Praeparatio Evangelica 6 part 2/5

For this natural law the Maker of all things has set up as a helper and ally to every soul in matters of conduct, showing it, by the law, the straight way, and, by the free will bestowed upon it, declaring the choosing of the better things worthy of praise and approval, and worthy of rewards and greater prizes for what is rightly accomplished — since it accomplished this not under compulsion, but by a free judgment, when it was possible also to choose the contrary; just as, conversely, the soul that has chosen the worst things is worthy of blame and punishment, since by its own movement it has neglected the law according to nature, and has engendered the beginning and source of evil, and has treated itself wickedly, not by any external necessity, but by free judgment and decision.

'The blame belongs to the one who chose; God is blameless.' For God made neither an evil nature, nor an evil essence of soul; for it is not lawful for the Good to create anything but good things. And whatever accords with nature is good. To every rational soul there belongs, according to nature, the good of self-determination, and this has come to be for the choosing of good things.

But when the soul does evil, nature is not to be blamed. For evil comes to it not according to nature, but contrary to nature, being the work of choice, not of nature. For the one who possessed the power of choosing the good, when he did not choose it, but willingly turned away from the better, being remade into the worse, what place of escape would be left to him, having become himself the cause of his own disease, and having neglected the innate law that acts as a savior and physician?

He, then, who takes no account of all these things, hanging everything upon necessity and the motion of the stars, and who says that the cause of the absurdity of men's transgressions lies not with us but with the power that moves all things, how would he not be introducing an unholy and impious reasoning?

For whether he should suppose the motion of the universe to be spontaneous and without providence, he would at once be convicted as an atheist, in addition to being blind to the all-wise harmony and the good and orderly arrangement of the whole, revolving through the ages in orderly motion; or whether he should confess that God's providence leads and directs and presides over all things and governs by an all-wise reason, even so he has not escaped the absurdity of impiety, since, among human sins, he acquits the transgressors, as having accomplished none of these absurd deeds by their own judgment, and instead attributes the cause of evils to universal providence, calling it necessity and fate, and saying that it is the cause of all human disgraceful deeds and unspeakable acts, of cruelty and bloodshed.

And who could be more impious than this man, who introduces the God of the universe, the very Maker and Creator of this whole, as forcing this man against his will to act impiously, compelling him under necessity, and to be an atheist by necessity, and blasphemous against himself; and forcing that man, whom he himself constituted male by nature, to suffer, contrary to nature, the things proper to females, not by his own choice, but compelled by God himself; and making yet another a murderer, not according to his own judgment, but driven by God's necessity — so that it would not even be reasonable to blame transgressors, but one must either suppose these deeds are not sins at all, or declare God to be the maker of all evils?

For whether he himself, being present to all things and seeing all and hearing all, compels men to do these things, or whether he himself has established the motion of the universe and this particular movement of the stars as productive and compulsory of these deeds — he who constructed such an instrument, and devised the snare for the creatures to be caught — he himself would be the cause also of those who are caught.

Whether, then, he does so himself directly, or again himself through some other necessity devised by him, entangling in these evils those who are unwilling — he himself, and no other, would be the maker of all evils, and man could no longer justly be said to have sinned, but rather God, the maker of the man, would be said to have sinned.

And what argument could be more impious than this? He, then, who introduces fate thereby directly expels God and God's providence, just as one who sets God over all things would abolish the doctrine of fate. For either God and fate would be the same, or the one would be distinct from the other. Now, they could not be the same.

For if they say that fate is a certain chain of causes descending from the motion of the heavenly bodies inviolably and immovably from eternity, how would the bodily elements — from which the heavenly bodies themselves are also composed — not be prior to fate, so that one might reasonably call fate a certain accidental attribute of these elements?

And how could that which is accidental to the elements be the same as God who is over all, if indeed the elements are observed, according to their own nature, to be lifeless and irrational, while God, existing outside of bodies, is life itself and wisdom, bestowing the enjoyment of his creative work upon the individual elements and upon the ordering of the whole? God and fate, therefore, are not the same.

But if, then, they are distinct, which is the better? Yet nothing is more excellent than God, nor anything more powerful. He will, therefore, prevail and be superior to the lesser; or else, by permitting fate, which is malignant, to have its way, he himself would draw upon himself the blame, since, being able to restrain the malignant necessity, he did not restrain it, but let it go unchecked to the ruin and corruption of all things — or rather, he himself brought this about, if indeed he is introduced as the maker and creator of all things, including fate itself.

But if he has no part at all in the ordering of the universe, then once again the voice of atheists would raise its head — a voice against which our ears must be closed, since the power of divine providence clearly manifests itself both from the all-wise and skillful accomplishments of the universe as a whole, and from what pertains to us, which unambiguously display the free and self-determined power of the rational soul.

By this power, even though countless external obstacles befall, by accident, both the nature of the body and the impulses within our power that arise from choice, nevertheless the freedom of the soul's virtue holds out against them all, displaying what is in our power — the choosing of good things — as unconquerable and undefeated.

And this the present time has demonstrated by actual deeds, above all through the teaching of our Savior. For that these are not mere noise and empty words, it is possible for you to observe the contest of the God-fearing, and to perceive those who by their own free choice have undertaken the labors of the contests for piety — which countless multitudes of Greeks and barbarians throughout the whole inhabited world have displayed, eagerly enduring every kind of bodily outrage, passing through every kind of torture with a cheerful countenance, and at last, in manifold ways, joyfully receiving the release of the soul from the body.

And indeed, no argument here would permit us to blame fate. For when, throughout the ages, did the motion of the stars ever produce for you such champions of piety? Or when, before the teaching of our Savior was cast down upon all men, did the life of men ever put forward such a contest throughout the whole inhabited world?

And where has the whole of history ever produced, for all men, Greeks and barbarians alike, a school of such teachings — one that destroys superstitious error and instructs in the knowledge of the one God over all?

And which of the sages celebrated in song throughout the ages, barbarian or Greek, was ever deemed worthy of such a fate as to render the doctrine he propounded illustrious throughout the entire world, made known even to the ends of the earth, and to acquire divine glory among those devoted to him?

But if these things neither existed nor came to pass nor were ever heard of throughout the ages, then a chain of causes and necessity was not the cause of these things. For, long ago, through this same recurring cycle and revolution of the stars, there would have been no obstacle to others as well obtaining the same nativity and the same fate.

By what fate, then, has our Savior, appearing as God, been proclaimed throughout the whole inhabited world, while those formerly held as gods among both Greeks and barbarians have been overthrown — and overthrown by no other means than through the teaching of this new God?

And which fate of theirs proclaimed to all men a God who is the Maker of all things, and forced them to declare that fate does not exist? And how did fate compel itself to say and to think that it does not exist? And what shall we say of those who, from of old, for the sake of the pious teaching of our Savior, have contended in every kind of contest, and are still contending even to this day?

They obtained, then, one and the same portion, so as to be enslaved under one word and teaching, to display one purpose and choice, and one virtue of soul, and to undertake one and the same way of life, and to love the same doctrine, and lovingly to endure the same sufferings for the sake of steadfastness in piety.

And what sound argument would concede this — that young and old alike, and every measure of age, both male and female, the natures of barbarian men, both slaves and free alike, both the learned and those without any share in education, born not in one corner of the earth nor under these particular stars, but throughout the whole inhabited world — were compelled by the necessity of fate to prefer this particular doctrine above all their ancestral ones, and to embrace death for the sake of piety toward the one God over all, and to be well instructed in the doctrines concerning the immortality of the soul, and to prefer a philosophy not in words but in deeds?

For these things would be evident even to a blind man — that they belong not to any necessity, but to learning and teaching, being clear examples of a self-willed judgment and a free choice.

There could be countless other proofs of this problem as well; but leaving most of them aside, I for my part will be content with what has been said, while I shall leave to you your own reading of your revered philosophers to consider, so that you may learn how much wiser and better than your oracle-giving gods was that man who exposed their wondrous oracles as false and who, as it were, boxed the ears of Pythian Apollo himself for what he pronounced concerning fate.

Hear, then, once more from the man who entitled his own treatise 'The Detection of Impostors,' how, with truly youthful boldness of spirit, he corrects the error of the multitude and of Apollo himself, in the very words he writes, as follows:

You then, sitting at Delphi, are unable to keep silent, even if you should wish to. So Apollo, the son of Zeus, wills as he now does - not because he wills it, but because he has been ordained by necessity to will it.

I think that, setting aside everything else - since I do not know how I was led into this discussion - I shall inquire into a matter that is both proper to me and worth investigating. For it has perished, at least as far as the wise are concerned, it has perished from human life: whatever one delights to call it, whether the rudder, or the anchor-stone, or the foundation - the authority over our own life, which we hold to be sovereign over the most essential things, but which Democritus, if I am not mistaken, and Chrysippus - the one contriving to represent as a slave, the other as a half-slave - the fairest of human possessions.

But concerning these matters, let there be only so much discourse as a man, being human, might deem fitting for human affairs; but if the divine itself now makes war against us, alas, what things we shall suffer!

But it is neither likely nor just - at least judging from these things: 'Hateful to your neighbors, dear to the immortal gods, sit guarded, keeping your rampart within.'

'For what,' says the Argive, 'if I should wish it, is it in my power, and am I able, if it should seem good to me, to sit and be guarded?' 'It is in your power,' you would say, 'and you are able; for how else would I have enjoined this upon you?'

'Dear child of glorious Cheiron, Carystus, leaving Pelion behind, come to the height of Euboea, where it is divinely ordained for you to found a sacred land. Come, go, delay no longer.'

Is it truly, then, within a man's power, O Apollo, and am I master of even willing to leave Pelion behind? And yet I have heard from many wise men that if it is fated for me to reach the height of Euboea and found the sacred land, I shall go and I shall settle there, whether you say so or not, and whether I should wish it or not. But if I must also will what is necessary for me, even if I should not wish to will it, then you, O Apollo, are more justly to be believed.

I seem indeed likely to pay you more heed. 'Announce to the Parians, Telesicles, that I command you to found a conspicuous city on the island of Eeria.' 'I will announce it, by Zeus,' someone perhaps puffed up will say, refuting you, 'even if you did not command it, for it is fated.' And Thasos is the island Eeria; the Parians will come to it, since Archilochus my son declared that this island was formerly called Eeria. You, then, since you are skilled at pursuing the matter, will not, I think, tolerate him being so ungrateful and bold, who, if you had not wished to disclose it to him, would never have announced it, nor would Archilochus his son have guided the Parians there, nor would the Parians have settled Thasos.

I do not know, then, whether you say these things but do not know what you are saying. But since we seem to have leisure and to be conversing at length, and the argument is no trifling matter, tell me this: perhaps a few things out of many will suffice.

Are you and I, then, something? You would say yes. But whence do we know this? By what means did we ever determine to know this? Is there anything else so adequate as our own self-consciousness and perception of ourselves?

What then? How did we ever discover that we are living creatures? And how, that among living creatures, as I would put it, we are human beings, and among human beings, the one a sorcerer, the other an exposer of the sorcerer; while as you would put it, the one a man, the other a god, and the one a diviner, the other a false accuser? And let it be so for you, provided that I be caught out.

And how have we come to know that we are conversing at present? What do you say? Have we not rightly judged our own perception by that very thing which is nearest of all things to us? Clearly so. For there was nothing else higher, older, or more trustworthy than it.

