mean that those who have believed in any way whatsoever will be saved, unless works also follow. For instance, he spoke this utterance only to Jews who had lived lawfully and blamelessly, to whom only faith in the Lord remained. Therefore, one could not be a believer with incontinence, but even if he does not put off the flesh, he must necessarily lay aside the passions, so as to be able to enter his proper abode. Knowing is more than believing, just as, of course, being deemed worthy of the highest honor after being saved is more than being saved. So, through much discipline, having stripped off the passions, our believer passes on to a better abode than the former, bearing as the greatest punishment the property of repentance for the sins he committed after baptism. He is grieved, then, even more, either not yet or not at all attaining what he sees others have received. Moreover, he is ashamed of his transgressions, which indeed are the greatest punishments for the believer. For the justice of God is good, and his goodness is just. And even if the punishments cease somewhere, according to the fulfillment of the payment and the purification of each, those found worthy of the other court have a great persistent grief over not being together with those glorified through righteousness. For instance, Solomon, calling the gnostic wise, says this about those who marvel at the dignity of his abode: 'For they will see the end of the wise man and will not understand what he planned concerning himself and to what the Lord secured him; and concerning his glory they will say.

This was the one we once held up to laughter and as a parable of reproach, we the foolish; we considered his life madness and his end dishonorable; how has his lot been counted among the sons of God and among the saints? Therefore not only the believer, but also the pagan is most justly judged. For since God knew, being foreknowing, that this one would not believe, nevertheless, in order that he might at least undergo the perfection that is in his own power, he gave him philosophy, but before faith, and he gave him the sun and the moon and the stars for worship, which God made for the nations, the law says, so that they might not become completely godless and be utterly destroyed. But those who, even in this commandment, are ungrateful, having devoted themselves to carved images, if they do not repent, are judged, some because, though able, they were unwilling to believe in God, others because, even though willing, they did not labor to become believers. And indeed also those who, from the worship of the stars, did not ascend to the one who made them.

poet. For this was the way given to the nations to rise up to God through the worship of the stars. But those who were unwilling to remain with the stars given to them, but fell away even from these to stones and wood, were counted as dust, it says, and as a drop from a jar, superfluous for salvation, cast off from the body. Just as, then, saving simply is among the intermediate things, but saving rightly and fittingly is a right action, so also every action of the gnostic would be called a right action, while that of the simple believer would be called an intermediate action, not yet performed according to reason nor accomplished with knowledge. But every action of the heathen, on the contrary, is sinful; for the scriptures present not simply doing well, but directing actions toward a goal and acting according to reason as the proper duty. Just as, then, those inexperienced in playing the lyre should not touch a lyre, nor those inexperienced in playing the flute touch flutes, so also those who have not received knowledge and do not know how to use it throughout their whole life should not touch affairs. For the contest of freedom is waged not only in wars by athletes of war, but also in symposia and in bed and in law courts by those anointed with the word, ashamed to become captives of pleasure: I will never exchange virtue for unjust gain. But unjust gain is directly pleasure and pain, desire and fear, and, in a word, the passions of the soul, whose immediate delight is painful for the future. For what profit is it, it says, if you gain the world but lose your soul?

It is clear, then, that those who do not perform noble actions do not even know what is beneficial to themselves. And if this is so, such people are not even able to pray correctly to receive good things from God, since they are ignorant of what is truly good; nor, if they received them, would they perceive the gift, nor would they enjoy it in a manner worthy of what they did not know, both from inexperience in using what is given well and from excessive ignorance, not yet having learned how to use divine gifts. Ignorance is the cause of unawareness. And it seems to me that it belongs to a soul that is boastful, yet of good conscience, to utter in the face of circumstances that arise: "Against these things, what must I devise and contrive? For the good is with me, and justice will be my ally, and I shall never be caught while doing noble deeds." This good conscience preserves piety toward God and justice toward human beings, keeping the soul pure through reverent thoughts, pure words, and just deeds. Thus, having received a power that is lordly, the soul practices being God, considering that nothing is evil except ignorance and activity not in accordance with right reason, always giving thanks to God in all things through just hearing and divine reading, through true inquiry, through holy offering, through blessed prayer, praising, hymning, blessing, singing psalms. Such a soul is never separated from God at any time. Therefore it is rightly said: "And those who trust in him will understand truth, and the faithful will remain with him in love." You see what the wisdom says about the gnostics. Proportionally, then, the abodes are various according to the worth of those who have believed. Immediately Solomon says:

