Stromateis 1 part 12/42

But Plato the philosopher, positing happiness as the end, says that it is likeness to God so far as is possible—whether he somehow concurred with the doctrine of the Law (for great natures, stripped bare of the passions, hit upon the truth in some fashion, as Philo the Pythagorean says in expounding the writings of Moses), or whether he was instructed also by certain sages of that time, since he was ever thirsting for learning.

'Walk after the Lord your God, and you shall keep my commandments.'

For the Law calls assimilation 'following';

and such following, according to one's capacity, assimilates one to God.

'Be,' says the Lord, 'merciful and compassionate, as your heavenly Father is compassionate.'

Hence also the Stoics laid down as their doctrine that the end is to live in accordance with nature, unsuitably renaming God as 'nature,' since nature extends also to plants, and to sown crops, and to trees, and to stones.

'Evil men do not understand the law, but those who love the law raise up a wall for themselves.'

'For the wisdom of the crafty shall know its own ways, but the folly of fools is in error.'

'For upon whom shall I look, except upon him who is meek and quiet and trembles at my words?' says the prophecy.

We are taught that there are three kinds of friendship, and of these the first and best is that according to virtue;

for the love that springs from reason is firm and steadfast;

the second and middle kind is that according to reciprocity;

and this is communal, sharing, and beneficial to life;

for friendship arising from favor is common to all;

and the last and third kind we call that which arises from habit, while others call it that according to pleasure—changeable and mutable.

And it seems to me that Hippodamus the Pythagorean wrote most excellently:

'Of friendships, some arise from knowledge of the gods, some from the giving of men, and some from the pleasure of animals.'

Thus, one kind... is the friendship of the philosopher, another that of man, and another that of an animal.

For truly the man who does good is the image of God, in this very act also himself receiving good;

just as the helmsman at once both saves and is saved.

Therefore, whenever someone who asks obtains his request, he does not say to the one who gives:

Thus the giver in fact receives, and the receiver gives.

And it seems to me that Homer, foreshadowing the faithful man, spoke of 'give to a friend.'

<One must share with a friend, so that he may remain a friend all the more,> but one must help an enemy, so that he may no longer remain an enemy;

for by help goodwill is bound fast, while enmity is dissolved.

But even if readiness of mind is what is required, it is acceptable according to what one has, not according to what one does not have.

For it is not that there should be relief for others and affliction for you;

but rather out of equality at the present time—and so on.

'He has scattered abroad, he has given to the poor; his righteousness abides for ever,' says the Scripture.

For by 'according to image and likeness,' as we have also said before, that which pertains to the body is not signified—for it is not lawful for what is mortal to be made like what is immortal—but rather that which pertains to mind and reasoning, in which the Lord fittingly seals the likeness pertaining both to doing good and to ruling;

for governments are not set right by the qualities of bodies, but by the judgments of the mind;

'for by the counsels of holy men cities are governed well, and a household well'... And indeed endurance itself also presses on toward the divine likeness, reaping impassibility through patient endurance, if the accounts told concerning Ananias and his companions are fresh in one's memory—of whom Daniel the prophet also was one, filled with divine faith.

Daniel dwelt in Babylon, just as Lot dwelt in Sodom, and Abraham—who a little later became a friend of God—dwelt in the land of the Chaldeans;

So the king of the Babylonians brought Daniel down into a pit full of wild beasts, but the King of all, the faithful Lord, brought him back up unharmed;

This endurance the Gnostic will acquire, insofar as he is a Gnostic; he will bless God when he is tried, like the noble man of old;

like Job; and, as Jonah, he will pray while being swallowed by the sea monster, and faith will restore him prophesying to the Ninevites;

and even if he is shut up with lions, he will tame the beasts; and even if he is thrown into the fire, he will be bedewed with refreshment, but not consumed;

he will bear witness by night, he will bear witness by day;

in word, in life, in conduct he will bear witness;

being a housemate with the Lord, he will remain in intimate converse and at the same hearth according to the spirit, pure in flesh, pure in heart, sanctified in word.

'The world,' he says, 'has been crucified to this man, and he to the world.'

