Miscellanies 1.1.1–1.3.24

… so that you may read them at hand and be able to keep them. Should writings not be left behind at all, or should they be left to some? And if the former, what is the use of writing? If the latter, is it to the earnest or to those who are not? It would be absurd to disapprove of the writing of the earnest and approve of those who are not such when they compose. Are Theopompus and Timaeus, then, to compose myths and blasphemies, and Epicurus too, the leader of atheism, and further Hipponax and Archilochus, to be permitted to write so shamefully, while the one who proclaims the truth is to be prevented from leaving benefit to later generations? It is good, I think, to leave good children to those who come after. Children are the offspring of bodies, but words are the offspring of the soul. Thus we call those who instructed us fathers; and wisdom is sociable and loves humanity. At any rate Solomon says, “My son, if you receive the utterance of my commandment and hide it with you, your ear will listen to wisdom.” He shows that the word, when sown, is hidden as in earth in the soul of the learner; and this is a spiritual planting.

That is why he adds, “And you will apply your heart to understanding, and apply it for the admonition of your son.” For, I think, soul joined with soul and spirit with spirit in the sowing of the word makes what is sown grow and come alive; and everyone who is instructed is a son in obedience to the one who instructs. “My son,” he says, “do not forget my laws.” But if knowledge is not for all, writings are to the many, as those who quote the proverb say, “an ass with a lyre.” At any rate pigs delight in mud rather than in clean water. That is why, says the Lord, “I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see and hearing they do not hear, and they do not understand”; not as though the Lord caused their ignorance (for it is not lawful to think so), but as having exposed prophetically the ignorance that existed and indicated that they would not understand what was said.

Now the Savior himself appears abundantly, distributing his goods to the servants according to the capacity of the one who receives, which must be increased by exercise, and returning again to settle accounts with them. Then he welcomed those who had increased his money, those faithful in little, and, promising to set them over much, commanded them to enter into the joy of the Lord; but to the one who had hidden the money entrusted to him for lending and returned idle the very sum he had received, he said, “Wicked and slothful servant, you ought to have put my money with the bankers, and when I came I would have received my own.” On this account the useless servant will be cast into the outer darkness. “You, then, be strong,” Paul also says, “in the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and what you have heard from me through many witnesses, entrust these to faithful men, who will be able to teach others as well.” And again: “Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a workman who does not need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.”

If, then, both proclaim the word, the one by writing, the other by voice, how are both not to be welcomed, having made faith active through love? But God is not to blame for the fault of the one who did not choose the best. Thus it is the task of some to lend out the word, and of others to test it and either choose it or not; and the judgment is decided in them. But the knowledge of proclaiming is already in a way angelic, benefiting whichever way it works, by hand or by tongue; for “the one who sows to the Spirit will reap eternal life from the Spirit; and let us not grow weary in doing good.” At any rate, by divine providence it contributes the greatest things to the one who meets with it: the beginning of faith, eagerness for right living, the impulse toward truth, a searching movement, a trace of knowledge; in short, it gives the starting points of salvation. And those who have been genuinely nourished on the words of truth, receiving provisions for eternal life, are given wings for heaven. Most wonderfully, then, the apostle says, “In everything commending ourselves as ministers of God, as poor yet making many rich, as having nothing and yet possessing everything; our mouth is open to you.” “I charge you,” he says, writing to Timothy, “before God and Christ Jesus and the elect angels, that you keep these things without prejudging, doing nothing by partiality.”

Both of these, then, must test themselves: the one whether he is worthy to speak and to leave written records, the other whether he is fit to hear and to read. So too, when some have divided the Eucharist, as is the custom, they allow each one of the people himself to take his portion. For the best guide to exact choice and avoidance is conscience; and its firm foundation is a right life together with fitting instruction; and to follow others who have already been tested and have succeeded is best both for understanding the truth and for carrying out the commandments. So “whoever eats the bread and drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup.”