For to him will be given the elect grace of faith and a more delightful portion in the temple of the Lord. For the comparative shows the lower things in the temple of God, which is the whole church, but leaves one to conceive also the superlative, where the Lord is. These three abodes, being elect, are hinted at by the numbers in the Gospel, thirty, sixty, and one hundred. And the perfect inheritance belongs to those who arrive at perfect manhood according to the image of the Lord; but the likeness is not, as some think, that according to human form (for that notion is godless), nor yet that according to virtue, in relation to the first cause (for that interpretation is impious, since it expects the same virtue to belong to man and to the almighty God). "You thought," he says, "a lawless thing, that I should be like you." But it is enough for the disciple to become as the teacher, says the teacher. Therefore, according to the likeness of God, he who is enrolled for adoption and friendship with God becomes, by the co-inheritance of lords and gods, if, as the Lord himself taught, he is perfected according to the Gospel. The gnostic, then, imprints the more immediate likeness, the mind of the teacher, which that teacher, thinking, commanded and advised to the wise and temperate; understanding this as the teacher wished, and taking up for himself the magnificent thought, having taught worthily on the housetops those able to build high, and having begun the activity of the things spoken according to the example of the polity.

He gave commands that were possible, and the kingly and Christian man must truly be ruling and governing, since we were appointed not only to dominate the wild beasts outside but also the savage passions within ourselves. Therefore, as it seems, by the contrast of evil and good life the gnostic is preserved, understanding and acting more than the scribes and Pharisees. "Stretch forth, and prosper, and rule," David writes, "for the sake of truth, gentleness, and justice, and your right hand, that is the Lord, will lead you marvelously." Who then is wise and will understand these things? Who is intelligent and will know them? Because the ways of the Lord are straight, the prophet says, indicating that only the gnostic can both understand and clarify the things spoken by the Spirit in a hidden manner. And "he who understands at that time will be silent," the scripture says, clearly meaning not to speak to the unworthy, because the Lord says, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear," saying that hearing and understanding are not for everyone. Immediately David writes "dark water in clouds of air" from the brightness before him the clouds passed, hail and coals of fire, teaching that the holy words are hidden. And indeed he indicates that to the gnostics they are sent down from God as transparent and bright like harmless hail, but dark to the many like coals extinguished from fire, which unless someone kindles and rekindles, will not blaze up nor be illuminated.

The Lord, then, he says, gives me a tongue of instruction to know in due time when I must speak a word, not only in testimony, but also in question and answer; and the instruction of the Lord opens my mouth. It belongs, therefore, to the Gnostic to know how to use speech, and when, and how, and to whom. And the Apostle, speaking according to the elements of the world and not according to Christ, teaches that Hellenic instruction is elementary, while that according to Christ is perfect, as we have already indicated earlier. For instance, the wild olive is grafted into the richness of the cultivated olive and grows in like form with the cultivated olives; for the plant that is inserted uses the tree in which it is planted as its ground; and all plants together have sprouted by divine command. Hence, even if the wild olive happens to be the oleaster, it still crowns the Olympic victors, and the elm, raising the vine to a height, teaches it to bear fruit well. We see, moreover, that the wild trees draw more nourishment because they are unable to digest it. The wild trees, then, are more undigested than the cultivated ones, and the cause of their being wild is a lack of digestive power. The grafted olive, therefore, receives more nourishment because it is implanted in a wild stock.

Just as the cultivated olive becomes accustomed to digesting its food, assimilating it to the richness of the cultivated tree, so also the philosopher, likened to the wild olive, having much that is undigested because he is inquiring, quick to follow, and desirous of the richness of truth, if he receives the divine power through faith, being planted in the good and cultivated knowledge, just as the wild olive when grafted onto the truly good and merciful Word digests the food given and becomes a fine olive. For grafting makes the worthless noble and compels the barren to become fruitful by the art of agriculture and the science of gnostic knowledge. Now they say that grafting occurs in four ways: one, in which the graft must be fitted between the wood and the bark, as the Gentiles who are laymen are catechized, receiving the Word from without; another, when they split the wood and insert the noble plant into it, which happens in the case of those who have philosophized; for when their doctrines are cut through, the knowledge of the truth arises in them; just as also for the Jews, when the old scripture is opened, the new and noble plant of the olive is grafted in. The third kind of grafting concerns wild trees and heretics who are forcibly brought over to the truth; for having scraped each, they fit them together with a sharp pruning knife until they have laid bare the pith, but without wounding it, and bind them to each other. The fourth method of grafting is the one called budding.