For if this is not so, then no longer let anyone named Alcmaeon come before you to Delphi, having killed his mother, driven from his home, and longing for home. For he does not know whether he himself exists at all, nor whether he is driven from home, nor whether he longs for home. But even if Alcmaeon is mad and imagines things that do not exist, the Pythian, at least, is not mad. So do not say to him: 'Thus you seek a return, to reach your ancestral land, son of Amphiaraus.' For you yourself do not even know whether someone is asking you, son of Amphiaraus, nor whether you, who are being questioned, are anything at all, though you have something to say about what is being asked.

Nor, then, let Chrysippus, who introduces half-slavery, not knowing what this very thing is, go to the Stoa, nor let him suppose that those dullards will come to hear him, Nobody, nor let him insist strenuously on anything, standing forth against Arcesilaus present, and against Epicurus not present.

For what Arcesilaus is, what Epicurus is, or what the Stoa is, or what the young men are, or who Nobody is, he neither knows nor is capable of knowing; for much earlier than that, he does not even know whether he himself is anything.

But neither you nor Democritus will tolerate it if someone says these things - that there is no more trustworthy measure than this, nor, even if certain other things seem to exist, could anything be made equal to it - or if made equal, could not surpass it.

Therefore, someone might say, O Democritus, and you, O Chrysippus, and you, O diviner, since you are indignant if anyone should wish to take away your own perception of yourselves - for then those many books of yours would no longer exist - come, let us also be indignant in return.

Why is that? Wherever it seems good to you, this will be both the most trustworthy and the most venerable thing; but wherever it does not seem good to you, there something hidden will tyrannize over it - fate, destiny - having a different source for each of you: for one from God, for another from those small bodies being borne downward and rebounding upward and intertwining and dissolving and separating and being juxtaposed by necessity.

For behold, in the same manner that we have laid hold of ourselves, in that same manner we have also laid hold of what is voluntary and what is forced within us. It has not escaped our notice how great is the difference between walking and being led, nor how great is that between choosing and being compelled.

And for what reason have I brought these things into the discussion? Because it has escaped you, O diviner, that we are masters of these things, and though you know all things, you would not know these, whose cables are fastened from our own will.

And this appeared to be the source of not a few matters; but he from whom the source - which was the cause of what came after it - has escaped notice, how could such a one know the things that come after the source?

Shameless indeed is he who prophesied beforehand to Laius that his own offspring would kill him. For surely the one who would be born was going to be master of his own will, and neither any Apollo nor anyone superior to him is capable of reaching, by any power, things whose existence has neither actuality nor the necessity of coming into being.

For that is indeed the most ridiculous thing of all - the mixture and combination of both something being in the power of men, and there being no less a chain of necessity. For he resembles, as the wiser sort say, the Euripidean saying.

For that Laius should wish to beget a child - Laius himself was master of this, and this fact escaped the Apollonian oracle's serpent-vision; but once he had begotten, an inescapable necessity lay upon him, to die at the hands of the one born to him - thus the necessity concerning the future thereby afforded the diviner his foreknowledge of what was going to happen.

And surely the one born was likewise master of his own will, just as the one who begot him; and as the latter was master of whether to beget or not, so the former was master of whether to kill or not. Such are all your prophecies; and this is what the Euripidean Apollo meant when he said: 'and your whole house shall walk through blood.'

That there will be blinding by the offspring's own hand, on account of the marriage with his mother and the tyranny which he received by solving the riddle; and that there will be the mutual slaughter of his sons, on account of the exile of the one from power, and the greed of the other, and the marriage of the exile in Argos, and the expedition of seven ridiculous generals and their clash of battle - since these are divided among so many origins and authorities, how could you possibly know them thoroughly in advance, or how could the chain of necessity bind them together?

For if Oedipus, being master of himself, had not wished to rule as tyrant, or having wished this and done it, had not chosen to marry Jocasta, or having married had not been deluded nor been despondent and ill-tempered, how would each particular thing have come to pass? How would he have laid hands upon his own eyes? How would he have laid upon his sons that curse of Euripides and of yours?

