Panarion (Against Heresies) 1 part 41/82

For I choose you as my helper and fellow combatant in the battle against them, lest Aglaophon, together with Proclus, armed with Origen's subversive arguments against us, should utterly sack the resurrection.

Come then, let us array ourselves against their sophistries, fearing none of those disputatious weapons by which the cowardly are struck down:

for there is nothing sound or firm in them at all, but only a seemly display of words, contrived to astound the hearers and to produce persuasion, not for the sake of truth and what is beneficial, but so that the arguments might appear wise to those present.

sophists, who take a wage for their words, cheapening wisdom for the sake of praise.

Now in olden times, exposition was altogether brief, since those of that day were ambitious not to delight but to benefit those present;

But from the time it was permitted, as a matter of ease, for everyone to interpret the Scriptures, all became dulled toward doing what is good, being filled with conceit, while they advanced in disputatiousness, priding themselves as though skilled in knowing all things, ashamed to admit that they need to be taught, but rather loving contention and leaping forward, as though they were the teachers.

Having thereby grown reckless, they have slipped away from the reverent and gentle faith that God is able to do all things as he has promised, and have come instead to empty disputes and blasphemies, not understanding that deeds were not devised for the sake of words, but words for the sake of deeds—just as in medicine, by which the sick must be healed, words being confirmed by deeds—so that, once we are rightly attuned, our whole mind might be in harmony with the noblest words, rendering our character consonant with our tongue, like a lyre, and not discordant and out of tune.

For one must strive to practice righteousness with a view to truly possessing it, and not with a view to merely seeming to, limping as one treads the path of wisdom and contending for reputation rather than for truth, having put on porches and pretenses and the whole apparatus of hypocrisy.

For there are, indeed there are, those who, by the assaults of words tragically adorned—just as women who artfully beautify themselves outwardly for the sake of deception—will deceive any of the younger who does not look upon them warily, with faith and sobriety of mind.

Wherefore one must beware of admitting such a discourse into the heart securely before examining it thoroughly:

for indeed the deceivers often get ahead of those who hesitate, just as the Sirens do those who flee from them, concealing from afar their hatred of mankind beneath the beauty of their song.

'Or how, Auxentius,' I said, 'does it seem to you that these matters should be set forth?' And he replied:

'Should we not, then, say altogether that the sophists of the heterodox are imitators of images of truth, not knowing the truth, just like painters? For these too attempt to imitate shipwrights, ships, and pilots, without knowing how to build ships or to pilot them.'

'So then, if you wish, let us scrape off the paint and persuade the children who marvel at such paintings that neither is this ship a ship, nor is the pilot a pilot, but rather a wall adorned on the outside with colors and paintings for the sake of delight; and that those who fashioned these things out of colors are imitators of the image of a ship and of a pilot, and not of a ship itself.' 'This preface is a long one for one eager to hear.'

'But a useful one,' I said, 'my good friend.'

'For the words from the God-inspired Scriptures, with which they, coloring and varnishing their own opinion for the sake of deception, presumptuously call righteousness and truth, though they know righteousness not at all—if someone should strip these away, how greatly, do you think, would they be mocked once stripped bare of such names?' 'Very greatly indeed,' he said.

'For you also are the one who begins the discourse.'

'Now it was said—come, let us examine Aglaophon's argument point by point, in order, from the beginning—that the soul assumed this body which we now wear on account of the transgression, having in former ages, before this, lived blessedly without it.'

'For he said that the tunics of skin are the bodies into which souls happened to be imprisoned, so that, bearing about a corpse, they might pay the penalty for what they had done.'

'Or were these not the first things said by you at the beginning, physician? But come, remind me, if I do not seem to you to remember correctly.'

'You need no reminder now on this point:'

'for these were precisely the very things said by us at first.'

'It becomes an occupation to adorn and tend to it, and gives rise to the other assaults connected with the appetite of the belly, and further becomes the cause of blasphemies and of sins of every kind, since the soul is utterly unable, by itself, apart from the body, to sin at all.'