It would follow, then, for the one who has undertaken to benefit his neighbors to consider whether he has leapt into teaching rashly, out of rivalry with some; whether his sharing of the word is for glory; whether he reaps only this reward, the salvation of his hearers; and whether the one who speaks through written records has avoided speaking to please and the charge of taking bribes. “For we never came with words of flattery, as you know,” says the apostle, “nor with a pretext for greed, God is witness; nor seeking glory from men, either from you or from others, though we could have been a burden as apostles of Christ; but we were gentle among you, as a nurse cherishes her own children.” In the same way, those who partake of the divine words must be watched, whether they come to this out of curiosity, to inspect it like the buildings of cities, or whether they approach to receive worldly goods, having learned that those consecrated to Christ share their necessities. But let the hypocrites go; if anyone wishes not to seem righteous but to be so, it befits him to be conscious of the best in himself.

If, then, “the harvest is great but the workers are few,” we truly ought to pray that we may have an abundance of as many workers as possible. Farming is twofold: one kind unwritten, the other written. Whichever way the Lord's worker sows the noble wheat and grows and reaps the ears, he will appear a truly divine farmer. “Work,” says the Lord, “not for the food that perishes but for that which endures to eternal life.” And nourishment is received either through food or through words. And truly “blessed are the peacemakers,” who teach otherwise and bring over to peace, in word and in a life according to God, those who are here at war in life and error because of ignorance, and who feed those who hunger for righteousness by the distribution of bread. For there are souls too that have their own foods: some grow by knowledge and understanding, others feed on Greek philosophy, of which, as of nuts, not all is edible. “He who plants and he who waters,” being ministers of the one who gives growth, “are one” in their ministry; “and each will receive his own reward according to his own labor. For we are God's fellow workers; you are God's field, God's building,” according to the apostle.

So we must not allow the hearers to make their test by comparison, nor hand over the word for examination to those reared in the arts of every kind of speech and in the powers of inflated arguments, whose souls are already preoccupied and have not first been emptied. But when someone chooses from faith to be feasted, he is firm for the reception of the divine words, having faith as a reasonable judgment. And persuasion follows him abundantly from this. And this, then, was that prophetic saying: “If you do not believe, neither will you understand.” “So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all, and especially to those of the household of faith.” And let each of these, according to the blessed David, sing with thanksgiving: “You will sprinkle me with hyssop and I shall be clean; you will wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. You will make me hear joy and gladness; the bones that were humbled will rejoice. Turn your face from my sins and blot out my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and strengthen me with a guiding spirit.”

The one who speaks to those present tests them by time and judges by discernment, and distinguishes from the others the one able to hear, watching their words, manners, characters, life, movements, bearing, look, and voice: the crossroads, the rock, the trodden path, the fruitful land, the overgrown ground, the fertile, fair, and cultivated soil that can multiply the seed. But the one who speaks through written records consecrates himself to God, crying out in writing: not for gain, not for vainglory, not to be overcome by partiality, not to be enslaved by fear, not to be elated by pleasure, but only to enjoy the salvation of those who read, which he does not even share at present, but awaiting in hope the recompense that will surely be given by the one who has promised to pay the workers their wages according to their worth. But the one enrolled among men should not seek a return either. For has not the one who boasts of his good deed received his reward in good repute? And the one who does any of his duties for a reward, either as a doer of good eager to get it back or as an evildoer avoiding retribution, is he not held fast by worldly custom? One must imitate the Lord as far as possible. And this would be the one who serves the will of God, having received freely and giving freely, receiving as a worthy reward his way of life itself. “The hire of a harlot,” it says, “will not enter into the holy place.”