And in what way would the events following these have come about, if the causes had not first arisen before you were able to say anything about the future? Again, on the other hand, what if the sons had come to agreement and reigned together, or if, having made a compact, they had remained by turns faithful to their agreement, or if the one who was driven out had decided to go not to Argos but to Libya or to the Perrhaebians, or having entered Argos had decided to sell salt-fish, and not to take a wealthy wife?

But instead some poor laboring woman or shopkeeper's daughter - or if Adrastus had not given him his daughter, or if he had given her, but the other had not desired the road home, or having desired it, had mastered himself, or if Adrastus had not attended to him when he begged for an alliance, or if neither Amphiaraus nor Tydeus nor any of the other captains had followed Adrastus, or if they had indeed followed, but the one who came had not fought with his brother, but either having come to agreement had reigned together with him, or, since the other did not wish it, had withdrawn, persuaded by Euripides who says: 'And you too came senselessly to sack your fatherland' -

Or if this one had not, but the other, upon hearing those other Euripidean sophistries - 'Then sun and night are slaves to mortals, but you will not endure to have an equal share of the house?' - how would they have joined battle, and how would the whole house of Laius have walked through blood?

But indeed, you will say, these things did happen. They did happen; but by what road did you come to know them beforehand? Do you not see how frequently the power within us, who fill out the drama, has cut through the whole drama? And in this same way, taking whatever premise you wish, I shall cut through your chain of necessity, and show that it is impossible.

But you claim to know the final outcomes of the premise, yet the whole premise is composed out of a power that cuts through the chain of necessity.

Or do you not understand what I am saying? But in each premise, O diviner, living creatures often make few starting-points, or many within it. And these starting-points, ever cutting through what has preceded them, themselves bring forward other new matters; and these can proceed only so far as no other starting-point, arising from some other source, commands what follows it not to follow the preceding things, but to follow itself instead.

A starting-point could be a donkey, or a dog, or even a flea. For, by Apollo, you will not take away the authority even of the flea; rather, the flea will set out on some impulse of its own, which, sometimes becoming entangled with human affairs, will furnish itself as the starting-point of some course of events. But you, though making use of this class of thing, do not perceive it.

'You destroyed Trachis, city of divine Heracles, O Locrian; and Zeus gave you other cities, and shall give you still more.' What do you say? Was it not fated by you that it be destroyed? And how are we responsible, and not your necessity? You do not act justly, O Apollo, nor do you rightly reproach us who have done no wrong.

And this Zeus - the necessity of your necessity - why does he punish us, rather than himself, if indeed anyone, since it is he who has shown necessity to be such as it is? Why also does he threaten us? Or why should we, as though being masters of this, go hungry? But either it will be opened by us, or it will not; and whichever it shall be, this too has been fated.

Cease, then, O Zeus, famine-maker, from your wrath; for what has been fated shall be, and this your chain of necessity has been ordered to bring about; but we are nothing in relation to this. And do you too, O Apollo, cease prophesying vain things; for what must be shall be, shall be, even if you remain silent. But what should we suffer, O Zeus and Apollo, we who are in no way responsible for your legislation - that is to say, your necessity-legislation? What have we to do with your calamities, which you yourselves are right to bear for the things we were compelled to do?

'Oetaeans, do not hasten with wicked recklessness of mind.' But we do not hasten, O Apollo; rather we are driven - not by recklessness, but by your necessity.

And how, O Apollo, do you praise that Lycurgus, who was good neither willingly nor by choice, but unwillingly - if indeed anyone can become good unwillingly? What you are now doing resembles someone who should praise and honor those who are beautiful in body, but blame and punish those who are ugly.

For the wicked might justly say to you, O gods: 'You did not permit us to become good; not only that, but you also compelled us to be wicked.' And if the good should walk about with elbows out, no one will permit them, but will say: 'O Chrysippus and Cleanthes and all of that chorus, since you have been made to be good - I praise virtue, but I do not praise you who possess it.'