'And for this reason, after its departure from here, in order that it might be free from sin and disobedience in the heavens, where it will also spend its time among the angels, it must remain free and stripped of the body, since it is the body that becomes the cause and accomplice of its being defiled and of its sinning; for apart from the body it is impossible for the soul to sin.'

'Wherefore, that it might be kept sinless throughout the unending age, it will no longer receive the body that tips it downward into corruption and unrighteousness.'

'Well then—do you think this too has been stated well and rightly?' I asked. 'What difference does that make to you?' he replied. 'You are not thereby refuting the argument.'

'Nothing,' I said, 'but so that the argument may be examined by means of the things you have said.'

'Does it seem to you that one who says things contrary to himself and inconsistent sets forth his position well and rightly?' 'Not in the least.'

'For does such a person seem to you to represent the truth tunelessly?' 'Most of all,' he said.

'Then you do not approve of one who tunes his harmonies to the false melody of his words?' 'Not in the least.'

'Then you will not approve of anything at all, even should you yourself speak tunelessly.'

'For having granted that the souls sinned incorporeally, having strayed from the commandment, and having declared that on account of this lawlessness God afterward gave them the tunics of skin, so that, bearing about a corpse, they might pay the penalty—declaring the bodies to be tunics—as the argument proceeds, forgetting what you first assumed, you now say that the soul is unable by itself to sin.'

'For you say it is not naturally disposed to this at all, but rather that the body has become the cause of all sorts of evils for it.'

'Hence, so that it might not again be incited to unrighteousness, as happened before through the body, you say it will remain apart from it forever—and yet you had first said that the soul sinned in paradise before the body, when it was still blessed and free from pain.'

'For once it had transgressed the commandment, sin having already gained mastery through its persuasion by the serpent, the body was given to it as a punitive bond.'

'So that either the former statement or the latter is not correct.'

'For either it sinned before the body, and thus it will sin no less even if it does not receive a body—and then all the excessive talk about the body's not being raised is futile—'

'—or else it sinned with the body, and then the tunics of skin cannot be considered to be the body.'

'For it is found that man set aside the divine commandment before their fashioning.'

'And it was for this very reason that the tunics were made, to cover the nakedness that had come upon them as a result of their sin.'

'But do I persuade you, and do you see that you have laid down premises which contradict one another, and has this become clear to you—or do you not yet understand, Aglaophon,' I said, 'what I am saying?' 'I understand,' he said, 'and I have no need to hear it a second time; rather, I had unwittingly spoken incorrectly.'

'For having granted that the tunics of skin are the bodies, I am compelled to admit both that the soul sinned before it had come into the body—in exchange for which the transgression occurred before their fashioning (for the tunics were made because of the transgression, and the transgression did not occur because of the tunics)—and, from this admission, to agree that it is not this body that is the cause of wickedness, but the soul itself, in itself.'

'Therefore, even if it does not receive the body, it will sin, since it also sinned before, without the body.'

'And it is foolish to say that the body cannot rise again for this reason, so that it might not become for the soul the cause of sinning.'

'For it will sin, just as it sinned before the body, so also after the laying aside of the body, even if it does not receive the body again.'

'Wherefore, on account of these things, I am compelled to accept neither my own statement nor anyone else's who says that the tunics of skin are the bodies.'

'I have no ready answer to give you,' he said.

'But why do you not converse with someone else instead?' And I—for I perceived that he was blushing, avoiding being refuted by the argument—said:

'Do you suppose that I am attempting to refute you out of envy,' I said, 'and not out of a contentious desire to bring the matter at hand into the open? But, my good friend, do not grow weary of being questioned.'

For you see that our discourse is not about trivial matters, but rather about in what manner one ought to have believed.

For I think no evil so great can befall a man as that which comes from necessary things, whenever he holds false opinions about them.

Come then, eagerly to the questions being asked.

