Stromateis 1 part 20/42

...love: truly blessed is this one, and a genuine martyr, who has perfectly confessed both the commandments and God through the Lord, whom, having loved, he came to know as a brother, giving himself wholly for the love of God, rendering back, as it were a deposit, the man that was demanded of him, with gratitude and love.

But when, on the other hand, he says, 'When they persecute you in this city, flee to the other,' he does not counsel flight on the ground that being persecuted is an evil, nor does he command this out of fear of death, bidding us avoid it by flight;

rather, he wills that we should become the cause or accomplice of no evil to anyone — neither to ourselves, nor to the one who persecutes and the one who kills.

For in a certain manner he commands one to avoid it; but he who disregards this is rash and reckless.

And if he who kills a man of God sins against God, then the one who delivers himself up to the tribunal also becomes guilty of his own murder.

And this would be the one who does not shelter himself from the persecution, exposing himself to capture through recklessness.

This one, so far as lies in himself, becomes a fellow-worker with the wickedness of the persecutor; and if he even provokes it further, he is wholly the cause, calling forth the beast.

In like manner also, if he provides any cause of conflict, or of loss, or of enmity, or of a lawsuit, he has generated an occasion for persecution.

For this reason, then, we have been commanded to cling to nothing in this life, but even to give up our cloak also to the one who takes our coat — not merely that we might remain free from attachment, but so that, by not contesting the matter with those who make claims against us, we might not provoke them to savagery against ourselves, nor through us stir up blasphemy against the Name.

'Yes,' they say, 'if God cares for you, why then are you persecuted and put to death? Or does he himself hand you over to this fate?' But we do not suppose that the Lord willed that we should fall into these circumstances; rather, he foretold prophetically the things that were going to happen — that we would be persecuted, put to death, and tortured, on account of his name.

So that he did not will us to be persecuted, but foretold what we would suffer, training us to endurance through the prediction of what was to come — the endurance for which he promised the inheritance.

And yet we are not punished alone, but along with many others.

'But those,' they say, 'being evildoers, justly undergo their punishment.'

Unwillingly, then, they bear witness to our righteousness — to us who are unjustly punished for righteousness' sake.

But neither does the injustice of the judge touch the working of Providence;

for the judge must be master of his own judgment, not manipulated like a puppet, after the manner of lifeless instruments, receiving perhaps only occasions from the external cause.

He, then, is tested in the very act by which he judges, just as we too are tested both by our choice of what is to be preferred and by our endurance;

and even though we do no wrong, yet the judge regards us as though we were wrongdoers;

for he does not know the truth of our case, nor does he wish to learn it, but is carried away by an empty prejudice; wherefore he too is judged.

They persecute us, then, not because they have perceived us to be unjust, but because they suppose that the mere fact of being Christians constitutes a wrong against life — both on the part of those who so conduct themselves, and on the part of those who urge others to choose a similar life.

'And why,' they say, 'are you not helped when you are persecuted?'

For how indeed are we wronged, as far as concerns ourselves, by being released through death to go to the Lord, and by undergoing what is, so to speak, a change of life just as one undergoes a change of age? And if we are of sound mind, we shall be grateful to those who have furnished the occasion for our swift departure, if indeed we bear witness out of love;

but if we were not thought by the multitude to be base men, and if they too knew the truth, all would rush upon the way — and there would be no [room for] choice.

But indeed our faith, being the light of the world, exposes their unbelief.

For Anytus and Meletus can indeed kill me, but they could not harm me in any way whatsoever;

for I do not think it is lawful for the better to be harmed by the worse.

So that each of us may say with confidence:

The Lord is my helper; I will not fear;

what shall man do to me? For the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and no torment shall touch them.

But Basilides, in the twenty-third book of his Exegetics, speaks as follows, word for word, concerning those who are punished by martyrdom:

'For I say that as many as fall under the so-called afflictions, having sinned unwittingly in other, hidden transgressions, are brought to this good end, being in truth called to account for other things instead, by the kindness of him who orders all things — so that they may not suffer as condemned for openly acknowledged evils, nor be reviled as an adulterer or a murderer, but because they are, as it were by nature, Christians; which will console them, so that they do not even seem to themselves to be suffering at all.'

'And even if someone who has not sinned at all should come to suffer — a rare case indeed — even he will not suffer anything through the design of a higher power, but will suffer just as an infant suffers, which is thought not to have sinned.'

Then, further on, he adds again:

'As, then, the infant, though it has not previously sinned — or rather, has actively done nothing wrong, yet has within itself the capacity for sin — when subjected to suffering is benefited, gaining many hard-won advantages; so likewise, even if a perfect man happens to have done no wrong in deed, yet suffers, whatever he suffers he suffers in a manner similar to the infant.'