This man, bearing about the cross of the Savior, follows the Lord closely in his footsteps as though following a god, having become holy among the holy.

Mindful, then, of every virtue, the divine Law trains man especially toward self-control, laying this down as the foundation of the virtues; and indeed it educates us beforehand toward the acquiring of self-control by means of the use of animals, forbidding us to partake of those that are by nature fat, such as the kind of swine, which happens to be the fleshiest of all;

for such food is supplied to those who are given to luxury.

It is said, then, that one of the philosophers, giving an etymology, declared that the sow (hus) takes its name from 'sacrifice' (thuein), as being fit only for sacrifice and slaughter;

for a soul, it is said, was given to this animal for no other purpose than to keep its flesh firm.

He likewise forbade the eating of fish, restraining our desires from those that have neither fins nor scales.

For these differ from the other fish in the fullness of their flesh and in fatness.

Hence, I think, the one who instituted the mysteries also forbade the touching not only of certain animals, but withdrew from use even certain parts of the sacrificial victims, for reasons known to the initiates.

If, then, one must master the belly and what is beneath the belly, it is clear that we have received from above, from the Lord through the law, the command to cut off desire.

This could be perfectly accomplished if we should sincerely, without pretense, condemn the fuel that kindles desire—I mean pleasure.

They say that its concept is a smooth and gentle motion accompanied by a certain sensation.

They say that Menelaus, enslaved to this pleasure, after the fall of Troy set out to kill Helen as the cause of so many evils, yet was unable to carry it through, overcome by her beauty, through which he was brought back to the remembrance of pleasure.

Hence the tragic poets, mocking him, cried out reproachfully:

'You took her back, fawning upon the treacherous bitch.'

Are swords, then, struck deaf before beauty? ... But I, for my part, accept Antisthenes, who said of Aphrodite, 'I would shoot her down with arrows, if I could catch her, because she has corrupted many of our fair and virtuous women.'

He also says that erotic passion is a vice of nature:

and those wretched men who are overcome by it call this disease a god.

For it is shown by these things that the more unlearned are overcome through ignorance concerning pleasure—a pleasure that must not be admitted, even if it is called a god, that is, even if it happens to have been given by God for the purpose of procreation.

And Xenophon, calling pleasure outright a vice, says:

'O wretched one, what good do you know, or what fair thing do you contemplate—you who do not even wait for the desire of pleasant things, but eat before you hunger and drink before you thirst; and, that you may eat pleasantly, you contrive cooks;'

'and that you may drink pleasantly, you procure costly wines, and in summer you run about seeking snow;'

'and that you may sleep pleasantly, you prepare not only soft beds but even the frames beneath the beds.'

Hence, as Ariston said, against the whole quaternity—pleasure, pain, fear, and desire—much discipline and struggle are needed; for these, yes these, pass within through the very bowels and confound the heart of men.

For indeed, according to Plato, pleasure makes waxen even the tempers of those thought to be dignified, since every pleasure and every pain nails the soul to the body of one who does not mark himself off and fence himself apart from the passions.

'Whoever loses his own soul,' says the Lord, 'shall save it'—either by risking it boldly for the Savior's sake, as he himself did for us, or by releasing it from its fellowship with the accustomed life.

For if you resolve to release, withdraw, and separate the soul (for this is what the cross signifies) from the delight and pleasure found in this present life, you will have it discovered and at rest in the hope that is awaited.

This would be the practice of death, if we should be willing to be content with desires measured solely according to nature, overstepping in nothing the bounds of what is natural—neither toward excess nor toward what is contrary to nature, where the capacity for sin takes root.

'We must put on the whole armor of God, so that we may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil, since the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty through God for the pulling down of strongholds, demolishing reasonings and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ,' says the divine apostle.

There is need, then, of a man who will handle without wonder and without disturbance the very things from which the passions take their rise—such as wealth and poverty, glory and disrepute, health and sickness, life and death, toil and pleasure.

For in order that we may treat indifferent things with true indifference, we need great discernment, since we have already been damaged by much weakness and already twisted by a bad upbringing, having already indulged, through ignorance, in a corrupting nurture.

