Stromateis 1 part 28/42

'for a man ought by nature to be useful, not corrupting virgins nor committing adultery, not stealing nor murdering for the sake of money;'

'nor should you ever covet, Pamphilus, so much as the thread of a needle;'

'for God sees you, being present close at hand.'

'I am a God who draws near, and not a God far off;'

'shall a man do anything in secret, and shall I not see him?' he says through Jeremiah.

And again Menander, paraphrasing that scripture, 'Offer a sacrifice of righteousness, and hope in the Lord,' writes somewhat as follows:

'nor, dearest friend, ever covet another's needle;'

'for God delights in righteous deeds and not in unrighteous ones, and allows the one who labors to raise up his own livelihood, tilling the earth night and day.'

'But sacrifice to God by being righteous through and through, not resplendent in your robes as you ought to be in your heart.'

'†If you hear thunder†, do not flee, being conscious of nothing amiss in yourself, O master;'

For God sees you, being present nearby.

'While you are yet speaking,' says the Scripture, 'I will say:'

Diphilus the comic poet, again, discourses somewhat as follows concerning judgment:

Do you think, Niceratus, that the dead, having partaken of every luxury in life, have escaped the divine as though unnoticed? There is an eye of Justice, which sees all things.

For in Hades, too, we believe there are two paths:

one the way of the just, and the other the way of the impious.

'If the earth,' he says, 'will cover the two alike for all time, then go and plunder, steal, defraud, throw everything into confusion —'

there is also judgment in Hades;

which God, the master of all, will execute — he whose name is fearful, so that I would not even dare to pronounce it;

who gives length of life to sinners.

But if any mortal thinks that, in doing some evil day by day, he escapes the notice of the gods, he thinks a wicked thought, and in thinking it he is caught, whenever Justice happens to have leisure.

Behold, all you who think there is no God—

but if anyone, being evil by nature, fares well, let him make his profit of the time;

for in time he will later pay the penalty.

For there will be, there will be, that age's appointed time, when the golden-faced ether shall burst open its treasury laden with fire, and the flame, once fed and raging, shall consume all things upon the earth and aloft.

And after a little he adds again:

And when the universe comes to its end, the whole depth of the waves will vanish, the earth will be bereft of its foundations, nor will the air, being on fire, any longer bear up the winged tribes; and thereafter it will restore all things which before it had destroyed.

We shall find things similar to these also written, in some such form, among the Orphic writings:

For having hidden all things, he brought them up again into the much-rejoicing light out of his sacred heart, working wondrous deeds.

'And if we live out our lives piously and righteously, we are blessed here, and more blessed after our departure hence, possessing happiness not for a limited time but able to rest in eternity, sharing one hearth with the other immortals, seated at their tables, free from the griefs of men, unwearied...' — thus speaks the philosophical poetry of Empedocles.

No one, even by the Greeks' own reckoning, will be so great as to stand above justice, nor so small as to escape its notice.

The same Orpheus also says the following:

Looking to the divine word, cleave fast to it, directing the intellectual vessel of your heart;

and tread well upon the path, and look only upon the immortal Ruler of the universe.

And again concerning God, calling him invisible, he says that he is known to but one man of Chaldean race — whether by this he means Abraham, or rather his son — through these words:

except one only-begotten offshoot, sprung of old from the race of the Chaldeans;

for he was skilled in the course of the stars, and how the sphere revolves round the earth in a circular motion, evenly upon its own axis, and he guides the winds about both the air and the flowing waters.

Then, as though paraphrasing the words 'Heaven is my throne, and earth is the footstool of my feet,' he adds:

He himself is firmly established again upon the great heaven, upon a golden throne, and the earth lies beneath his feet.

He has stretched forth his right hand unto the bounds of Ocean, and the foundation of the mountains trembles within its heart, nor can it bear his mighty strength.

He himself is everywhere heavenly, and on earth all things come to their end, he himself holding the beginning and the middle and the end.

It is not lawful for you to say otherwise:

He rules from on high... and what follows thereafter.