'For though he has within himself the capacity for sin, he did not sin, because he received no occasion for actually sinning.'

'So that his not having sinned is not to be reckoned to his own credit.'

'For as the man who wishes to commit adultery is an adulterer, even if he does not succeed in committing adultery, and the man who wishes to commit murder is a murderer, even if he is unable to kill, so likewise, if I should see the sinless man of whom I speak suffering, even though he has done no evil, I will call him evil because of his willing to sin.'

For I would say anything else rather than call that which exercises providence evil.

Then, further on, he speaks directly about the Lord as about a man, saying:

If, however, leaving aside all these arguments, you come to embarrass me by citing certain persons, saying, for instance, 'So-and-so, then, sinned, for so-and-so suffered' — if you allow me, I will say: he did not sin, but he was like an infant who suffers.

But if you should press the argument more forcibly, I will say: whatever man you may name is a man, but God is just.

For no one, as someone has said, is clean from filth.

But Basilides' hypothesis says that the soul, having sinned beforehand in another life, undergoes punishment here — the elect soul honorably through martyrdom, the other being purified by its own appropriate punishment.

And how can this be true, since it lies within our own power whether to confess and be punished, or not? For the providence according to Basilides is dissolved in the case of one who is about to deny the faith.

I ask him, then, concerning the confessor who has been seized: whether, according to providence, he will bear witness and be punished, or not.

For if he denies, he will not be punished.

But if, from the outcome, he will say that this man ought not to be punished, then unwillingly he will further attest that the ruin of those who are about to deny the faith comes from providence.

And how, then, is the most glorious reward still laid up in heaven for the one who has borne witness, on account of his witnessing? But if providence did not permit the one prone to sin to arrive at sinning, it becomes unjust on both counts: both by not rescuing the one being dragged to punishment for the sake of righteousness, and by rescuing the one who wished to do wrong — the former acting through the means he chose, while providence, having prevented the deed, did not deal justly with the one prone to sin.

And how is he not godless, deifying the devil while daring to call the Lord a man prone to sin? For the devil tempts, knowing indeed what we are, but not knowing whether we will endure.

But wishing to shake us off from the faith and to bring us under his own subjection, he tempts — which alone has been permitted to him — both because we must be saved by our own efforts, having received the means from the commandment, and for the shaming of the tempter when he fails, and for the strengthening of those within the church, and for the conscience of those who admire our endurance.

But if martyrdom is a recompense through punishment, then so are the faith and the teaching, on account of which martyrdom occurs.

Where, then, is faith still, if martyrdom occurs as a recompense for sins previously committed? Where is the love toward God that is pursued and endures for the sake of the truth? Where is the praise for the one who confesses, or the blame for the one who denies? And to what use is right conduct any longer — the mortifying of desires and hating none of the things created? But if, as Basilides himself says, we have understood one part of what is called the will of God to be the loving of all things, because all things preserve a relation to the whole; another part, the desiring of nothing; and a third, the hating of not even one thing — then by the will of God the punishments too will exist.

For neither did the Lord suffer by the will of the Father, nor are those who are persecuted, persecuted by the will of God; since otherwise one of two things follows: either persecution will be something good because of the will of God, or those who ordain and afflict it are innocent.

But surely nothing happens without the will of the Lord of all.

It remains, then, briefly to say that such things happen because God has not prevented them.

For this alone preserves both the providence and the goodness of God.

One should not, then, suppose that he himself brings about the afflictions — far be it to think this — but one ought rather to be persuaded that he does not prevent those who bring them about, and that he turns to good use the audacious deeds of adversaries ('I will indeed tear down the wall,' he says, 'and it will become a trampling-ground'), providence being a disciplinary art of this kind: in the case of others, because of each one's own sins, but in the case of the Lord and the apostles, because of ours.

Indeed the divine apostle says: 'For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from fornication, that each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in the passion of desire, as also the Gentiles who do not know God; that no one transgress and defraud his brother in the matter, because the Lord is the avenger concerning all these things, just as we also told you before and testified.'

'For God did not call us to uncleanness, but in sanctification.'

'Therefore, whoever rejects this rejects not man, but God, who has also given his Holy Spirit to you.'

For the sake, then, of this sanctification of ours, the Lord was not prevented from suffering.

If, then, one of them, defending the doctrine, should say that the martyr is punished for sins committed before this incarnation, but will in turn receive the fruit of his conduct in this present life — for the administration of the universe has been so arranged — we shall ask him whether this recompense comes about by providence.