For an eye is taken from a noble stock, with the bark around it cut to the length of a palm, and then the stock is scraped down to the eye equal to the outline. And thus it is inserted, bound with cord and smeared with clay, the eye being kept unharmed and undefiled. This is a form of gnostic teaching, capable of discerning matters; indeed, this form is especially useful even in the case of cultivated trees. And the grafting spoken of by the apostle can take place into the cultivated olive, Christ himself, the wild and unbelieving nature being planted into Christ, that is, those who believe in Christ; but it is better that each one's faith be grafted into the soul itself. For the Holy Spirit is in some such way transplanted, distributed according to each one's outline without outline. And concerning knowledge, Solomon speaks thus: Wisdom is bright and unfading, and is easily seen by those who love her; she reaches those who desire to be known beforehand. He who rises early for her will not labor; for to think about her is the perfection of prudence, and he who stays awake for her will quickly be free from care; for she goes around seeking those worthy of her (for knowledge is not for all) and appears to them kindly in the paths; and the paths are the conduct of life and the variety according to the covenants. Immediately he adds: And in every thought she meets them, being seen in many ways, through all education, evidently.

Then he adds, setting forth the perfective love, through syllogistic reasoning and true premises, most demonstratively and truly, introducing the conclusion in some such way: for its beginning is the most true desire for education (that is, for knowledge), and care for education is love, and love is the observance of its laws, and attention to the laws is the confirmation of incorruption, and incorruption makes one near to God. Therefore, desire for wisdom leads to the kingdom. For he teaches, I think, that true education is a certain desire for knowledge, and the practice of education consists through love of knowledge, and love is the observance of the commandments that lead to knowledge, and the observance of them is the confirmation of the commandments, through which incorruption supervenes, and incorruption makes one near to God. If, then, love of knowledge makes one incorrupt and near to God the king, and leads the royal man to the kingdom, therefore one must seek knowledge for discovery. Now seeking is an impulse toward comprehension, discovering the subject through certain signs, and discovery is the end and rest of seeking when comprehension has occurred, which is knowledge. And this is properly discovery, knowledge, being the comprehension of seeking. And they say that a sign is that which precedes, or coexists, or follows. Therefore, of the seeking concerning God, discovery is the teaching through the Son, and the sign of the existence of our Savior, that very Son of God, are both the prophecies preceding his coming, proclaiming him, and those that coexisted with his birth.

the sensible testimonies concerning him, and also the powers of him that are proclaimed and manifestly shown after the assumption. Therefore, the proof that the truth is among us is that the Son of God himself taught it. For if, concerning every inquiry, these universal elements—person and matter—are found, the true truth is shown to be with us alone, since the person of the demonstrated truth is the Son of God, and the matter is the power of faith, which prevails over everything opposed and over the whole world itself standing in opposition. But since this has been agreed to be confirmed in eternal works and words, and has already appeared as a matter of punishment, not of refutation, for anyone who does not believe that there is providence and is truly godless, our task is to consider what we should do and in what manner we should live in order to arrive at the knowledge of the all-powerful God, and how, by honoring the divine, we become causes of salvation for ourselves. Having learned and known from God himself, not from the sophists, what is pleasing to him, we undertake to do what is just and holy. That we are saved is pleasing to him, and salvation comes through both right action and knowledge, of which the Lord is the teacher of both. Therefore, if even according to Plato it is possible to learn the truth only from God or from the offspring of God, it is reasonable that, selecting the testimonies from the divine oracles, we boast that we are taught the truth through the Son of God, these things having first been prophesied and then clarified. And the things that contribute to the discovery of the truth are not themselves without value.