For through these words he has made manifest all those prophetic sayings:

'If you open the heaven, trembling will seize the mountains because of you... and they will melt, as wax melts before the face of fire;'

And the words through Isaiah: 'Who has measured the heaven with a span, and the whole earth with the hollow of the hand?' Again, when he says:

O ruler of ether and of Hades, of the sea and of the earth, who with your thunders shake the mighty house of Olympus;

at whom the demons shudder, and the assembly of the gods stands in fear;

whom even the Fates obey, inexorable though they are;

O imperishable one, mother-father, by whose spirit all things are stirred;

who stir the winds and cover all things with clouds, splitting the broad ether with thunderbolts;

Your order runs among the stars in unchangeable ordinances;

and beside your fiery throne stand the toiling angels, whose care it is that all things are accomplished for mortals;

Your spring shines fresh with purple flowers;

your winter comes on with cold clouds;

your Bacchic autumn fruits Bromius once distributed.

Then he adds, expressly naming God 'Almighty':

imperishable, immortal, speakable only to the immortals.

Come, greatest of all the gods, with mighty necessity, terrible, unconquerable, great, imperishable, whom the ether crowns.

By the term 'mother-father' he signified not only the generation out of non-being, but he also gave occasion to those who introduce 'emanations' perhaps also to conceive of a consort for God;

He paraphrases those prophetic scriptures — both the one through Hosea, 'I am he who establishes thunder and creates wind, whose hands founded the host of heaven,' and the one... through Moses:

'See, see, that I am he, and there is no other god besides me;'

'I will kill, and I will make alive;'

'and there is none who shall deliver out of my hands.'

He himself, out of good, plants evil for mortals, and chilling war and tearful pains, according to Orpheus.

O Zeus, father Zeus, yours is the dominion of heaven, and you behold the wicked and lawless deeds among men.

Let the Thracian Orpheus sing to us again:

He has stretched forth his right hand on every side to the bound of Ocean, and the earth lies beneath his feet.

These things are manifestly taken from that source:

'The Lord will save the inhabited cities, and he will grasp the whole inhabited world in his hand as a nest;'

'The Lord, who made the earth by his own might,' as Jeremiah says, '... and set up the world by his wisdom.'

Moreover, in addition to these, Phocylides, calling the angels 'daimones,' shows through the following words that some of them are good and some evil, since we too have received the tradition of certain apostates:

But indeed there are spirits set over men, different ones at different times;

some, when evil approaches, act to deliver men from it —

Rightly, then, Philemon the comic poet also cuts down idolatry by these words:

There is for us no Fortune that is a god, there is none; but what happens spontaneously to each, just as it happens, is called 'fortune.'

Sophocles the tragedian says: 'Not even for the gods are all things self-determined, apart from Zeus;'

for he holds both the end and the beginning.

One dominion, one deity came to be, great, blazing across heaven; and all things have been made one, in which all these things revolve — fire and water and earth... and what follows thereafter.

And Pindar the lyric poet, as it were, breaks forth in Bacchic frenzy, saying outright:

God, who fashions all things for mortals.

Why do you hope for wisdom? Little indeed does one man have beyond another.

It is difficult for a mortal mind to search out the counsels of the gods;

for he was born of a mortal mother, ... from thence he has drawn his understanding;

'Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who became his counselor?' But Hesiod too, in what he writes, agrees with what has been said above:

'There is no seer among earthly men who could know the mind of aegis-bearing Zeus.'

Fittingly, then, Solon the Athenian too, in his elegies, himself likewise following Hesiod, writes: 'and in every way the mind of the immortals is hidden from men.'

Again, since Moses prophesied that, because of the transgression, the woman would bring forth in labors and pains, some not undistinguished poet writes:

'Never by day will they cease from toil and misery, nor be relieved at all by night;'

'and the gods will give them grievous cares.'

Further, Homer, when he himself says, 'and the father stretched forth the golden scales,' ... thereby signifies that God is just;

and Menander the comic poet, interpreting God as good, says:

'A guardian spirit stands beside every man as soon as he is born, a good guide who initiates him into life;

for one must not suppose that there is an evil spirit that harms a good life.'

'and that God is altogether good' — either meaning that every god is good, or rather — which is more likely — that God is good in all things.

Again, moreover, Aeschylus the tragic poet, in setting forth the power of God, does not hesitate to call him also 'Most High' through the following words:

'Separate God from mortals, and do not think him to be constituted of flesh, like yourself;

at one time he appears as fire, an irresistible onrush, at another as water, at another as darkness;

and he himself becomes like wild beasts, like wind and cloud and lightning, thunder and rain;

the sea and the rocks serve him, and every spring and every gathering of waters;

the mountains tremble, and the earth, and the vast depth of the sea, and the great height of the mountains, whenever the fearsome eye of the Master looks upon them;

for the glory of the Most High <God> is mighty over all things.'

Does it not seem to you that this is a paraphrase of, 'the earth trembles at the presence of the Lord'? ... In addition to this, Apollo, most skilled in divination, bearing witness to the glory of God, is compelled to speak concerning Athena, when the Medes were marching against Greece, telling how she begged and implored Zeus on behalf of Attica:

'Pallas cannot propitiate Olympian Zeus, though she entreats him with many words and shrewd counsel;

and he will give many temples of the immortals over to consuming fire, temples which even now stand streaming with sweat, quivering with dread' — and what follows thereafter.

And Thearidas, in his work On Nature, writes:

'For that which is in the beginning is one, and one alone,' ... 'nor is there any other apart from the great King' ... Orpheus says:

persuaded by whom, the comic poet Diphilus, most sententiously, says: 'Honor to the very end only this Being, the Father of all, who exists, the discoverer and founder of so many good things.'

Fittingly, then, Plato too trains the best natures to arrive at that study which we said before was the greatest — to behold the Good itself, and to make that ascent —

and this, as it seems, would not be a turning of a potsherd, but a conversion of the soul, a passage from a kind of nocturnal day to the true return unto Being, which indeed we shall call true philosophy.

and he judges those who partake of this to be of the golden race, saying, 'You are indeed all brothers'; but it is those of the golden race who are to judge with the utmost precision, and in every respect.

Of the Father, then, and Maker of the universe, all things everywhere apprehend something innately and without being taught: inanimate things, by their sympathy with the living creature; and among animate things, those already immortal, by working at it day by day; and among mortal things still, some in fear, even while yet being carried in the womb through their mother; others by self-determined reasoning — and among men, all alike, both Greeks and barbarians.

For there is no race anywhere, neither of farmers, nor of nomads, nor even of city-dwellers, that can live without first being possessed by faith in the One who is greater.

Wherefore every nation touching the eastern shores, and every one touching the western, and the northern, and all those toward the south, hold one and the same preconception concerning him who has established this sovereignty — since indeed the most universal of his works have pervaded all things equally.

Much more, then, do the inquisitive men among the Greeks, the philosophers, setting out from barbarian philosophy, give the primacy to him who is invisible and alone, and most powerful, and most skilled in art, and most responsible for all that is most beautiful — yet not knowing what follows from this, unless they are catechized by us, nor even how God is by nature to be conceived, but only, as we have already often said, by way of a true periphrasis.

Fittingly, then, does the apostle say, 'Is he the God of the Jews only? Is he not also of the Greeks?' — not only speaking prophetically, in that the Greeks who believe from among the Greeks shall come to know God, but also signifying this, that in power the Lord and God would indeed be God of all, and in truth Almighty, yet in respect of knowledge he is not the God of all;

for they know neither what he is, nor how he is Lord and Father and Maker, nor do they know the rest of the dispensation of the truth, not having been taught by it.

Likewise, the prophetic writings too have the same force as the apostolic word.

'We have trusted in the Lord our God.'

'Now, make an alliance with my lord, the king of the Assyrians.'

'And now, have we come up against this land to make war on it without the Lord?' And Jonah, himself also a prophet, hints at the same thing through what he says:

'And the shipmaster came to him and said to him:

Why are you snoring? Get up, call upon your God, that he may save us, and we not perish.'

For he said 'your God' to the one who knew him by full knowledge, but by 'that God may save us' he pointed to the shared perception, among the nations who had not yet believed, of those who had turned their mind toward the Almighty.

'I am a servant of the Lord, and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven.'

'Let us not perish on account of the life of this man.'

And the prophet Malachi plainly shows God saying:

'I will not accept a sacrifice from your hands, for from the rising of the sun to its setting my name has been glorified among the nations, and in every place a sacrifice is offered to me.'

'For I am a great king, says the Lord Almighty, and my name is renowned among the nations.'

And Plato indicates free will through the following:

'Virtue has no master; by honoring or dishonoring it, each person will partake of it more or less.'

'for God is never the cause of evils.'