For if it is not a matter of the divine administration, then their scheme of purifications is gone, and their hypothesis has collapsed; but if the purifications are by providence, then the punishments too are by providence.

And even if providence, as they say, begins to be set in motion from the Archon, yet it was implanted in the essences, together with the very origination of those essences, by the God of the universe.

This being so, they must necessarily admit either that the punishment is not unjust (in which case those who condemn and persecute the martyrs act justly), or that the persecutions too are brought about by the will of God.

No longer, then, do pain and fear, as they themselves say, befall circumstances as rust befalls iron, but they come to the soul from its own will.

Now concerning these matters there is much to be said, which it will remain to consider later, when we deal with them in due season.

But Valentinus, in a certain homily, writes word for word:

'From the beginning you are immortal, and you are children of eternal life, and you wished to apportion death to yourselves, that you might spend it and consume it, and that death might die in you and through you.'

'For when you dissolve the world, but are not yourselves dissolved, you have lordship over creation and all corruption.'

For he too, like Basilides, posits a race that is saved by nature, and holds that this distinct race has come down here to us from above for the destruction of death, and that the origin of death is the work of the one who created the world.

Therefore he also interprets that Scripture as follows:

'He shall live' — as being the cause of death.

Concerning this god he hints at those things, writing in these very words:

'By as much as the image is inferior to the living face, by so much is the world inferior to the living Aeon.'

'What, then, is the cause of the image? The majesty of the face, which furnished the painter with the pattern, so that it might be honored through its name.'

'For the form was not found to be the authentic one, but the name filled up what was lacking in the moulding.'

'And the invisibility of God also cooperates toward faith in the thing that has been moulded.'

For he called the Demiurge, who was named 'god and father,' an image of the true God and a prophet; and Sophia he called the painter, whose moulded work is the image, unto the glory of the invisible one — since whatever proceeds from a syzygy is a pleroma, but whatever proceeds from one alone is an image.

But since what appears of it is not the soul that comes from the intermediate region, the differentiated element comes, and this is the inbreathing of the differentiated spirit; and, in general, that which is breathed into the soul — the image of the spirit — and in general, the things said of the Demiurge who came into being 'according to the image' — these, they say, were prophesied beforehand, in the portion concerning the sensible image, in Genesis, regarding the origin of man.

And indeed they transfer this likeness also to themselves, handing down the teaching that the implanting of the differentiated spirit occurred without the Demiurge's knowledge.

Now when we come to discuss the fact that the God preached through the Law and the Prophets and the Gospel is one, we shall also speak to this point (for it is a fundamental matter), but for now we must respond to what is more urgent.

If the differentiated race comes for the purpose of destroying death, then it is not Christ who abolished death — unless he too should be said to be of the same substance as they.

But if he abolished it to this extent — that death does not touch the differentiated race — then it is not these people, the counterfeit imitators of the Demiurge, who abolish death: those who, according to the choice of their doctrine, breathe the life from above into the soul from the intermediate region, their own image, even if they say that this comes about through the Mother.

But even if they should say that they wage war against death together with Christ, let them confess the hidden doctrine — namely, that they dare to run down the divine power of the Demiurge, correcting his creation as though they were superior, attempting to save the psychic image, which he himself was not able to rescue from corruption.

Then the Lord too would be superior to the demiurge-god.

For the Son would never contend against the Father, and that too among gods.

But that this is the Father of the Son, the maker of all things, the almighty Lord — this we have deferred to that inquiry in which we have promised to discuss the heresies, showing that he alone is the one proclaimed by him.

But for us, the apostle, writing concerning the endurance of afflictions, says this too is from God:

'That it has been granted to you, on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for his sake.'

'engaged in the same conflict which you saw in me, and now hear to be in me.'

'If then there is any comfort in Christ, any consolation of love, any fellowship of the Spirit, any affection and compassion, fulfil my joy, that you be of the same mind, having the same love, joined in soul, thinking the one thing.'

But if he is poured out as a libation upon the sacrifice and service of faith, rejoicing and rejoicing together with them — and calls the Philippians, to whom the apostle's discourse is addressed, sharers of his grace — how then can he call them 'joined in soul' and yet also 'psychic'? Likewise also, writing concerning Timothy and himself, he says, 'For I have no one of like soul, who will genuinely care for your affairs.'

'For they all seek their own things, not the things of Jesus Christ.'

Let not, then, those aforementioned heretics call us 'psychic' as a term of reproach — nor, indeed, the Phrygians either.