At any rate, it is forbidden to bring to the altar the price of a dog. But the one whose soul's eye has been dimmed toward its proper light by bad nourishment and teaching, let him go to the truth that shows in writing what is unwritten. “You who thirst, come to the water,” says Isaiah; and “Drink water from your own vessels,” Solomon advises. Indeed in the Laws, Plato, the philosopher from the Hebrews, commands farmers not to irrigate or take water from others unless they have first dug on their own land down to what is called the virgin earth and found the ground dry. For it is right to supply want, but it is not good to furnish idleness with provisions; as Pythagoras too said that it is reasonable to help load a burden, but not fitting to help take it off. And Scripture kindles the spark of the soul and directs its proper eye to contemplation, perhaps implanting something, like the farmer who grafts, but also stirring up what is already there. For “many among us,” according to the divine apostle, “are weak and sick, and a good number sleep. But if we judged ourselves, we would not be judged.”

This treatise is not a writing artfully composed for display; but my notes are stored up for old age, a remedy against forgetfulness, simply an image and outline of those vivid and living words that I was counted worthy to hear, and of blessed and truly remarkable men. Of these, one was in Greece, the Ionian; others in Magna Graecia (one of them was from Coele-Syria, the other from Egypt); others in the East, and of these one was from the land of the Assyrians, the other a Hebrew in Palestine by origin. When I met the last (he was first in power), having hunted him out hidden in Egypt, I found rest. He, the true Sicilian bee, gathering the flowers of the prophetic and apostolic meadow, produced in the souls of his hearers an undefiled treasure of knowledge. These men, preserving the true tradition of the blessed teaching directly from Peter and James, John and Paul, the holy apostles, son receiving it from father (but few are like their fathers), came by God's will even to us, to deposit those ancestral and apostolic seeds.

And I know well that they will rejoice; I do not mean pleased with this exposition, but only with its preservation in outline. For such a sketch is, I think, the work of a soul longing to keep the blessed tradition from escaping. “The father of a man who loves wisdom will be glad.” Wells, when drawn from, give clearer water, but those from which no one takes turn foul. Use keeps iron cleaner, but disuse breeds rust in it. In short, joint exercise produces a healthy condition in both spirits and bodies. “No one lights a lamp and puts it under the measure, but on the lampstand,” where it gives light to those counted worthy of the same feast. For what use is wisdom that does not make wise the one able to hear? And further, the Savior always saves and always works, as he sees the Father. The one who teaches learns more, and in speaking often listens together with those who hear him; for the teacher of both speaker and hearer is one, who is the fountain of both mind and word.

Hence the Lord did not forbid … to rest from good, but permitted sharing the divine mysteries and that holy light with those able to receive them. Thus he did not reveal to many what did not belong to many, but to few, to whom he knew it was fitting, those able to receive them and be molded by them. But the secret things, like God himself, are entrusted to speech, not to writing. And if someone says it is written, “There is nothing hidden that will not be revealed, nor covered that will not be uncovered,” let him hear from us too that by this saying he foretold that the hidden would be revealed to the one who hears in secret, and that what is covered, like the truth, would be shown to the one able to receive in a veiled way what is handed on; and what is hidden from the many will become plain to the few. For why do not all know the truth? And why was righteousness not loved, if righteousness belongs to all? But the mysteries are handed on mystically, so that they may be in the mouth of the speaker and of the one to whom he speaks, or rather not in the voice but in the understanding. “And God has given to the church some as apostles, some as prophets, some as evangelists, some as shepherds and teachers, for the equipping of the saints, for the work of ministry, for the building up of the body of Christ.”