Explain clearly, and if it seems to you that I am not speaking the truth in something, refute it, taking thought for the truth rather than for me.

For I consider it a greater good to be refuted than to refute, inasmuch as it is a greater thing to be delivered oneself from evil than to deliver another.

Come then, let us set our arguments side by side and consider whether they differ from one another in any way.

For the matters about which we are disputing happen to be not at all trivial, but such as it is nobler to know and shameful not to know.

Is it not so, that you do not believe the body will rise again, whereas I believe it?

Quite so, he said, and for the reasons I have already stated.

And you, I said, have declared it to be a bond, a prison, a tomb, a burden, and fetters; but I say it is not.

And moreover you said that it is the cause of licentiousness, error, grief, anger, and, in short, of all the other evils, which hinder the soul's impulse toward the beautiful, not allowing us to attain to the apprehension and knowledge of things that truly exist.

For even if we should attempt to hunt after some one of the things that exist, a darkness ever intruding darkens our reasoning, not permitting us to survey the truth clearly.

For, as you said, the perception that comes through our ears is filled with deceit, and so too the perception that comes through sight, and that through the other senses as well.

You see, Eubulius, he said, how ready I am to praise you, whenever you set forth the arguments correctly?

Well then, so that you may praise me even more — if the body seems, according to you, to be a bond, it cannot be held responsible for wickedness and injustice in the soul, but on the contrary, for self-control and discipline.

For thus you would follow the argument more consistently.

But whither are those who sin brought? Is it not before the judges? — Necessarily.

So then, to pay the penalty justly for what they have done, I said? — Yes.

And is the just altogether beautiful? — He agreed.

And he who judges justly does well;

for he judges justly? — He assented.

And is the beautiful beneficial? — It appears so.

Those who are judged, then, are benefited.

For through their torments their wickedness is checked and done away with, just as diseases are removed by physicians through incisions and medicines.

For that the wrongdoer should pay the penalty is for the soul to be set right, casting off injustice, that great disease.

But what? Do you not say that punishments are justly applied to those punished in proportion to the sins committed, just as surgical operations are applied to the sick in proportion to their wounds? — He nodded assent.

Is it not so, then, that he who has done things worthy of death is sentenced to pay the penalty by death, he who deserves stripes by stripes, and he who deserves bonds by bonds? — He agreed.

And is the guilty one, I said, punished with bonds or stripes or some other such penalty, so that, repenting, he may cease from wrongdoing, being straightened by torments like a piece of warped wood? — Most true, he said, is what you say.

For the judge punishes him not on account of the past offense, but for the sake of the future, that he may not do this again.

For it is clear that the bond removes his impulse toward wrongdoing, not allowing him to do what he wishes.

but they restrain him and teach him to honor justice, until he himself, being admonished, learns to be of sound mind.

Therefore the bond does not become the cause of wrongdoing.

For it disciplines and makes men more just, being a remedy for the soul — harsh and biting indeed, but healing.

Well then, come, let us examine again what was said before.

Have you not granted that the body is a bond of the soul, given because of transgression? — I do grant it, he said.

And that the soul sins together with the body, if indeed adultery, murder, and impiety seem to you to be sin, which the soul commits together with the body? — He nodded assent.

But we have agreed that the one who is bound cannot commit wrong? — We have agreed, he said.

And that, being pained by the bonds, he is prevented from wrongdoing? — Yes.

But we sin while being in the flesh, the flesh concurring with us in this? — We do sin, he said.

But the one who is fettered cannot sin? — And here too he nodded assent.

But the body is a fellow-worker toward sinning? — Yes.

But the bond restrains? — He assented.

The body, then, is not a bond, neither according to you nor according to anyone else, I said, O Aglaophon, but is a fellow-worker with the soul toward either — whether toward the good or toward the evil.

Since, then, these things stand thus, defend yourself, Aglaophon, against what you first proposed.

For earlier you said that the body is a bond, a prison, and fetters of the soul.