The simple account, then, of our philosophy holds that all the passions are impressions pressed into a soul that is soft and yielding—stamps, as it were, imprinted by the spiritual powers against which our wrestling is directed.

For it is, I think, the business of these malicious powers to attempt, on every occasion, to work something proper to their own disposition, so as to overcome and claim as their own those who have renounced them.

It follows naturally that some are thrown down in the wrestling; but as many as conduct the contest in a more athletic manner, having fought the all-in combat and pressed on even to the crown, the aforementioned powers, then indeed, worn out amid much gore, stand in wonder at the victors.

For among things that move, some move by impulse and imagination, as animals do, while others move by displacement, as inanimate things do.

They say that among inanimate things, plants too move progressively toward growth—if indeed one is willing to concede that plants are inanimate.

But the rational faculty, being proper to the human soul, ought not to act by impulse in the same manner as irrational animals, but also to discern the impressions and not be swept along with them.

The powers, then, of which we have spoken, hold out to impressionable souls such enticing images as beauty, glory, adultery, pleasures, and the like—just as those who drive along cattle wave green boughs before them; then, having outwitted those unable to distinguish true pleasure from false, and what is precarious and shameful from holy beauty, they enslave and lead them off.

And each deception, by continually pressing itself into the soul, forms its image within it.

And so the soul, without realizing it, comes to carry about the image of the passion, the cause of which arises both from the bait and from our own consent.

Those in the school of Basilides are accustomed to call the passions 'appendages,' holding that these exist in substance as certain spirits attached to the rational soul as a result of some primordial disturbance and confusion, and that upon these there further grow other spurious and heterogeneous natures of spirits—such as of a wolf, an ape, a lion, a goat—whose peculiar properties, being imprinted upon the soul as images, they say render the soul's desires like those of the animals.

For whatever properties they bear, they imitate the works belonging to them, and they assimilate themselves not only to the impulses and fancies of irrational animals, but even emulate the movements and beauties of plants, because they also carry appended properties of plants, and further still the properties of mere conditions, such as the hardness of adamant.

But we shall discuss this doctrine later, when we take up the subject of the soul.

For now, this alone should be noted: that Basilides' man preserves the image of a certain wooden horse, as in the poetic myth, harboring within a single body so great an army of diverse spirits.

At any rate, Isidore himself, the son of Basilides, in his treatise On the Attached Soul, sensing the difficulty of the doctrine, as if accusing himself, writes word for word:

For if you give anyone the conviction that the soul is not a single unity, but that the passions of the baser part come about through the compulsion of the appendages, wicked men will have no small pretext to say:

'I was compelled, I was swept away, I acted against my will.'

'I acted though I did not wish to'—they themselves having yielded to the desire for evil things and not having struggled against the compulsions of the appendages.

But it is necessary, by becoming superior through the rational faculty, to show ourselves masters over the lesser creation within us.

For this man too, like the Pythagoreans, supposes two souls within us—a matter we shall examine later.

But Valentinus also, writing to certain persons, speaks in these very words about the appendages:

'There is one who is good, whose free and open speech is his manifestation through the Son, and it is through him alone that the heart could become pure, every evil spirit being driven out of the heart.'

'For the many spirits dwelling in it do not allow it to be pure, each of them performing its own works, in many ways wantonly indulging improper desires.'

'And it seems to me that the heart suffers something like what happens to an inn:'

'For an inn too is pierced through and dug up, and is often filled with filth, since men lodge there licentiously and take no thought for the place, seeing it belongs to another.'

'In this same way the heart, too, as long as it receives no care, remains unclean, being the dwelling place of many demons:'

'But when the only good Father visits it, it is sanctified and shines resplendent with light, and so he who has such a heart is called blessed, because he shall see God.'

What, then, is the reason such a soul is not cared for from the beginning? Let them tell us.

Unless, that is, he should be shown to have been compelled, and proved weak.

For if he grants that the soul, upon repenting, chooses the better things, he will unwillingly be saying the very thing that the truth held among us teaches as doctrine: that salvation comes about through a persuadable change, and not from nature.