For these also already call 'psychic' those who do not adhere to the New Prophecy — against whom we shall discourse in the treatise Concerning Prophecy.

The perfect man, then, must practice love, and from this hasten on to divine friendship, fulfilling the commandments through love.

He speaks not of impiety, or adultery, or theft as such, but of the thief and the impious man and the adulterer — not insofar as he sins and by his particular act defiles the appellation 'man,' but insofar as he is a man and a work of God.

Indeed, sinning lies in the act, not in the essence.

Those who sin are called enemies of God — enemies, that is, of the commandments, having become such by not having obeyed them — just as those who have obeyed are called friends: the latter on account of their affinity with God, the former on account of the estrangement arising from their deliberate choice.

For neither enmity nor sin is anything apart from the enemy and the one who sins.

And 'to desire nothing' does not teach us to have no longing on the ground that the desirable things are alien to us — as those suppose who hold the doctrine that the Creator is other than the first God — nor on the ground that becoming is abominable and evil (for these opinions are godless); but we ourselves say that the things of the world are 'alien' not as being improper, nor as not belonging to the God who is Lord of all, but because we do not remain in them for the whole age — since they are 'alien' in the sense of ownership, belonging to a succession of owners, but they are our own by use, for whose sake indeed they came to be, except insofar as it is necessary for us to be occupied with them for a time.

We ought, then, to use, according to natural desire, those things that are not rightly forbidden, avoiding every excess and inordinate attachment.

'Love your enemies,' he says, 'bless those who curse you, and pray for those who mistreat you' — and the like.

'That you may become sons of your Father who is in the heavens' — hinting at the assimilation to God.

'Be well disposed to your adversary quickly, while you are with him on the way.'

The 'adversary' is not the body, as some would have it, but the devil (and those made like him), who journeys with us through men who emulate his works in this earthly life.

It is not possible, then, for those who confess themselves to belong to Christ, yet spend their time occupied in the works of the devil, to avoid suffering the most hateful things.

'Lest he deliver you up to the judge, and the judge to the officer' of the dominion 'of the devil.'

'For I am persuaded that neither death' — that which comes through the onslaught of persecutors — 'nor life' — that which pertains to this present existence — 'nor angels,' the apostate ones, 'nor principalities' (and for Satan, 'principality' means the life he has chosen —

for such are the principalities and powers of darkness that belong to him) — 'nor things present,' in which we now are during the span of this life, as, for the soldier, hope, and for the merchant, gain; 'nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature' (acting, by its own proper energy, in opposition to the faith of one who has freely chosen it;

and 'creature' is used as a synonym also for 'energy,' such energy being properly our own doing) — 'shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.'

Here you have a summation of the Gnostic martyr.

'We know that we all have knowledge' — the common knowledge in things common, and the knowledge that there is one God;

for he was writing to believers.

but not in all is present that knowledge which is handed down to a few.

There are some who say that the knowledge concerning food offered to idols is not present in all, lest our liberty should somehow become a stumbling block to the weak;

'for the weak one perishes through your knowledge.'

And even if they claim that one must buy everything sold in the meat market, adducing, by way of question, the phrase 'asking no questions' as though it meant the same as 'to one who questions,' they will be putting forward a ridiculous interpretation.

For the apostle says, 'Buy everything else that is sold in the market, asking no questions' — with the exception of what is declared in the catholic epistle of all the apostles together, [issued] with the good pleasure of the Holy Spirit, which epistle was written in the Acts of the Apostles and conveyed to the believers through Paul himself, as its minister.

For they declared it necessary to abstain from things offered to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication, and that by keeping themselves from these they would do well.

That, then, is a different matter from what is said by the apostle:

'Have we not the right to lead about with us a sister as a wife, as do the other apostles also, and the brothers of the Lord, and Cephas? But we have not used this right,' he says, 'but we bear all things, that we may give no hindrance to the gospel of Christ' — either because carrying such burdens would keep us from being wholly unencumbered for everything, or because we would become an example to those who wish to practice self-control, for the benefit of those not yet built up so as to eat what is set before them without anxious scruple, and to associate with a wife however it happens to fall out;

and it is especially fitting that those entrusted with so great a stewardship should present themselves as an unblemished example to those who are learning.

'For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all,' he says, 'that I might gain the more'; and 'every one who strives for the mastery is temperate in all things.'

But 'the earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof.'

It is, then, on account of conscience that one must abstain from what one must abstain from.

And by conscience I mean not one's own — for that belongs to knowledge — but that of the other person, lest he be badly built up, ignorantly imitating what he does not understand, and so become a despiser instead of a magnanimous man.