And do you see that what you said does not agree with these things? For how could they agree, my good friend, if it is necessary both that the flesh be considered a bond, and that the soul make use of it as a fellow-worker and accomplice in wrongdoing — which is impossible? For if it was given as an instrument of torment on account of sin, so that the soul, being pained, might be disciplined to honor God, how does the body cooperate and contend together with it toward wrongdoing? For bonds and prisons and fetters, and, in short, all such things, become for those who are punished restraining instruments of correction that hinder wrongdoing and sinning.

For the bond is not given as a fellow-worker to help the wrongdoer commit still more wrong, but so that, being tormented by the bonds, he may cease from wrongdoing.

And indeed it is for this reason that judges fetter the wicked.

For they are prevented from doing evil by the bonds, even if they are unwilling to be prevented;

for it is those who live freely and unguarded, and not those who are bound, who commit evil deeds.

But man, in the first place, committed murder after the manner of Cain, grew in unbelief, gave himself to idols, and apostatized from God.

And how, then, was the body given to him as a bond? Or how did God, after man had transgressed the law even before having a body, give him the body as a still greater fellow-worker toward wrongdoing? And how, again, after the fashioning of this 'bond,' is it said, 'Behold, I have set before your face life and death, choose life,' and 'good and evil, choose the good,' and 'if you are willing and hearken to me'?

For these things were spoken to man as one possessing free will, and not as one led under bonds and necessity.

So that it is established from every consideration that one must not regard the body as fetters, a prison, or bonds, nor, for this reason, regard souls as prisoners of the earth, as though God had sentenced them to be bound with earthly fetters.

For how could this be, since it cannot be proven? And it is manifestly absurd to suppose that the body will not be together with the soul in the life to come throughout the ages, on the ground that it is a bond and fetters, lest, according to them, we should become eternally condemned prisoners of corruption while being in the kingdom of light.

For since the argument, in which they defined the flesh to be a bond of the soul, has been sufficiently refuted and disproved, this too has been refuted, namely:

that, in order that we may not, because of it, be found as prisoners in the kingdom of light — which we are to receive — the flesh will therefore not rise again.

one could refute their contentiousness both from these arguments and from many others as well.

For it is worthwhile also to bring forward those points in which they most clearly appear to fall into error.

Concerning, then, the garments of skin, and how the first-formed humans, before these were made, lived together with a body, enjoying immortality, and further, how the body cannot be regarded as a bond and a prison — having said what was fitting, O judges (for I call you judges of the arguments, most excellent Theophilus), I shall now turn to what follows, as I promised, concerning the matters set before us, so that we may see more distinctly what we intend.

God, the creator of all things, when he had duly established the universe, like a great city, and ordered it, commanding by his word, and each element had been fitted together in harmony with the others, and all things were filled with the varied kinds of living creatures — in order that the world might be brought to perfect beauty, having brought to life every sort of form: stars in the heaven, birds in the air, four-footed creatures on the earth, and swimming creatures in the water — last of all he brought man into the world, having beforehand prepared for him, as a most beautiful house, the whole universe, introducing a likeness resembling his own image, having fashioned him with his own hands as a radiant statue set in a beautiful temple.

For he knew that whatever he should fashion with his own hand would of necessity be altogether immortal, inasmuch as it is the work of immortality.

For immortal things become immortal by immortality, just as evil things become evil by evil, and unjust things become unjust by injustice.

For to do wrong is not the work of justice but of injustice; nor, conversely, is to act justly the work of injustice, but of justice — just as to bring about corruption is not the work of incorruption but of corruption, nor is to render immortal the work of corruption but of incorruption.

And, in short, whatever the agent that produces is, it necessarily comes to pass, by the same reasoning, that the thing produced turns out to be of the same kind.

But God is immortality, and life, and incorruption; and man is the work of God.

And everything wrought by immortality is immortal;

Therefore he himself made man with his own hand, but he commanded the air, the earth, and the water to bring forth the remaining kinds of living creatures.