'O Trojans beloved of Ares,' says the lyric poet, 'Zeus who rules on high, who beholds all things, is not the cause to mortals of their great sorrows;

but it lies open in the midst, for all men to attain: holy Justice, companion of pure Good Order and of wise Themis;

blessed are the children who have found her to dwell with them.'

And Pindar plainly introduces Zeus the Savior as dwelling together with Themis, expounding him as king, a just savior, in some such words as these:

'First, with golden horses, the Fates led wise-counseling, heavenly Themis from the springs of Ocean, up the shining road, to the sacred stairway of Olympus, to be the ancient bride of Zeus the Savior;

and she bore the golden-headbanded, splendid-fruited, truthful Hours.'

He, then, who does not obey the truth, but is puffed up with human teaching, is ill-fated and wretched, and, as Euripides says, is one 'who, though beholding these things, does not perceive God,' but has flung far away, among the stargazers, their crooked deceptions — men whose mischievous tongue casts random conjectures about things unseen, having no share in true understanding.

He, then, who wishes to arrive at true learning, let him hear Parmenides of Elea making this promise:

'You shall know the ethereal nature, and all the signs that are in the ether, and the unseen workings of the pure, radiant torch of the sun, and whence they arose; and you shall learn the wandering workings of the round-eyed moon, and its nature; and you shall know also the heaven that encompasses all, whence it was born, and how Necessity, guiding it, bound it to hold fast the bounds of the stars ...' — and of Metrodorus too, though he became an Epicurean, having spoken these words as though divinely inspired:

'Remember, Menestratus, that, though born mortal and allotted a bounded life, having ascended in soul even unto eternity and the infinity of things, you have beheld both what shall be and what already is.'

when, together with the blessed company, according to Plato, we shall behold a blessed sight and vision, following — we with Zeus, and others with other gods — being initiated into a rite which it is lawful to call most blessed, the mystery we celebrate, being ourselves then whole and untouched by the evils which in after time awaited us, and being initiated into, and beholding in pure radiance, whole and steadfast apparitions, ourselves pure and unmarked by this thing which we now carry about and call the body, bound to it after the manner of an oyster.

And the Pythagoreans call heaven the 'Counter-Earth,' concerning which land it is said, through Jeremiah:

'I will appoint you among the children, and I will give you a choice land, the inheritance of God Almighty, which those who inherit it shall reign over the earth.'

And countless upon countless upon countless examples still flow in upon me to set forth; but for the sake of due proportion, this discourse must now be brought to a close, lest we too suffer what the tragic poet Agathon describes:

'regarding the incidental task as though it were the main work, yet laboring at the main work as though it were incidental.'

Since, then, as I think, it has been clearly shown in what sense the Greeks are to be understood as having been called 'thieves' by the Lord, I deliberately pass over the doctrines of the philosophers;

for even were we to go through their very words, we would not get ahead, though we gathered together so vast a multitude of notes, in demonstrating that all the wisdom current among the Greeks is derived from barbarian philosophy.

but we shall none the less take up this inquiry again, of necessity, whenever we come to review the opinions concerning first principles that are current among the Greeks.

Yet this too, quietly, presents itself to us from what has been said, for consideration: in what manner one who is able to swim through the waves within them ought to engage with the Greek books.

'Blessed, it seems, then, is he,' according to Empedocles, 'who has acquired the wealth of a divine mind, but wretched is he whose care is a dark opinion concerning the gods.'

In a godlike manner he declared knowledge and ignorance to be the boundaries of blessedness and wretchedness.

'For philosophic men must indeed be well acquainted with very many things,' according to Heraclitus, 'and in truth it is necessary that the one who seeks to be noble should wander much.'

Well-doing extends to all, and from an origin without beginning, natural justice is, quite simply, equal toward all, coming about according to the worth of each kind, never having had a beginning.

For God, being always what he is, has not taken a beginning of being Lord and good, nor indeed will he ever cease doing good, even if he brings each thing to its end.

Each of us partakes of this beneficence according to what he wishes, since it is the soul's worthy choice and its continued practice that have produced the difference in what is selected.

Thus, then, let the fifth Stromateus of our Gnostic Notes according to the true philosophy be brought to its conclusion here.

OF CLEMENT, STROMATEIS, BOOK SIX. Now this sixth—and together with it, in effect, the seventh—Stromateus of our Gnostic Notes on the true philosophy, having outlined as far as possible the ethical discourse completed in them, and having set forth what manner of man the Gnostic would be in his way of life, goes on to show the philosophers that he is by no means godless, as they have supposed, but rather in truth god-fearing, setting out in summary the character of the Gnostic's worship, so much of it as it is safe to inscribe in a written memorandum.

For the Lord commanded us to work for the food that remains unto eternity, and somewhere the prophet says:

'Blessed is he who sows beside every water, where the calf and the ass tread'—the people gathered together out of the Law and out of the nations into the one faith.

'But he who is weak eats vegetables' ... according to the noble Apostle.

Now our Paedagogus, already divided into three books, has set forth the upbringing and nourishment from childhood, that is, the manner of life which, proceeding from catechetical instruction, grows together with faith, and prepares beforehand the soul—for those being enrolled among men—virtuously, for the reception of gnostic knowledge.

So then, once the Greeks have clearly learned from what will be said by us through these books that in impiously persecuting the one beloved of God they themselves are the ones committing impiety, then already, as the notes proceed according to the character of the Stromateis, the further questions raised against us both by Greeks and by barbarians concerning the Lord's coming must be resolved.

Now in a meadow, the flowers blooming in various colors, and in an orchard the planting of fruit-trees, are not separated species by species from those of a different kind—for which reason certain lovers of learning, having variously culled their blossoms, composed collections entitled Meadows, Helicons, Honeycombs, and Embroidered Robes.

But as for things that have come to memory just as they happened, neither arranged in order nor polished in expression, but deliberately scattered mixed together, our sketch of the Stromateis has been variegated after the manner of a meadow.

And thus arranged, these notes would serve for me as kindling embers of memory, and for the one fitted for knowledge, should he happen upon them, the inquiry will proceed, with sweat, toward what is profitable and beneficial.

For it is right to reckon that the labor of knowledge is not only comparable to that of obtaining food, but far more so, for those who are being conveyed, by way of the truly narrow and afflicted road of the Lord, to eternal and blessed salvation.

Our knowledge and our spiritual paradise are our Savior himself, into whom we are planted, having been transplanted and grafted into the good land, out of our former manner of life.

And this change of planting contributes to fruitfulness.

The Lord, then, is light and true knowledge, into whom we have been transplanted.

But knowledge is also said, in another sense, to be twofold: the one, in a common sense, is the understanding and apprehension present alike in all men universally, according to their recognizing each of the objects before them—a knowledge in which not only the rational faculties, but perhaps also the irrational creatures, will share; this I myself would never call knowledge properly, since it is of the kind naturally apprehended even through the senses.

...applying themselves sincerely to the activity of the soul.

'A good man,' says David, 'is he who is compassionate toward those who are perishing in error, and who lends by sharing the word of truth'—not haphazardly, but rather he will manage his words with judgment, with deep consideration.

'He has scattered abroad, he has given to the poor.'

But before undertaking the matter now before us, we must, by way of a preface, further render to the conclusion of the fifth Stromateus what is still lacking.

For since we have shown that the symbolic form of speech is ancient, and that it has been employed not only by the prophets among us, but also by most of the ancient Greeks and by not a few of the other barbarian nations, it was also necessary to go through the mysteries that are performed in their rites.

These matters I defer to clarify, for whenever we go on to refute what has been said by the Greeks concerning first principles.

For we shall show that the mysteries too are bound up with this same inquiry.

But having set forth that the reflection of the Greek intellect was illumined all round from the truth given to us through the Scriptures—in which sense we have shown, if it is not too harsh to say, that the theft of the truth has penetrated to them—come, let us present the Greeks themselves as witnesses against themselves of this theft.

For those who so openly filch what belongs to one another confirm indeed that they are thieves, but they also show themselves, even unwillingly, secretly appropriating our truth for their own countrymen.

For those who do not even spare what belongs to one another will hardly refrain from what is ours.

Now the doctrines belonging to philosophy I shall pass over in silence, since those who distribute the philosophical schools themselves confess in writing—so as not to be convicted of ingratitude—that they received the most authoritative of their doctrines from Socrates.

But having employed the testimonies of a few well-known men held in repute among the Greeks, and having exposed their thievish character—making use of chronology without distinction—I shall turn to what follows.

Orpheus, then, having written:

'thus there was nothing else more shameless and more dreadful than a woman' ... Homer says outright:

'thus nothing else is more terrible and more shameless than a woman.'

'as skill is always far better than strength' ... Homer says: 'By skill a woodcutter prevails far more than by force.'

Again, Musaeus having written:

'And even so the life-giving earth also brings forth leaves:'

'some perish on the ash trees, and others it brings forth;'

'so too does it turn round the generation and race of men.'

'The wind sheds some leaves to the ground, but the flourishing woodland brings forth others, and the season of spring comes on;'

'so of men's generations, one springs up, another passes away.'

And again, Homer having said:

'it is not holy to boast over slain men' ... both Archilochus and Cratinus write likewise, the one, Archilochus, saying:

'for it is not good to mock over men who have died' ... and Cratinus, in his Laconians, says:

'this too is a fearful thing for men—to boast greatly over slain warriors.'

And again Archilochus, transposing that Homeric line:

'I was blinded, nor do I myself deny it;'

'instead of many...'—he writes something like this:

'I erred, and this ruin has doubtless overtaken some other man too;'

just as, indeed, also that verse says:

'Enyalius is common to all, and even slays the one who slays' ... he himself, transforming it, brought it out something like this:

'for truly Ares is common to all men.'

'For men, victory lies in the [trial] of the gods'—he is manifest through this iambic line:

'and he encouraged the young men: but the issues of victory lie with the gods.'

'with unwashen feet, sleeping on the ground' ... Euripides writes in his Erechtheus:

'they sleep upon unstrewn ground, and do not moisten their feet at the springs.'

And Archilochus likewise having said:

'but one man's heart is warmed by one thing, another's by another' ... after that Homeric line:

'for one man delights in one set of deeds, another in another' ... Euripides says in his Oeneus:

'but one man takes more pleasure in one manner of life, another in another.'

I have heard Aeschylus saying:

'He who is truly fortunate ought to remain at home—and he who fares ill should likewise remain' ... while Euripides proclaims similar things upon the stage:

'the fortunate man stays at home' ... but Menander too, in his comedy, says something like this:

'One ought to remain at home, and remain free, or else no longer be truly fortunate.'

Again, Theognis saying:

'there is no friend and faithful companion for the exile' ... Euripides has composed likewise:

'when a poor man is fleeing, every friend flees out of his way.'

'You dwell with a young man, though you yourself are the elder' — and he adds:

'For the one takes yet another young girl, while she in turn seeks out some other man elsewhere' ... Euripides writes:

It is an evil thing to yoke a young woman to a young man;

for the one longs to take another's bed, while she, being deprived of this, plots evil.

Again, since Euripides says in the Medea:

'The gifts of an evil man bring no benefit' ... Sophocles, in the Ajax the Scourge-Bearer, speaks that iambic line:

The gifts of enemies are no gifts, and bring no benefit.

'For surfeit breeds insolence, when great prosperity attends it' ... Theognis writes outright:

Surfeit breeds insolence, when prosperity attends a base man.

Whence also Thucydides, in his Histories, says: 'Most men are accustomed, when unexpected good fortune comes to them swiftly and beyond all reckoning, to turn to insolence.'

And Philistus likewise imitates the very same thought, speaking thus:

For the most part, good fortune that comes to men according to reasonable expectation is more secure than that which comes contrary to expectation;

for those who fare well unexpectedly, contrary to all expectation, are especially prone to turn to insolence.

Again, since Euripides composed:

'For when father and mother labor hard at a rigorous way of life, their offspring are better' ... Critias writes:

I begin, then, from the very begetting of man:

How might a man become best and strongest in body? If the begetter should exercise and eat robustly,

and endure hardship in body; and if the mother of the child that is to be should also be strong in body and take exercise.

Again, since Homer says of the shield fashioned by Hephaestus:

On it he wrought the earth, and the heaven, and the sea;

and he set upon it the great might of the river Ocean' ... Pherecydes of Syros says:

Zas makes a great and beautiful robe, and on it embroiders the Earth and Ogenos and the dwellings of Ogenos.

'Shame, which greatly harms men and also benefits them' ... Euripides, in the Erechtheus, writes:

As for shame, I myself am hard put to judge concerning it;