'For why should my liberty be judged by another man's conscience? If I partake with thankfulness, why am I evil spoken of for that for which I give thanks?' 'Whatsoever, then, you do, do all to the glory of God' —

that is, whatever it is permitted to do under the rule of the faith.

'With the heart man believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.'

'Whosoever believes on him shall not be put to shame.' This is the word of faith which we preach, that if you confess with your mouth the word that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you shall be saved.

This directly describes a perfect righteousness, fulfilled both in deed and in contemplation.

Those who persecute us, then, are to be blessed:

'Bless, and curse not.'

'For this is our boasting, the testimony of our conscience, that in holiness and sincerity of God we have known him' — showing forth, through this brief occasion, the work of love — 'that not in fleshly wisdom, but in the grace of God, we have conducted ourselves in the world.'

So much, then, the apostle has said concerning knowledge.

But the common teaching of the faith he has called 'the fragrance of knowledge' in the second epistle to the Corinthians.

'For until this very day the same veil remains, at the reading of the old testament, upon the hearts of the many, not lifted' — [a lifting granted only] through turning to the Lord.

For this reason he also revealed a resurrection to those capable of clear discernment — the resurrection of the life that, while still in the flesh, yet crawls upon its belly.

Hence also he called such people 'offspring of vipers' — the lovers of pleasure, those enslaved to the belly and to shameful lust, and those who, on account of worldly desires, cut off one another's heads.

'Little children, let us not love in word, nor in tongue,' says John, teaching that we should be perfect, 'but in deed and in truth.'

'By this we shall know that we are of the truth.'

But if God is love, then godliness too is love.

'There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear.'

'This is the love of God, that we keep his commandments.'

Again, moreover, it is written for the one who longs to become a Gnostic:

'But be an example to the believers, in word, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity.'

For here, I think, the perfection of faith is distinguished from the common faith.

And indeed the divine apostle sets forth the rule of the Gnostic through the following words, writing on the one hand, 'For I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.'

'I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound.'

'In everything and in all things I have learned the secret, both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer want.'

'I can do all things through him who strengthens me' — and this, moreover, addressing others by way of reproof, he does not hesitate to say:

'But call to remembrance the former days, in which, after you were illuminated, you endured a great struggle of sufferings —

partly, being made a spectacle both by reproaches and afflictions, and partly, becoming companions of those who were so treated.'

'knowing in yourselves that you have a better and an enduring possession.'

'Cast not away, then, your confidence, which has great recompense of reward.'

'For you have need of patience, that, having done the will of God, you might receive the promise.'

'For yet a very little while, and he who is coming will come, and will not delay.'

'Now my righteous one shall live by faith;

and if he draws back, my soul has no pleasure in him.'

'But we are not of those who draw back unto perdition, but of those who have faith unto the saving of the soul.'

Then he sets before you a whole swarm of divine examples.

'For was it not by faith,' he says, 'through endurance, that they prevailed — those who had trial of mockings and scourgings, and moreover of bonds and imprisonment? They were stoned, they were tempted, they were slain with the sword; they went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, afflicted, evil entreated, of whom the world was not worthy, wandering in deserts and mountains and dens and caves of the earth.'

'And all these, having obtained a good report through faith, did not receive the promise of God.'

It remains for us to understand the word left unexpressed by way of silence — 'alone.'

'God having provided some better thing concerning us — for he was good — that they should not be made perfect apart from us.'

'Therefore, we also, having so great a holy and translucent cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin that so easily besets us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith.'

That he speaks of one and the same salvation in Christ for both the righteous of old and for us, he has already stated clearly above; nonetheless, speaking also concerning Moses, he adds:

'esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt;

for he looked unto the recompense of reward.'

'By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king;

for he endured, as seeing him who is invisible.'

The divine wisdom speaks concerning the martyrs:

'In the eyes of the foolish they seemed to have died, and their departure was accounted an affliction, and their journey away from us, destruction;

for even though in the sight of men they were punished, their hope is full of immortality.'

Then it adds, teaching that martyrdom is a glorious purification:

And having been chastened a little, they shall be greatly benefited, because God tested them—that is, he allowed them to be tried for their proving and to the confusion of the one who tempted them—and found them worthy of himself, plainly to be called sons.

As gold in the furnace he tried them, and as a whole burnt offering of sacrifice he accepted them.

And in the time of their visitation they shall shine forth, and shall run about like sparks among stubble.

They shall judge nations and rule over peoples, and the Lord shall reign over them forever.

Yes indeed, in his Epistle to the Corinthians the apostle Clement himself also, sketching out for us a certain type of the Gnostic, says: