Stromateis 1 part 7/42

But others, reckoning from Inachus and Moses to the death of Commodus, said the years amount to 1,842; and others, 1,021.

In the Gospel according to Matthew, the genealogy from Abraham is brought to its end at Mary the mother of the Lord:

For, it says, from Abraham to David there are fourteen generations, and from David to the deportation to Babylon, fourteen generations, and from the deportation to Babylon to Christ, likewise another fourteen generations—three mystical intervals brought to completion in six weeks.

Let, then, the matters concerning the chronology, variously recounted by many and here set forth by us, stand as they are; but as for the translation of the Scriptures, both the Law and the prophetic books, out of the Hebrew tongue into the Greek language, they say it took place under King Ptolemy the son of Lagus, or, as some say, under the one surnamed Philadelphus, who devoted the greatest zeal to this undertaking, Demetrius of Phalerum having carried out the work of translation with precision.

For while the Macedonians still held Asia, the king, being eager to adorn the library he had founded in Alexandria with writings of every kind, requested the people of Jerusalem to translate the prophecies current among them into the Greek language.

And they, since they were still subject to the Macedonians, chose out from among those most highly esteemed among them seventy elders, men experienced in the Scriptures and skilled in the Greek language, and sent them to him together with the divine books.

And when each one, separately and on his own, had translated each prophecy, all the translations, when compared side by side, agreed together both in sense and in wording.

For it was the will of God, carefully prepared beforehand for Greek ears.

It is, then, no strange thing that, by the inspiration of the God who gave the prophecy, the translation too should be wrought as, in a manner, a Greek prophecy, since also in the captivity under Nebuchadnezzar, when the Scriptures had been destroyed, Ezra the Levite, the priest, being inspired in the times of Artaxerxes king of the Persians, prophetically restored anew all the ancient Scriptures.

And Aristobulus, in the first of his books addressed to Philometor, writes word for word:

...he has elaborately worked out each of the things said in it.

But it had already been translated, before Demetrius, by others, before the dominion of Alexander and the Persians—both the account of the exodus of the Hebrews, our fellow citizens, out of Egypt, and the manifestation to them of all that had happened, and the conquest of the land, and of

...the exposition of the whole legislation.

So that it is quite clear that the aforesaid philosopher took over many things (for he was a man of vast learning), just as Pythagoras also transferred many of the things among us into his own system of doctrine.

And Numenius the Pythagorean philosopher writes outright:

'For what is Plato but Moses speaking Attic Greek?' This Moses was a theologian and a prophet, or, as some say, an interpreter of sacred laws.

His lineage, his deeds, and his life are proclaimed as trustworthy by the Scriptures themselves; nevertheless we too must speak of them, as far as possible, in a few words.

Moses, then, being by lineage originally a Chaldean, was born in Egypt, his ancestors having migrated from Babylon into Egypt on account of a long-lasting famine.

Born in the seventh generation, and reared ... in royal fashion, he encountered a circumstance of this sort:

When the Hebrews in Egypt had increased greatly in number, the king of the land, fearing a plot arising from their multitude, commanded that the female children born of the Hebrews be reared (for a woman is weak for war), but that the male children be destroyed, since he suspected their vigorous youth.

The child, being of noble birth, was hidden by his parents and reared for three successive months, natural affection overcoming the tyrant's cruelty; but afterward, fearing lest they should perish together with the child, they made a small vessel out of the native papyrus, put the child in it, and exposed him beside the banks of the river, which was marshy there; and the child's sister stood watching from a distance to see what would come of it.

At that time the king's daughter, who for a long time had not conceived, but desired children, came on that very day to the river to use the baths and the sprinkling-basins; and hearing the child whimpering, she ordered it to be brought to her, and, taking pity on it, sought a nurse for it.

At this point the child's sister ran up and said that she knew a Hebrew woman who had recently given birth, whom she could bring to her as a nurse, if she wished.