For just as vapors, whether rising from the earth or from marshes, condense into mists and cloud-like masses, so the emanations of fleshly desires bring a diseased condition upon the soul, scattering before it the phantom images of pleasure.

At any rate, they cast a shadow over the intellectual light, as the soul draws to itself the emanations arising from desire and, through the continual repetition of pleasures, thickens the clustered masses of the passions.

But a nugget of gold is not lifted from the earth already pure; rather, it is refined by smelting, and only then, having become pure, is it called gold—earth that has been purified.

'For ask, and it shall be given you' is said to those who are able of themselves to choose what is best.

But as to how we say that the devil's operations and the unclean spirits sow themselves into the soul of the sinner, I need not many more words, having as witness the apostolic Barnabas (who was one of the seventy and a fellow worker of Paul), speaking word for word somewhat as follows:

'Before we believed in God, the dwelling place of our heart was corruptible and weak, truly a temple built by hand:'

'because it was full of idolatry and was a house of demons, on account of doing whatever was contrary to God.'

He says, then, that sinners perform deeds corresponding to those of the demons—not that the spirits themselves dwell in the soul of the unbeliever.

'Take heed, that the temple of the Lord may be gloriously built.'

'Having received the remission of sins, and having hoped in the name, let us become new, being created afresh from the beginning.'

'For it is not that demons are driven out from us, but,' he says, 'our sins are forgiven—those sins which, like those demons, we used to commit before we believed.'

Fittingly, then, he set in opposition what follows:

'Wherefore, in our habitation, God truly dwells in us.'

'How so? His word of faith, his call of promise, the wisdom of the ordinances, the commandments of the teaching.'

I know of a certain sect I once encountered, whose leader used to claim that by the use of pleasure one fights against pleasure—this noble 'gnostic' deserting to pleasure by way of a sham battle (for indeed he claimed to be a gnostic himself), since he said it was no great feat to abstain from a pleasure one had never experienced, but rather to be in the midst of it and not be overcome—wherefore one ought to train oneself through it, while in it.

But this wretched man, without realizing it, was outwitting himself with his own pleasure-loving sophistry.

It is clear that Aristippus of Cyrene also attached himself to this same opinion — that of the sophist who boasts of possessing the truth.

When reproached, then, for constantly consorting with the Corinthian courtesan, he said, 'For I possess Lais, and am not possessed by her.'

Such also are those who claim to follow Nicolaus, adducing by a distortion some saying of the man to the effect that one must misuse the flesh.

But the noble man meant that one ought to curb the pleasures and the desires, and by this discipline wither away the impulses and assaults of the flesh.

But they, pouring themselves out into pleasure like goats — as it were outraging the body — live in soft indulgence, not knowing that the flesh, being by nature a fluid thing, wastes away into rags, while their soul lies buried in the mire of vice, pursuing the doctrine of pleasure itself, and not that of an apostolic man.

For in what do these men differ from Sardanapalus, whose life the epitaph makes plain?

'These things I have — all that I ate, and the wanton deeds I did, and the delights of love I enjoyed; but all those many and rich possessions are left behind.'

'For I too am ashes — I who once reigned over great Nineveh.'

For, in general, the passion of pleasure is not something necessary in itself, but is a consequence attending certain natural needs — hunger, thirst, cold, marriage.

If, then, it were possible to drink, or to take food, or to beget children apart from this pleasure, it would be shown that there is no other need for it whatsoever.

For pleasure is neither an activity nor a disposition, nor indeed any part of us; rather, it entered into life for the sake of service — just as they say salt was given for the sake of aiding the digestion of food.

But pleasure, having grown unruly and having seized mastery of the household, begets desire as its firstborn — an irrational craving and longing for whatever gratifies it — which also persuaded the philosopher Epicurus to posit pleasure as the final end.

He indeed deifies the stable condition of the flesh, and the confident hope concerning it.