The writing of these notes of mine, I know well, is weak compared with that grace-filled spirit which we were counted worthy to hear; but it would be an image recalling the archetype to one who has been struck by the thyrsus. “For speak to a wise man,” it says, “and he will become wiser”; and “to the one who has, more will be given.” It promises not to interpret the secret things adequately (far from it), but only to remind, whether when we forget or so that we may not forget. Many things, I know well, have slipped away from us through length of time, having fallen away unwritten. Hence, relieving the weakness of my memory, and providing myself with a systematic exposition of chief points as a saving reminder, I have necessarily used this sketch. There are some things we did not even remember (for great was the power of those blessed men); there are also things that, left unnoted over time, have now escaped; and others were being extinguished, withering in the mind itself, since such a ministry is not easy for those not approved. These I rekindle in my notes; some I deliberately pass over, choosing with understanding, afraid to write what I refrained even from saying, not out of grudging (for that is not lawful), but fearing for my readers, lest they stumble in another direction and we be found, as the proverb says, holding out a sword to a child. For it is impossible for what has been written not to get out, even if it remains unpublished by me. And being always rolled out, using only the one written voice, it answers nothing more than what is written to the one who questions it; for of necessity it needs a helper, either its author or someone else who has walked in the same track.

There are also things that my writing will hint at; with some it will linger, others it will only mention; it will try to speak while escaping notice, to reveal while concealing, and to show while keeping silent. It will set out the doctrines of the notable heresies and answer them with everything that must be prepared in advance for the knowledge that belongs to the highest contemplation, which will advance for us, according to the glorious and venerable rule of the tradition, as we proceed from the creation of the world. It will first set out what needs to be discussed beforehand of natural science and clear away first what stands in the way of the sequence, so as to have ears ready to receive the tradition of knowledge, the ground having first been cleared, as by a farmer, of thorns and every weed, for the planting of a vineyard. For there is a contest before the contest and mysteries before mysteries. Nor will our notes hesitate to make use of the finest parts of philosophy and of other preliminary education. For, according to the apostle, it is reasonable to become a Jew not only because of the Hebrews and those under the law, but also a Greek because of the Greeks, “that we may gain all.” And in the letter to the Colossians he writes, “admonishing every man and teaching in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ.”

The elegance of learning also suits, in another way, the sketch of the notes. Thus the abundance of liberal learning is like a sauce mixed with an athlete's food, an athlete not given to luxury, but taking a good appetite with ambition. At any rate, in singing we harmoniously relax the overstrained tone of solemnity. And as those who wish to address a people often do so through a herald, so that what is said may be better heard, so here too (for our word, spoken before the tradition itself, is to many) we must set out the familiar opinions and sayings that ring out to them on each point, by which the hearers will be more readily turned. And in short (for among many small pearls there is the one, and in a great catch of fish the beautiful fish), with time and labor the truth will shine out, if a good helper is at hand; for most benefits are supplied from God through human beings.

All of us who use our eyes see what falls before them, but different people for different purposes. Thus the cook and the shepherd do not view a sheep in the same way: the one inquires whether it is fat, the other watches it for good breeding. Let someone milk the sheep if he needs food, and shear its fleece if he needs covering. In this way let the fruit of Greek learning come forward for me. For I do not think anyone considers a writing so fortunate that no one will speak against it; but that one must be thought reasonable which no one will reasonably speak against. And so the action and choice to be approved is not the one without blame, but the one no one will reasonably blame. And if someone does not do a thing as his primary aim, it does not immediately follow that he does it under constraint; rather, he will act, managing something with divine wisdom and accommodating himself. For neither does the one who has virtue still need the road to virtue, nor does the healthy man need recovery. And as farmers first water the ground, so we too first water the earthy part of the Greeks with the drinkable water of their own writings, so that they may receive the spiritual seed that is sown and be able easily to nourish it.

The Stromata will contain the truth mixed with the doctrines of philosophy, or rather covered and hidden in them, as the edible part of the nut is in the shell; for it is fitting, I think, that the seeds of the truth be kept for the farmers of faith alone. I am not unaware of what is bandied about by some who are ignorantly timid, who say that we should occupy ourselves with what is most necessary and what holds the faith together, and pass over what is external and superfluous, which wears us out in vain and detains us with things that contribute nothing to the end. Others even think that philosophy entered life for evil, for the ruin of mankind, by some wicked inventor. But I will show throughout the Stromata that vice has an evil nature and could never become a farmer of anything good, hinting at the same time that philosophy too is in some way the work of divine providence.