And when she agreed and asked her to, she brought forward the child's own mother ... to be his nurse, as though she were some other woman, for a stated wage.

Then the queen gave the child the name Moses, fittingly so, because she had drawn him out of the water (for the Egyptians call water 'mou'), into which he had been exposed to die.

And indeed they also call one who has died in the water 'Moses' ...

It is clear, then, that at an earlier time, when the child had been circumcised, his parents had given him a certain name, and he was called Joakim.

And he also had a third name in heaven after his assumption, ... as the initiates say, Melchi.

When he had come of age, he was taught arithmetic and geometry, rhythm and harmony, and further meter together with music, by the most eminent among the Egyptians, and moreover the philosophy expressed through symbols, which they display in their hieroglyphic writings.

The rest of the general education, Greeks in Egypt taught him, as befitted a royal child, as Philo says in his Life of Moses; and he learned besides the letters of the Assyrians and the science of the heavenly bodies from both the Chaldeans and the Egyptians, whence it is recorded in the Acts that he was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians.

And Eupolemus, in his work on the kings of Judea, says that Moses was the first wise man, and that he was the first to hand down the art of writing to the Jews, and that the Phoenicians received it from the Jews, and the Greeks from the Phoenicians.

And when he had grown into manhood, he increased in wisdom, emulating the education of his kinsfolk and forefathers, to the point even of striking and killing the Egyptian who had unjustly assaulted the Hebrew.

It is recorded in the Acts that he killed by a word those who had embezzled the price of the field and lied about it.

Artapanus, at any rate, in his treatise concerning the Jews, relates that Moses was shut up in prison by Chenephres king of Egypt for requesting that the people be released from Egypt; that, when the prison was opened by night according to the will of God, he went out and, entering the palace, stood over the sleeping king and woke him; and the king, astonished at what had happened, ordered Moses to tell the name of the God who had sent him; and Moses, bending close to his ear, told him, and the king, on hearing it, fell down speechless, but, being held up by Moses, revived again.

And concerning the upbringing of Moses, Ezekiel too, the poet of Jewish tragedies, will sing in harmony with us, in the drama entitled The Exodus, writing thus in the person of Moses:

For when he saw our race had grown greatly in number, King Pharaoh devised much guile against us, afflicting men with brick-making and heavy building works, and he fortified cities, for the sake of those ill-fated ones.

Then he proclaimed to us, the race of the Hebrews, that the male children be cast into the deep-flowing river.

At that time my mother who bore me hid me for three months, as she used to tell it.

But when she could no longer keep me hidden, she put me out, having wrapped me in fine adornment, at the edge of the river, in a deep, thickly overgrown marsh.

And my sister Miriam kept watch nearby.

And then the king's daughter came down together with her handmaidens to bathe, to refresh her fresh young skin.

And as soon as she saw me, she took me up and lifted me out, and knew that I was a Hebrew.

And my sister Miriam ran up and said this to the princess:

'Would you have me quickly find a nurse for this child from among the Hebrews?' And she urged the girl on.

So she went and told our mother, and quickly our mother herself came and took me into her arms.

And the king's daughter said:

'Nurse this child for me, woman, and I will pay you your wages.'

And she named him Moses, for the reason that she had lifted him up from the wet bank of the river.

But when the time of infancy had passed for me, my mother brought me to the halls of the princess.

having recounted and told me all things, my paternal lineage, and the gifts of God.

So then, as long as we were still in the time of childhood, she supplied everything with royal upbringing and instruction, as though I were from her own womb.

But when the full cycle of days had come, I went out from the royal house.

Then, having narrated the fight between the Hebrew and the Egyptian, and the burial of the Egyptian in the sand, concerning the other conflict he speaks thus:

'Why do you strike one weaker than yourself?' And he said:

'Who appointed you a judge or an overseer over us here? Will you kill me as you did the man yesterday?' And I, being afraid, said:

How did this become known? ... So he flees from there and shepherds sheep, being trained beforehand for leadership through shepherding.

For shepherding is a preliminary training in kingship for the one who is going to preside over the most gentle flock of human beings, just as hunting is by nature for those inclined to war.

From there God leads him on to the generalship of the Hebrews.

Then the Egyptians, who were repeatedly senseless, were repeatedly admonished, while the Hebrews became spectators of the evils that others suffered, learning without danger to themselves the power of God.

Furthermore, the Egyptians, not accepting by hearsay the effects of that power, disbelieved through folly, being fools — as it is said, 'the fool understands the deed only after it is done' — and later, when the Hebrews were departing, they carried off much plunder of the Egyptians and went away, not out of love of money, as their accusers say (for God was not persuading them to desire what belonged to others), but first, because they were receiving the wages that were their due for all the time they had served the Egyptians, and secondly, because in a certain manner they were retaliating, paying back the money-loving Egyptians in kind by the carrying off of the spoil, just as those had wronged the Hebrews by their enslavement.

as the stronger dealing with the weaker (and the cause of the war was just);

the Hebrews had come to the Egyptians as suppliants because of famine;

but the Egyptians, having enslaved these strangers, compelled them to serve them like captives, without even paying them their wages) — so that, whether regarded as in a state of war or as in peace, they received the plunder as wages from those who, unwillingly, had for a long time not paid but rather defrauded them of it.

Moses, then, is for us prophetic, legislative,

tactical, strategic, political, and philosophical.

How, then, he was prophetic will be said afterward, whenever we come to treat of prophecy;

but the tactical part would be a part of the strategic, and the strategic a part of the kingly art;

and again, in turn, the legislative part would be a part of the kingly art, as also the judicial.

Of the kingly art, one part is divine, namely, that which pertains to God and his holy Son, from whom both the good things of earth and outward goods and perfect happiness are supplied;

'For seek the great things,' it says, 'and the small things shall be added to you.'

The second kind of kingship, after the purely rational and divine governance, is that which makes use only of the spirited part of the soul for its rule — the kind according to which Heracles ruled Argos, and Alexander was king of the Macedonians.

The third is that which aims at one thing only — to conquer and subdue (and whether the victory is turned to evil or good does not concern such a one);

which the Persians made use of when they marched against Greece.

For of the spirited faculty, one aspect is merely fond of victory, exercising its dominion for the sake of prevailing alone, while the other is fond of the noble, when the soul turns the spirited faculty to a good use.

The fourth, worst of all, is the kingship ranked according to the desires, such as that of Sardanapalus and of those who make it their end to gratify their desires as much as possible.

Now tactics is the instrument of kingship — both of that which conquers by virtue and of that which conquers by force — but each according to a different nature and different material.

In the case of weapons and of animals fit for war — through both living and lifeless things — it is the soul and mind that arrange; but in the case of the passions of the soul, over which we prevail by virtue, it is reasoning that is the ordering faculty, setting the seal of self-control and temperance together with holiness, and of good knowledge together with truth, referring the end to piety toward God.

For thus, employing virtue, it is prudence that orders practical matters; wisdom orders divine things; the political art orders human affairs; and the kingly art orders all things together.

A king, then, is one who rules according to laws, possessing the knowledge of ruling over willing subjects — such as the Lord is, who receives those who believe in him and through him.

For God has delivered all things and subjected all things to Christ our King, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things on earth, and things under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Stratagem consists of three kinds: the safe, the risky, and the one mixed of these;

and each of these is composed of three means: either by word, or by deed, or by both of these together.

And it will be possible to accomplish all these either by persuading or by using force, or by acting unjustly in retaliation or by doing what is just — in which is also included either lying or speaking the truth — or even by employing some of these together at the same time.

And the Greeks, having received from Moses all these things, and how each of them ought to be used, have profited from them.

For the sake of illustration, I shall mention one or even a second example of strategy.

Moses, having led the people out, and suspecting that the Egyptians would pursue them, abandoned the short and direct road, turned toward the desert, and for the most part made his journey by night.

For there was another dispensation, according to which the Hebrews were being trained through much wilderness and a long time, being accustomed, through patient endurance, to believe in God alone, and being habituated to sober self-restraint.

It was useful to discern this and to act accordingly.

Indeed, what he had suspected did in fact happen;

For the Egyptians pursued on horses and chariots, but they perished swiftly when the sea broke apart and overwhelmed them together with horses and chariots, so that not even a remnant of them was left.

After this, a pillar of fire that continually attended them (for it led the way before them) guided the Hebrews by night through the trackless waste, training and habituating them through toils and journeys to courage and to endurance, so that the good things of the land might appear all the better after the experience of what seemed terrible — the land into which it was leading them out of that pathless country.

Indeed, he also routed and killed the enemies who had previously occupied the land, attacking them by way of a desert and rugged road (for such is the excellence of the general's art).

For it was a work of experience and generalship to take the land of the enemies.

Perceiving this, Miltiades, the general of the Athenians who conquered the Persians in the battle at Marathon, imitated this same method:

he led the Athenians by night, marching through pathless country, and threw off the track of the barbarians who were watching him;

for Hippias, having defected from the Athenians, led the barbarians into Attica, and having seized beforehand the strategic points of the region, guarded them, because he had knowledge of the country.

It was, then, a difficult task to elude Hippias' notice; hence Miltiades, reasonably making use of both the pathless country and the night, attacking the Persians, whom Datis led, succeeded in the contest together with those whom he himself led.

But for Thrasybulus also, who led back those who had been exiled from Phyle and who wished to go unnoticed as he traveled through the untrodden paths, a pillar became his guide.

When, by night, the weather had become moonless and stormy, a fire was seen going before Thrasybulus, which, having safely conducted them forward without stumbling, left them near Munychia, where now stands the altar of Phosphorus. Let this, then, at least be a ground of credibility among the Greeks for our accounts — that it was indeed possible for the almighty God to cause a pillar of fire to go before the Hebrews by night, guiding them on their way.

And it is also said in a certain oracle:

'A pillar to the Thebans is Dionysus, the giver of much joy' — a saying derived from the history among the Hebrews.

But Euripides also says in the Antiope:

'and within, in the herdsmen's chambers, a pillar of the god Euius, luxuriant with ivy.'

Now the pillar signifies the imagelessness of God; and the illuminated pillar, in addition to signifying his imagelessness, also makes clear the fixed and abiding nature of God, and his unchangeable and unformed light.

For indeed, before the forms of statues had been perfected, the ancients used to set up pillars and worshiped these as representations of the deity.

Indeed, the author of the Phoronis writes:

'Callithoe, key-bearer of the Olympian queen, Argive Hera, who first adorned with garlands and tassels the tall pillar of the sovereign lady.'

But the author of the Europia also relates that the statue of Apollo at Delphi was a pillar, in these words:

'that we might hang up for the god the tithe and the choicest first-fruits from the sacred dwellings and from the lofty pillar.'

Apollo, indeed, understood mystically according to the negation of plurality, is the one God.

But, in any case, that fire which resembled a pillar, and the fire in the bush, are a symbol of the holy light which passes over from earth and runs back again up to heaven through the wood, through which also the power of seeing intelligibly has been granted to us.

Plato the philosopher, having profited from Moses concerning legislation, censured the constitutions of Minos and Lycurgus for looking only to courage, but praised as more venerable the one that speaks of a single thing and always inclines toward a single doctrine;

for he says that it is more fitting for us to philosophize with strength, dignity, and prudence, with a view to the majesty of heaven, employing the same unwavering judgment about the same things.

And in the book of the same name, he properly hints that the Demiurge is, strictly speaking, the Statesman, and he names those who look to him and live actively and justly, together with contemplation, statesmen as well; but the term 'political,' used on an equal footing with 'legal,' he divides into cosmic greatness of mind on the one hand and private arrangement on the other, which he named orderliness, harmony, and temperance — occurring whenever rulers are fitted to the ruled, and the ruled become obedient to the rulers — which the system of Moses earnestly labors to bring about.

Further, Plato, having profited from him, holds that the legal pertains to becoming, while the political pertains to friendship and concord; and to the Laws he appended the philosopher treated in the Epinomis, who knows the whole course of all becoming that occurs through the wandering stars.

And he joins another philosopher, Timaeus, an astronomer who contemplates the motion of those heavenly bodies and their mutual sympathy and communion with one another, in sequel to the Republic.

For I think that the end both of the statesman and of the one who lives according to law is contemplation;

To govern rightly, then, is necessary, but to philosophize is best.

For the one who has understanding would live directing all that is his own toward knowledge, guiding his life by good works, dishonoring the contrary things, and pursuing those studies that contribute toward truth.

But law is not the things that are customary (for indeed the things seen are not the same as sight itself), nor is it every opinion (for evil opinion is not law either); rather, law is good opinion, and good opinion is the true one, and the true one is that which discovers what is, and attains to it;

'And He who Is has sent me,' says Moses.

in accordance with which, consistently with good opinion, some have declared law to be right reason, prescriptive of what must be done,

and prohibitive of what must not be done.

Whence the law is reasonably said to have been given through Moses, being a rule of things just and unjust;

and this we would properly call the ordinance that was handed down by God through Moses.

It has, then... the guidance toward the divine.

The law was laid down for the sake of transgressions, until the seed should come to whom the promise was made.

Then, as though explaining the meaning further, he adds:

But before faith came, we were kept under guard by the law, shut up—by fear, evidently, of sins—unto the faith that was about to be revealed.

So that the law became our tutor unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.

The lawgiver is he who assigns to each part of the soul, and to its works, what is fitting; and Moses, to put it concisely, was a living law, governed by the good Word.

He administered, then, a good commonwealth.

And this is good nourishment for men, according to fellowship.

At once he practiced the judicial art, being a science... corrective of offenses for the sake of justice.

And coordinate with it is the punitive art, being a kind of science concerning the measure of punishments.

And punishment, being <just>, is the correction of the soul.

And, so to speak, the whole discipline according to Moses is, on the one hand, educative of those capable of becoming noble and good men, and, on the other, a hunting of those like them—which would be the art of generalship;

and the art that makes fitting use, by reason, of those who have been hunted would be the wisdom that is legislative;

for both to acquire and to use this belongs properly to it, since it is the most kingly of arts.

The philosophers, at any rate, proclaim that the wise man alone is king, lawgiver, general, just, holy, and beloved of God.

And if we should find these qualities in Moses, as is shown from the Scriptures themselves, we would declare, with full conviction, that Moses is in truth wise.

Just, then, as we say the shepherd's art is to provide for the sheep—for so the good shepherd lays down his soul for the sheep—so too shall we say that the legislative art forms the virtue of men, rekindling the human good so far as it is able, being both a supervising and a caretaking art over the flock of men...

...belongs to men, the same one will be both shepherd and good lawgiver of the one flock of his sheep who heed him, the one guardian, who seeks out and finds the lost by law and by reason, since indeed the law is spiritual, and leads unto blessedness—

for he who has become such through the Holy Spirit is spiritual.

And this is the one who is in truth the lawgiver, who not only promises what is good and noble, but also understands it.

And the law belongs to this one who possesses the knowledge—it is the saving command; or rather, the law is the command of knowledge... for the Word of God is power and wisdom.

And he himself, again, is the interpreter of the laws, he through whom the law was given, the first interpreter of the divine commands, the only-begotten Son who declares the bosom of the Father.

Furthermore, those who obey the law and have some knowledge of it can neither disbelieve nor be ignorant of the truth; whereas those who disbelieve, being least of all minded to be found in its works, if indeed there are certain others too, these likewise are confessed to be ignorant of the truth.

What, then, is the unbelief of the Greeks? Is it not that they will not be persuaded by the truth, which declares that the law was given by God through Moses—seeing that they themselves, out of their own traditions, honor Moses?

They relate that Minos received his laws from Zeus every ninth year, going up to the cave of Zeus; and Plato, Aristotle, and Ephorus write that Lycurgus, going continually to Delphi to Apollo, was instructed in matters of legislation; while Chamaeleon of Heraclea, in his work On Drunkenness, and Aristotle, in the Constitution of the Locrians, record that Zaleucus the Locrian received his laws from Athena.

But these men, exalting, as far as they could, the credibility of legislation among the Greeks to the divine, after the image of the prophecy according to Moses, are ungrateful, not openly confessing the truth and the archetype of what is related among themselves.

Let no one, then, run down the law on account of its punishments, as though it were not good and noble;

for if he who removes disease of the body will be thought a benefactor, would not he who endeavors to free the soul from injustice be all the more a caretaker, inasmuch as the soul is more honorable than the body?

But indeed, for the sake of the health of the body we submit even to incisions and cauteries and doses of medicine, and he who applies these is called both savior and physician—not out of any envy or ill-will toward the sufferer, but as the reason of the art dictates, even cutting away certain parts, lest the healthy parts be corrupted along with them; and no one would charge the physician's art with wickedness.

But shall we not, for the soul's sake, likewise submit whether to exile, or to pay penalties, or to bonds, if only one is thereby to gain righteousness out of unrighteousness? For the law, caring for its subjects, trains them toward piety, prescribes what is to be done, and restrains each of the sins, imposing penalties on the more moderate of them; but whenever it perceives someone so disposed as to seem incurable, driven to the utmost extremity of injustice, then, caring already for the rest, lest they be corrupted by him, it cuts him off, as it were, like a part of the whole body, and thus, in a manner, most wholesomely puts such a one to death.

But when we are judged, says the apostle, we are chastened by the Lord, that we may not be condemned along with the world.

The Lord has chastened me sorely, but he has not given me over to death.

For to teach you his righteousness, he says, he chastened you, and tested you, and made you hunger, and made you thirst in the wilderness, that all his ordinances and judgments might be made known in your heart, as many as I command you this day; and you shall know in your heart that, as a man chastens his son, so the Lord our God chastens you.

And that example brings one to soberness, he immediately says:

A shrewd man, seeing the wicked punished, is himself severely disciplined... since the fear of the Lord is the offspring of wisdom.

And the greatest and most perfect good is when one is able to bring someone over from evildoing to virtue and well-doing—which is exactly what the law accomplishes.

So that even when someone falls into some incurable evil, overtaken by injustice and greed, the one put to death would in fact be benefited;

for the law is a benefactor, able to make the unjust just, if only they are willing to heed it, and freeing others from their present evils.

for it promises to make immortal those who choose to live temperately and justly.

And to know the law belongs to a good understanding.

Evil men do not understand the law, but those who seek the Lord will understand in every good thing.

The providence that administers all things must indeed be both sovereign and good;

for the power of both administers salvation—the one, as sovereign, bringing to soberness through chastisement; the other, as benefactress, showing kindness through well-doing.

It is possible, however, not to be a son of disobedience, but to pass over from darkness into life, and, having submitted one's hearing to wisdom, to be, in keeping with the law, at first a slave of God, then to become a faithful servant, fearing the Lord God; and if one should advance further, to be reckoned among the sons; and when love has covered a multitude of sins, having grown in love to the perfection of blessed hope, to await it, being enrolled in that elect adoption called the beloved of God, already singing the prayer and saying:

Let the Lord become my God.