For what else is luxury but a pleasure-loving gluttony and a superfluous excess indulged in by those given over to soft living? Diogenes writes graphically on this in a certain tragedy:

'Those crammed at heart with the pleasures of unmanly and utterly debased luxury, unwilling to labor even a little' — and what follows on this theme, though shamefully spoken, is fittingly said of lovers of pleasure.

Wherefore it seems to me that the divine law of necessity hangs fear over us, so that the philosopher, through caution and vigilance, might both acquire and preserve freedom from anxiety, remaining unfailing and sinless in all things.

Peace and freedom are gained only through unceasing and unwearied warfare against our passions.

For these antagonists are formidable, Olympic-class fighters, sharper than wasps, so to speak — and pleasure most of all, which not only by day, but even at night in dreams themselves, schemes against us alluringly with enchantment, and bites.

How then can the Greeks still be justified in running down the law, when they themselves also teach that pleasure must be enslaved through fear? Socrates, at any rate, bids us guard against whatever persuades us to eat when not hungry and to drink when not thirsty, and warns that the glances and kisses of the beautiful inject a venom by nature more dangerous than that of scorpions and spiders.

And Antisthenes chooses to go mad rather than to feel pleasure; while Crates of Thebes speaks of a woman exulting in the strength and character of her soul —

'neither enslaved by golden ornaments, nor by love that melts one with longing, nor by whatever else attends wanton insolence,'

'unenslaved and unbroken by slavish pleasure, they love an immortal kingdom and freedom.'

This same man writes elsewhere with blunt frankness that the remedy for the uncontrollable impulse toward sexual indulgence is hunger — and if not that, then the noose.

As for Zeno the Stoic, the comic poets — even while mocking him — bear witness to his teaching, somewhat as follows:

'For this man philosophizes a strange new philosophy:'

'He teaches men to go hungry — and still gains disciples:'

'One loaf of bread, a dried fig for relish, and water to drink besides.'

All these men, then, are not ashamed to confess plainly the benefit that comes from cautious reverence.

But true and not irrational wisdom, trusting not in bare words and oracular pronouncements, but training itself with impenetrable shields and effective weapons of defense — the divine commandments — through joint exercise and joint discipline, receives a divine power in that part of it which is inspired by the Word.

Indeed, they even describe the aegis of the poetic Zeus as terrible — around which on every side Fear is wreathed like a crown, and in it is Strife, and in it Valor, and in it chilling Pursuit;

and in it is the Gorgon's head, of the dread monster — terrible and fearsome, the portent of aegis-bearing Zeus.

But to those who are able rightly to discern what leads to salvation, I do not know whether anything will appear dearer than the majesty of the law, and its daughter, godly caution.

But whenever the law is said to strike too high a note — as also is said of the Lord concerning some — lest any of those who emulate him should sing off-key and out of tune, I understand it thus: not that it is in itself pitched too high, but that to those unwilling to take up the divine yoke, it seems to them too high a note.

For to those who are slack and weak, what is merely moderate seems overstrained; and to the unjust, what is only their due seems the height of rigorous justice.

For as many as let indulgence creep in through being friendly toward sins, these suppose truth to be harshness, and strictness to be severity, and consider merciless the one who does not sin along with them nor is dragged down together with them.

Well, then, tragedy writes concerning Hades:

'but he loved justice, and justice alone, without qualification.'

For even if we are not yet able to do what is enjoined upon us by the law, still, by perceiving that the fairest examples are set before us in it, we are able to nourish and increase our love of freedom;

and in this way we might be helped, as, according to our ability, we more eagerly are challenged by some things, imitate others, and are put to shame by yet others.

For neither were the righteous men of old, who lived according to the law, sprung from some fabled ancient oak, nor from a rock.

By their genuine will to philosophize, offering themselves wholly, they consecrated themselves to God, and were reckoned unto faith.

Zeno spoke well concerning the Indians, saying that he would rather see a single Indian being burned than learn all the demonstrations concerning the endurance of pain.

But for us there are inexhaustible fountains of witnesses, beheld with our own eyes every single day — men being burned, men being impaled, men having their heads cut off.

All these, the fear that comes from the law, having led them as a tutor unto Christ, trained them also to demonstrate their reverent caution through their own blood.