And man, in the truest sense, is said, according to nature, to be neither soul without body, nor again body without soul, but that which is composed from the union of soul and body into one beautiful form.

Whence it appears from this that man was made immortal, and free from all corruption and diseases.

One might learn this sufficiently also from Scripture.

For concerning the other creatures, as many as are transformed through the intervals of time, growing to maturity and growing old, it is said, 'Let the waters bring forth creeping things having living souls, and birds flying above the earth across the firmament of heaven,' and 'Let the earth bring forth a living soul according to its kind: four-footed creatures and creeping things and wild beasts of the earth according to their kind.'

But concerning man it is no longer the same as with those: not 'Let the earth bring forth,' or 'Let the waters bring forth,' or 'Let there be lights,' but rather, 'Let us make man according to our image and according to our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of heaven and all the cattle'; and 'God took dust from the earth and formed man.'

And that you too may the more perceive the difference — how man, differing wholly and in every way from the others and being enrolled in the second rank of honor after the angels, is found to be immortal — come, let us again set out this matter according to the true and orthodox reasoning.

For to the former was given the being ensouled and living from the inbreathing of the spirit that is in the air, but to man it was given from that very immortal and surpassing substance itself.

For God breathed into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul.

And to the former are given various shapes and forms of nature, as many as solid and visible nature, at God's command, brought forth;

but to man was given the God-formed and God-like shape, wholly conformed in every respect to that archetypal image of the Father and the Only-begotten.

'For God made man; according to the image of God he made him.'

Wherefore he also took care for the permanence of his own image, that it might not be easily susceptible to corruption, just as sculptors do for their statues.

For they take thought not only for the beauty of their statues and their comeliness, that they may be magnificently splendid, but they also provide, as far as is in their power, for the immortality of their works, so that they may be preserved for a long age without being destroyed — as, for instance, Phidias did.

For after fashioning the ivory image at Pisa, he ordered oil to be poured about its feet in front of the statue, thereby preserving it, as far as possible, imperishable.

And so, if the craftsmen do this for their handmade works, would not God, the master-craftsman, who is able to do all things and to make even out of things that are not, all the more, by every necessity, have contrived that his own rational image, man, should be altogether imperishable and immortal — rather than allowing him, thus most dishonorably dissolved, to be handed over to ruin and corruption — him whom he specially deigned to make with his own hands, forming him according to his image and according to his own likeness, the adornment of the world, for whose sake also the world came to be? It cannot be said otherwise.

For it would be proceeding into folly for one, being puffed up with pride, to think this.

But perhaps, O Aglaophon, not having applied yourselves to what has now been said, you will say:

'And how, if according to you the living creature was immortal from its origin, has it become mortal, seeing that the immortal must be this unchangeably what it is, not falling away or being removed into the more shameful and mortal nature? For that is impossible, since otherwise it would not be immortal.'

I will say: since man was made self-determining with respect to the choice of the good, and had received this ordinance, the Hater-of-good, standing by, envied him out of malice.

'For God created man for incorruption, and made him an image of his own eternity.'

'For God did not make death, nor does he delight in the destruction of the living;'

'but through the envy of the devil death entered into the world,' just as Wisdom also testifies through Solomon.

Whence, then, does death come? It must again be asked, if God did not make death,

if it is from envy, then how did envy prevail over the will of God? But this is blasphemous, we shall say.

Whence, then, does envy come? the objector will ask.

For if it is from the devil, why then did the devil come to be? If he came to be, is not his maker the cause of his being evil? But God is altogether guiltless of all evils in every way;

Therefore the devil is uncreated; and if uncreated, then also impassible, indestructible, and lacking nothing.

For to the uncreated all these things must necessarily belong; but the devil is abolished and punished.

But that which is punished is altered and suffers, whereas the uncreated is impassible; therefore the devil is not uncreated, but created.

But if he is created, and everything that has been created came from some origin and has its own maker, then there is some maker of the devil.

And is that maker in turn uncreated or created? But the uncreated must be understood to be one alone — God;

for there cannot possibly, in any way whatsoever, be another maker besides him;

'For I,' he says, 'am the first, and I am after these things also, and besides me there is no other god.'

Nor can anything be refashioned or created apart from his will.

For even the Son confesses that he can do nothing of himself, unless he sees the Father doing something;

'For whatever things,' he says, 'the Father does, these the Son likewise does also.'

Nor indeed is there anything hostile to him, or opposed to him, or set up as an anti-god;

for it is possible only to the one who made them even to dissolve immortal things.

'What then is the devil?' you will say.

He is a spirit occupied with matter, as was also said by Athenagoras, having come into being by God, just as the other angels too came into being by him, and entrusted with the administration over matter and the forms of matter.

For this was the constitution of the angels: that they came to be, for God's sake, for the providential care of those things ordered by him, so that God, having the complete and universal providence over the whole, might himself hold fast the authority and dominion over all, steering the universe unswervingly like a ship with the rudder of wisdom, while the angels appointed to this task exercised the particular providence.

But while the rest remained in that for which God made and appointed them, he committed outrage and became evil in the administration entrusted to him, having conceived envy against us — just as also those who afterward became enamored of flesh and consorted with the daughters of men for the sake of pleasure.

For God also ordained that they should have a self-determined will toward either course, just as also in the case of men, so that either, obeying the word, they should be with him and enjoy blessedness, or, disobeying, should be judged.

And the devil too was the morning star: 'How is the morning star fallen from heaven,' he that rises at dawn; he was rising together with the angels of light, he was a morning star, but he fell and was shattered upon the earth, having exercised toward man the opposite of what he should.

For the divine is indignant against the proud, and cuts short their arrogant designs.

And it occurs to me also to speak in verse:

'O serpent, beginning and end of evils for all, and you too, O Deceit, who bear the heavy treasure of evils, guide of life's blind ignorance, rejoicing in the wailings and groans of mortals — you two, having armed the fratricidal arms for lawless outrages against kinsmen, persuaded Cain to defile the earth first with bloody gore, and you contrived that the first-formed man should fall from unspoiled ages into the dust.'

And thus concerning the devil.

But death was devised for the sake of conversion, just as blows are devised for correction in the case of children just learning their letters.

For death is nothing else than the discernment and separation of the soul from the body.

What then? Is God the cause of death? you will say.

For the same argument again comes to us.

May it not be! Since not even teachers are, in the primary sense, the cause of children's being pained by the blows.

Death, then, is good, if, like blows to children, it was devised for correction — not the death of sin, O most wise ones, but that of the separation of the flesh and the parting of soul from body.

For man, being self-determining and self-governing, and having received, as I said, a self-mastered and self-chosen will toward the choice of the good, and having heard, 'Of every tree that is in the paradise you shall eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat of it;'

'but in whatever day you eat of it, you shall die the death' — having yielded to eat of it to the devil, who by cunningly baited wisdom persuaded him in various ways toward disobedience, he set aside the commandment of God;

and this became to him a stumbling block, a snare, and a trap.

For God did not make evil, nor is he in any way whatsoever, altogether, the cause of evil;

but whatever, having thus been made self-determining by him for the purpose of guarding and keeping the law which he himself justly ordained, does not keep it, is called evil.

And the gravest harm is to disobey God, having overstepped the bounds of righteousness that pertain to one's self-determination.

For this reason he fashioned garments of skin, clothing man, as it were, with mortality, so that through the dissolution of the body all the evil that had come to be in him might die.

But it has already been raised as a question, and demonstrated, that the garments of skin are not the bodies.

Nevertheless, let us also state it again — for it need not be said only once.

The first-formed man himself, before the making of them, confesses that he had both bones and flesh, when indeed, having beheld the woman brought to him, he exclaimed, 'This now is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh;'

'She shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of her Man.'

'For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.'