Philosophy, then, proclaiming providence and the reward of the blessed life and the punishment of the ill-fated one, theologically encompasses the whole, but no longer preserves precision and the particulars. For it does not treat of the Son of God nor of the economy according to providence in the same way as we do; for it did not know the worship according to God. Therefore the heresies according to barbarian philosophy, even if they speak of one God or hymn Christ, speak by way of summary, not according to truth; for they invent another god and receive Christ not as the prophecies deliver him. But the falsehoods of their dogmatized teachings, if they are opposed to the true way of life, are not against us. For instance, Paul circumcised Timothy for the sake of those who believed from among the Jews, so that, when he abolished the more fleshly preconceptions from the law, those instructed from the law might not fall away from the faith, knowing precisely that circumcision does not justify; for he agreed to become all things to all people by way of accommodation, preserving the principal doctrines, in order to win all. And Daniel wore the necklace before the king of the Persians, not overlooking the distress of the people. Therefore those who are truly liars are not those who accommodate for the sake of the economy of salvation, nor those who err concerning some particular matter, but those who fall away from the most principal things and who, as far as in them lies, deny the Lord and deprive the Lord of his true teaching, those who do not interpret and transmit the Scriptures worthily of God and of the Lord.

For the deposit given back to God is the understanding and practice of the pious tradition according to the Lord’s teaching through his apostles. And what you hear in the ear (clearly in a hidden manner and in mystery, for such things are allegorically said to be spoken in the ear), “Proclaim from the housetops,” he says, receiving it magnanimously and handing it down in lofty speech and clarifying the scriptures according to the rule of truth. For neither prophecy nor the Savior himself uttered the divine mysteries simply in such a way as to be easily grasped by chance persons, but he spoke in parables. Indeed, the apostles say concerning the Lord that he spoke everything in parables and spoke nothing to them without a parable. And if everything came through him and nothing came without him, then both prophecy and the law came through him and were spoken in parables through him. Yet all things are right before those who understand, says scripture, that is, all who, receiving the interpretation of the scriptures clarified by him according to the ecclesiastical rule, preserve it. And the ecclesiastical rule is the concord and harmony of the law and the prophets with the covenant handed down at the Lord’s advent. Now prudence follows knowledge, and temperance follows prudence; for let it be said that prudence is divine knowledge and exists among those who are deified, while temperance is mortal and exists among men who philosophize, though not yet wise. Immediately, if virtue is both divine and knowledge of itself—

Temperance is like an imperfect prudence, aiming at prudence but laboring practically and not contemplatively, just as justice, being human, is a common thing and is inferior to holiness, which is divine justice. For in the perfect man, justice does not consist in civil contracts or in the prohibition of law, but in self-action and in love toward God. For many reasons, then, the scriptures conceal their meaning: first, so that we may be seekers and always keep watch for the discovery of the saving words; second, because it was not fitting for all to understand, lest they be harmed by receiving in a different way what was spoken savingly by the Holy Spirit. Hence the holy mysteries of the prophecies, reserved for the elect among men and for those chosen from faith to knowledge, are veiled in parables; for the character of the scriptures is parabolic, because the Lord also, not being worldly, came among men as a worldly man; for he wore the whole of virtue and was about to lead the man who is a fellow-citizen of the world to the intelligible and essential realities through knowledge, from world to world. Therefore he also used figurative scripture; for such is the parable, a speech from something not the principal but resembling the principal, leading the one who understands to the true and principal, or, as some say, a phrase which through other things presents the things properly spoken with energy.

Now the whole economy concerning the Lord, having been prophesied, truly appears as a parable to those who do not know the truth, when one says that the Son of God, who made all things, took on flesh and was conceived in the womb of a virgin, in that his perceptible little body was born, and consequently, in that this happened, he suffered and was resurrected—this is a scandal to Jews and folly to Greeks, as the apostle says. But when the scriptures are opened and reveal to those who have ears that very truth, what the flesh suffered which the Lord assumed, they proclaim the power and wisdom of God. And above all, the parabolic form of scripture, being most ancient, as we have shown, naturally abounded especially among the prophets, so that it might show that even the philosophers among the Greeks and the wise among the other barbarians were ignorant of the holy spirit's future coming of the Lord and the mystical teaching to be handed down by him. Naturally, then, prophecy, proclaiming the Lord, so that it might not seem to blaspheme to some by speaking contrary to the opinions of the many, shaped its meanings with words that could also lead to other concepts. For instance, all the prophets who foretold the coming of the Lord and, along with it, the holy mysteries, were persecuted and killed, just as the Lord himself, when he clarified their scriptures, and his disciples who proclaimed the word after him likewise risked their lives. Hence Peter, in the Preaching, speaking about the apostles, says:

We, having unrolled the books of the prophets which we possessed, found that some things were spoken through parables, some through enigmas, and some directly and verbatim naming Christ Jesus; and we found both his coming and his death and the cross and all the other torments which the Jews inflicted upon him, and the resurrection and the ascension into the heavens before Jerusalem was built, just as all these things were written, which he was to suffer and what would come after him. Therefore, having recognized these things, we believed in God through the things written concerning him. And a little later he adds again, representing that the prophecies came to be by divine providence, thus: For we knew that God truly commanded these things, and we say nothing without scripture. Now the Hebrew language also has certain other peculiarities, just as each of the remaining languages does, containing some national character that reveals a distinctive quality. For they define a dialect as a diction accomplished with a national character. But prophecy is not made known by those dialects; for in the Greek dialects, by design, the so-called variations of tropes produce concealments, being derived in the image of our prophecies, but it is shown that the deviation from the correct form, whether in metrical or extemporaneous phrasing, is voluntary. For a trope is a diction transcribed from the proper to the improper for the sake of construction and phrasing, for the sake of convenience in speech.

Prophecy does not at all employ figures of speech for the beauty of expression, but because the truth is not for everyone, it is concealed in many ways, revealing the light only to those initiated into knowledge, to those who seek the truth through love. Now, a form of prophecy is called the proverb according to barbarian philosophy, and also the parable and the enigma in addition to these. Moreover, it is called wisdom, and as distinct from it, education, and again words of prudence, and turns of speech, and true righteousness, and teaching for the direction of judgment, and guilelessness acquired through education, and perception and understanding arising in the newly instructed. He who hears these prophets, it is said, will be wise, wiser still, and the intelligent will acquire governance and will understand parable and dark saying, utterances of the wise, and enigmas. But if the Greek dialects came to be named from Hellen, the son of Zeus surnamed Deucalion, from the times which we have already set forth, it is easy to see how many generations later the dialects among the Greeks are than the Hebrew language. As the text proceeds, we will note the aforementioned modes of the prophet in each section and present them, skillfully demonstrating the gnostic training according to the rule of truth. For was it not also in the vision to Hermas that the Power, appearing in the form of the Church, gave the book to be transcribed, which she wished to be announced to the elect? And he transcribed it letter by letter, it is said, not being able to complete the syllables.

It was thus made clear that the writing is evident to all when taken according to the bare reading, and that this is faith, having the order of elements, for which reason also the reading according to the letter is allegorized; but the unfolding, the gnostic interpretation of the scriptures, when faith has already advanced, we understand to be likened to the reading according to the syllables. And the prophet Isaiah is commanded, having taken a new book, to write something in it, the Spirit prophesying that the holy knowledge through the exegesis of the scriptures would come later, which at that time was still unwritten because it was not yet known; for it had been spoken from the beginning only to those who understand. Immediately, the Savior having taught the apostles, the unwritten tradition of the written word, already then, is transmitted to us, inscribed in new hearts according to the renewal of the book by the power of God. To this, the most learned among the Greeks consecrate the fruit of the pomegranate to Hermes, whom they say is reason, because of interpretation; for reason is full of hidden meaning. Rightly, therefore, Joshua the son of Nun saw Moses being taken up as twofold, and one

with angels, while the one deemed worthy of burial on the mountains around the ravines. And Jesus saw this spectacle below, having been raised in spirit together with Caleb, but not both behold alike; rather, one descended more quickly, bringing much weight, while the other, descending later, recounted the glory he had beheld, having been able to discern more than the other, since he had become purer, the history indicating, I think, that knowledge is not for all, since some look upon the body of the scriptures, the words and names, just as the body of Moses, while others perceive the meanings and what is signified by the names, investigating Moses with the angels. Indeed, of those who called upon the Lord himself, the many said, "Son of David, have mercy on me," but few recognized him as the Son of God, as did Peter, whom he also blessed, because flesh and blood did not reveal the truth to him, but rather his Father in heaven, indicating that the gnostic does not recognize the Son of the Almighty through his conceived flesh, but through the power of the Father itself. Not only, then, is the acquisition of truth difficult for those who simply happen upon it, but the history concerning Moses teaches that even for those to whom knowledge is proper, the vision is not given all at once, until, having become accustomed to look directly, just as the Hebrews at the glory of Moses and the saints of Israel at the visions of angels, so too we are able to look directly at the flashes of truth.