'God stood in the congregation of gods; and in the midst he will judge the gods.'

Who are these? Those who are superior to pleasure, who excel above the passions, who understand each of the things they do — the Gnostics, those who are greater than the world.

'And again, I said, You are gods, and all of you sons of the Most High.' To whom does the Lord say this? To those who, as far as possible, renounce everything human.

'For you are no longer in the flesh, but in the Spirit.'

'Though we are in the flesh, we do not wage war according to the flesh;'

'for flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does corruption inherit incorruption;'

'But behold, you shall die like men' — thus the Spirit has spoken, convicting us.

It is necessary, then, that we train ourselves in caution regarding whatever falls prey to the passions, banishing — after the manner of those who are truly philosophers — foods that provoke lust, the dissolute laxity that accompanies the marriage-bed, luxury, and the passions that lead to luxury; things which for others are a heavy contest, but for us no longer.

For self-control is the greatest gift of God.

For he himself has said, 'I will never fail you, nor will I ever forsake you' — judging him worthy on account of his genuine choice.

Thus, then, as we try to draw near with reverent caution, the gracious yoke of the Lord will receive us — one charioteer driving each of us, from faith to faith, according to our progress, unto salvation, so that the fitting fruit of blessedness may fall to us.

According to Hippocrates of Cos, discipline produces health not only for the body, but also for the soul: 'tirelessness in labors, moderation in food.'

But Epicurus, positing godlike blessedness in not being hungry, nor thirsty, nor cold, uttered an impious cry, saying that in these matters he would even rival Zeus the Father — as though proclaiming the blessed victory of dung-eating swine, and not of rational and philosophical beings.

For among those who begin from pleasure as their first principle are both the Cyrenaics and Epicurus.

For these expressly declare the end to be living pleasantly, and the only perfect good to be pleasure.

And Epicurus says that even the removal of pain is itself pleasure.

And he says that the choiceworthy thing is that which, of itself, first draws the soul to itself — clearly, something that consists in motion.

Dinomachus and Callipho declared the end to be doing everything within one's power for the sake of attaining pleasure, and actually attaining it; while Hieronymus the Peripatetic held that the end is to live untroubled, and that the only final good is well-being.

And Diodorus likewise, coming from the same school, declares the end to be living untroubled and nobly.

Epicurus, then, and the Cyrenaics say that pleasure is the first thing proper to us by nature.

For, having entered in for the sake of pleasure —

as they say, virtue in turn produced pleasure.

But according to the school of Callipho, virtue crept in for the sake of pleasure; yet, in time, having perceived the beauty inherent in itself, it presented itself as of equal honor with its own first principle — that is, with pleasure.

...that happiness, nor indeed the end, belongs to everyone who possesses virtue;

for the wise man, when tortured and falling into unwished-for misfortunes, and on account of these things gladly willing to escape from life, is neither blessed nor happy.

for virtue also has need of a certain amount of time.

For it is not attained in a single day, since it consists in a complete life; for, as they say, a child is never happy.

And the complete span of time would be a human lifetime.

Happiness, then, is completed out of the three classes of goods.

Therefore, according to them, neither the poor man nor the man without reputation is happy—nor, indeed, the sickly man—nor, again, if one should be a household slave.

Again, on the other hand, Zeno the Stoic considers the end to be living according to virtue, while Cleanthes holds it to be living in agreement with nature; Diogenes, again, considered the end to consist in right reasoning, which he understood to consist in the choice of things according to nature.

And Antipater, his disciple, supposes the end to consist in continually and unwaveringly choosing things according to nature, and rejecting those contrary to nature.

Archedemus, again, explained the end to be this: living while choosing the greatest and most authoritative things according to nature, without being able to transgress them.

In addition to these, Panaetius further declared the end to be living according to the impulses given to us by nature.

And last of all, Posidonius defined the end as living in contemplation of the truth and order of the universe, and helping to establish it as far as possible, in no way being led by the irrational part of the soul.

But some of the more recent Stoics have defined it thus, that the end is living in accordance with the constitution of man.