About my notes, which at the necessary times include Greek opinion, I say this much to the fault-finders. First, even if philosophy were useless, if the demonstration of its uselessness is useful, it is useful. Next, one cannot even condemn the Greeks using bare statement about their doctrines, without entering into a detailed exposure of them to the point of understanding. For refutation with experience is very trustworthy, since knowledge of what is condemned is found to be the most perfect proof. Many things, even if they do not contribute to the end, adorn the craftsman. And besides, wide learning commends the one who sets out the chief doctrines, for the persuasion of his hearers, and, producing admiration in the catechumens, it also recommends the truth.

Such attraction is trustworthy, by which lovers of learning receive the truth veiled; so that they do not think philosophy ruins life as a maker of false things and base deeds, as some have slandered it, when it is a clear image of the truth, a divine gift given to the Greeks; and so that we are not drawn away from the faith, as though bewitched by some deceitful art, but, so to speak, using a wider circuit, may at the same time provide a certain joint exercise of faith that is demonstrative. Indeed, the connection of doctrines through comparison woos the truth, and knowledge follows from it; not that philosophy came in as the primary reason, but because of the fruit that comes from knowledge, as we receive firm persuasion of true apprehension through the understanding of what is hinted at. I say nothing of the fact that the Stromata, embodied in wide learning, wish artfully to hide the seeds of knowledge.

As, then, one passionate about hunting takes his quarry after seeking, searching, tracking, and running with hounds, so the truth appears sweet when it has been sought and procured with labor. Why, then, did it seem good to arrange the notes in this way? Because it is a great danger to divulge the truly secret word of the true philosophy to those who wish to contradict everything without restraint and unjustly, and who throw out all names and words in no orderly way, deceiving themselves and bewitching those who follow them. “For the Jews ask for signs,” as the apostle says, “and the Greeks seek wisdom.”

Great is the crowd of this kind. Some of them, enslaved to pleasures and wishing to disbelieve, laugh at the truth that is worthy of all reverence, treating the barbarian as a joke. Others, exalting themselves, strive to invent slanders against our words, producing contentious questions, hunters of trifling phrases, zealots for petty arts, wranglers and strap-twisters, as the famous Abderite says. For “twisting is the tongue of mortals,” he says, “and many are the words in it; wide is the range of words of every kind, this way and that”; and “whatever word you speak, such will you hear.” Elated, then, by this art, the wretched sophists, babbling with their own chicanery, laboring their whole life over the distinction of names and the composition and interweaving of words, appear more talkative than turtledoves; tickling and titillating, not manfully, in my opinion, the ears of those who long to be tickled; simply a river of words, but a drop of sense. Indeed, as with old shoes, all the rest of them is weak and falling apart, and only the tongue is left.

Very finely does Solon the Athenian inveigh against them and write: “For you look to the tongue and the words of a wily man; each one of you walks in the tracks of a fox, but in all of you together there is an empty mind.” This, I think, is what that saving word hints at: “The foxes have holes, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” For only on the believer, I think, who is completely distinguished from the others called beasts by Scripture, does the Head of all things rest: the kind and gentle Word, “who catches the wise in their craftiness.” “For the Lord alone knows the reasonings of the wise, that they are futile,” Scripture calling “wise” the sophists who are excessive about words and arts.

Hence the Greeks themselves have called those who busy themselves about anything both “wise” and, by a related name, “sophists.” At any rate Cratinus, in his Archilochuses, listing poets, said, “What a swarm of sophists you have stirred up!” And Iophon too, just like the comic poet, in The Flute-Singing Satyrs says of rhapsodes and some others, “For a crowd of many sophists has come in, all equipped.” About these and those like them, who have practiced empty words, divine Scripture says very finely, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the understanding of the prudent I will set aside.”