Let an example be set before us, by way of a brief survey, for gnostic clarity: the Decalogue. That the decad is sacred is now superfluous to mention. But if the inscribed tablets are the work of God, they will be found to exhibit a natural creation; for the finger of God is understood as the power of God, through which the creation of heaven and earth is perfected, both of which the tablets will be understood as symbols. For the writing and forming of God, deposited in the tablet, is the creation of the world. The Decalogue, according to the heavenly image, contains sun and moon, stars, clouds, light, wind, water, air, darkness, fire. This is the natural decalogue of heaven. And the image of the earth contains men, cattle, reptiles, wild beasts, and of aquatic creatures, fish and whales, and likewise of birds, both the carnivorous and those using tame food, and of plants similarly, the fruit-bearing and the barren. This is the natural decalogue of earth. And the ark that contains these would be the knowledge and wisdom of both divine and human things. Perhaps these two tablets would be the prophecy of the two covenants. They were renewed mystically, when ignorance and sin were increasing. The commandments are written, as it seems, in a twofold manner, by two spirits, the commanding and the subject, since the flesh desires against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh.

There is also a certain decad concerning man himself: the five senses, the vocal faculty, the seminal faculty, and, as an eighth, the spiritual element according to formation; a ninth, the ruling part of the soul; and a tenth, the characteristic mark of the Holy Spirit acquired through faith. Moreover, the legislation appears to give commands to ten human parts: to sight, hearing, smell, touch, and taste, and to the organs serving these, which are twofold—hands and feet. For this is the formation of man. The soul is introduced, and the ruling part, by which we reason, is introduced additionally, not generated by the deposition of seed, so that the tenth number is completed even without this, through which the whole activity of man is accomplished. For man, immediately upon coming into existence, takes the beginning of life from the passive parts. We say, therefore, that the rational and ruling part is the cause of the constitution of the living being, and also that the irrational part is ensouled and is a part of it. For instance, the vital

power, which contains the nutritive, augmentative, and generally motive faculty, has been allotted to the fleshly spirit, which is quick-moving and entirely pervades through the senses and the rest of the body, and is the first to be affected through the body. The ruling part possesses the deliberative faculty, around which are inquiry, learning, and knowledge. But the reference of all things is ordered to the one ruling part, and through it man both lives and lives in a certain manner. Therefore, through the bodily spirit man perceives, desires, rejoices, becomes angry, is nourished, and grows; and indeed through this he proceeds to actions according to conception and thought, and when he masters the desires, the ruling part rules. So the commandment "Thou shalt not desire" means thou shalt not be a slave to the fleshly spirit, but shalt rule over it, since the flesh desires against the spirit and rebels into disorder contrary to nature, and the spirit prevails over the flesh for the natural conduct of man. Is it not then fittingly said that man has been made in the image of God, not according to the shape of his construction, but because God creates all things by reason, while the gnostic man, having become rational, accomplishes noble actions by means of the rational faculty? Fittingly, then, the two tablets are said to indicate elsewhere the commandments given to the two spirits—to the formed and to the ruling part—delivered before the law. And the movements of the senses are imprinted according to thought and are manifested through the activity from the body; for comprehension comes from both.

Again, as sensation is to the sensible, so intellection is to the intelligible. Actions are also twofold: some according to conception, others according to actuality. The first commandment of the Decalogue sets forth that there is only one God, the Almighty, who led the people out of Egypt through the desert to the ancestral land, so that they might apprehend his power through divine operations, as they were able, and turn away from the idolatry of generated things, placing all their hope in the God who truly is. The second word indicated that one must not take nor apply the majestic power of God (which is the name; for this alone they were able, as even now the many, to learn)—not to bear his invocation upon generated and vain things, which the craftsmen among men have made, against which the one who is does not array himself; for in ungenerated self-identity the one who is alone exists. The third word is that which indicates that the world was made by God and that he gave us rest on the seventh day on account of the hardship of life; for God is unwearied, impassible, and without need, but we who bear flesh require rest. The seventh day, then, is proclaimed as rest, preparing by abstention from evils the primordial day, which is our true rest, which indeed is the first generation of light, in which all things are contemplated together and all things are inherited. From this day the first wisdom and knowledge shine forth for us.