But even Epicurus too, whom you, O Chrysippus, have often reviled - I, for my part, acquit him of the charges you bring. For what should he suffer, who was not willingly soft nor unjust, as you have often reproached him?

'The gods are gracious to the life of orderly mortals, and they receive the sacred sacrifices and honors of the pious.' You seem to me not to say these things unless you were convinced that it is not unwillingly, but willingly, that men proceed to the things toward which they proceed. And as to whatever they should will, no god nor human sophist, matters having been thus refuted beforehand, will dare to say that it is subjected to necessity - or else we shall no longer make arguments toward him, but taking some sturdy strap of leather, as toward an unruly child, we shall thoroughly thrash his ribs.

So much did Oenomaus declaim against the oracle-giver. But if you do not delight in this sort of thing, take up and read the sayings of the other philosophers concerning fate, which are subversive not only of the oracles set forth above, but also, in general, of the other things devised concerning this doctrine.

For since not only the unlearned and untutored, but even many who pride themselves greatly on education and philosophy, have been swept along together with this doctrine, I consider it necessary to set forth the objections of the philosophers themselves against one another, for a precise examination of the problem. First, then, I shall read to you from the works of Diogenianus concerning fate, the following sort of things said in opposition to Chrysippus.

It is worthwhile, in addition to all these things, to set forth also the views held by Chrysippus the Stoic concerning this doctrine. For he, in the first book On Fate, wishing to show that all things indeed have been seized by necessity and fate, employs, among other testimonies, also the following words spoken in Homer the poet: 'But as for me, hateful doom engulfed me, the doom which was allotted to me even at my birth.'

And later again: 'and he shall suffer whatever things fate spun for him with the thread at his birth, when his mother bore him'; and: 'and I say that no man among mortals has escaped his allotted Fate.' He does not observe that the things said elsewhere again by the poet are directly opposed to these, which he himself also uses in the second book, wishing to establish that many things happen because of us, such as: 'for they perished by their own recklessness'; and: 'Alas, how mortals blame the gods! For they say that evils come from us, but they themselves, by their own recklessness, have sorrows beyond what is fated.'

For these and similar sayings are opposed to the notion that everything happens according to fate. Nor indeed was he able to perceive this: that Homer, not even in those verses he cites, in any way bears witness in support of his doctrine. For he will be found, from those very verses, to be suggesting not that everything happens according to fate, but rather that some things occur according to it.

For the line 'But as for me, hateful doom engulfed me, which was allotted to me even at my birth' would not be said to mean that all things happen according to doom, but only the very fact of dying; for indeed, truly, it has been fated for every begotten living creature to die.

But indeed the later line too, 'and he shall suffer whatever things fate spun for him with the thread at his birth, when his mother bore him,' means the same thing. For he does not say that all the things that will happen to him afterward will happen according to fate, but that certain things will happen to him by necessity. For what else could the qualifying word 'whatever' possibly signify but this? And many things, even if not all, are indeed imposed upon us by necessity.

And the line, 'and I say that no man among mortals has escaped his allotted Fate,' is excellently said. For who could escape the things that befall every living creature by necessity? So that Chrysippus would not only fail to have Homer in agreement with him in holding that everything happens according to fate, but would even find him opposed - since Homer, on the one hand, has clearly and often said that many things happen because of us, while, on the other hand, he would nowhere be found explicitly saying that all things happen by necessity.

And for the poet, since he does not promise us the truth of the nature of things, but rather imitates the passions and characters and opinions of all sorts of men, it would be fitting to say even contrary things often; but for a philosopher it is fitting neither to say contrary things, nor, for this very reason, to make use of a poet as a witness.

And after other things he says: 'Chrysippus supposes that he also brings forward another strong proof of fate in all things - namely, the etymology of such names. For he says that "what is fated" is a certain limited and completed administration, and that "fate" is a certain "chain," whether from the will of God or from whatever cause.'