Miscellanies 4.21.130–4.24.154

Here I find the perfect understood in many ways, according to the one who succeeds in each virtue. For one is perfected as reverent, as enduring, as self-controlled, as a worker, as a martyr, and as one who knows; but whether anyone among men, while still a man, is perfect in all at once, I do not know, except only the one who for our sake put on humanity. Yet even according to the bare law one might be perfect, who professes abstinence from evils; and this is a way both to the gospel and to doing good. But the perfection of the one under the law is the knowing reception of the gospel, so that the one who is perfect according to the law may come to be; for so Moses, according to the law, foretold that we must listen, so that we might receive, according to the apostle, Christ as the fulfillment of the law. In the gospel the one who knows makes progress, not using the law only as a step, but understanding and grasping it as the Lord who gave the covenants handed it down to the apostles. And if he should also live rightly (just as knowledge cannot follow from bad conduct), and become a martyr besides, confessing most rightly out of love, receiving greater worth among men, not even so will he first be called perfect in the flesh, since the completion of life has taken this name beforehand, the knowing martyr having already first shown the perfect work and properly presented it, the blood made an offering of thanks through knowing love sending on the spirit.

From this he would be blessed and would justly be proclaimed perfect, “so that the surpassing greatness of the power may be of God and not from us,” as the apostle says. Only let us preserve our choice and our love, “afflicted in every way but not crushed, perplexed but not despairing, persecuted but not forsaken, struck down but not destroyed.” For those who hasten toward perfection must, according to the same apostle, “give no offense in anything, but in everything commend themselves” not to men but to God. Let obedience to men follow as a consequence; for this too is reasonable, because of the abusive blasphemies. And the commendation is “in much endurance, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses, in beatings, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labors, in watchings, in fastings, in purity, in knowledge, in patience, in kindness, in the Holy Spirit, in love without hypocrisy, in the word of truth, in the power of God,” so that we may be temples of God, “cleansed from every defilement of flesh and spirit. And I,” he says, “will receive you, and I will be a father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty. Let us, then, perfect holiness in the fear of God.” For even if fear produces grief, “I rejoice,” he says, “not that you were grieved, but that you were grieved to repentance; for you were grieved according to God, so that you might suffer loss in nothing from us. For godly grief produces a repentance to salvation without regret, but the grief of the world produces death. For see what earnestness this very thing, being grieved according to God, has produced in you, what defense, what indignation, what fear, what longing, what zeal, what vindication. In everything you have commended yourselves to be pure in the matter.”

These are the preliminary exercises of the knowing discipline. Since the Almighty God himself gave “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, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,” we must hasten to become men in the way of knowledge, and to be perfected as far as possible while still remaining in the flesh, having practiced from perfect concord here to run together with the will of God toward the restoration of the truly perfect nobility and kinship, to the fullness of Christ perfectly completed through the equipping. We see now where, how, and when the divine apostle speaks of the perfect man and shows differences among the perfect. And again: “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. For to one is given through the Spirit a word of wisdom, to another a word of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith in the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing in the same Spirit, to another workings of miracles, to another prophecy, to another discernment of spirits, to another kinds of tongues, to another interpretation of tongues; but all these the one and the same Spirit works, distributing to each individually as he wills.”

This being so, the prophets are perfect in prophecy, the righteous in righteousness, the martyrs in confession, others in preaching; not without share in the common virtues, but succeeding in those to which they have been appointed. For who in his right mind would say that the prophet is not righteous? What then? Did not the righteous too prophesy, like Abraham? “For to one God gave the works of war, to another dancing, to another the lyre and song,” says Homer. But “each has his own gift from God, one in this way, another in that”; while the apostles were filled in all things.

You will find, at any rate, if you wish, from their deeds and writings, their knowledge, life, preaching, righteousness, purity, and prophecy. But it must be known that, although Paul is young in time, having flourished immediately after the Lord's ascension, yet his writing depends on the old covenant, breathing and speaking from it. For faith in Christ and the knowledge of the gospel are the explanation and fulfillment of the law. And for this reason it was said to the Hebrews: “If you do not believe, you will not understand”; that is, if you do not believe the one prophesied by the law and foretold by the law, you will not understand the old covenant, which he himself explained at his coming.

The one who understands and sees clearly, then, is the one who knows. His work is not abstaining from evils (for this is a step to the greatest progress), nor doing something good out of fear (for it is written, “Where shall I flee and where hide from your face? If I go up to heaven, you are there; if I go away to the ends of the sea, there is your right hand; if I go down to the depths, there is your Spirit”), nor even out of hope of promised honor (for it has been said, “Behold the Lord, and his reward before his face, to render to each according to his works,” “what eye has not seen and ear has not heard and has not entered the heart of man, what God has prepared for those who love him”); but only doing good out of love, chosen for the sake of the good itself, is for the one who knows.

For example, it was said to the Lord in the person of God: “Ask of me, and I will give you the nations as your inheritance,” teaching him to ask the most royal request, the salvation of men without reward, so that we might inherit and possess the Lord. Conversely, to desire knowledge about God for the sake of some need, that this may happen to me and that may not, is not characteristic of the one who knows; for him knowledge itself is sufficient reason for contemplation. For, if I may dare to say it, the one who pursues knowledge for the sake of divine understanding itself will not choose knowledge for the sake of wishing to be saved. For thinking, through practice, extends to always thinking; and always thinking, becoming the substance of the knower by an unbroken blending, and eternal contemplation, remains a living reality. If, then, one should propose to the one who knows, by hypothesis, which he would choose, the knowledge of God or eternal salvation, supposing these were separate (though they are above all identical), without the least hesitation he would choose the knowledge of God, judging to be choiceworthy for its own sake the property of faith that has ascended through love to knowledge.

This, then, is the first beneficence of the perfect man: when it is done not for any need of what contributes to himself, but, he having judged that doing good is good, the activity, intently carried on, does good in every action; not in some things and not in others, but established in a state of beneficence, no longer for glory or, as the philosophers say, good repute, nor for reward either from men or from God; he would complete his life according to the image and likeness of the Lord. And if, while he does good, something adverse should meet him, he will let the recompense go without resentment as a good thing, becoming just and good toward the just and the unjust. To such people the Lord says: “Be as your Father is perfect.” For such a man the flesh is dead, and he alone lives, having dedicated the tomb as a holy temple to the Lord, having turned the old sinful soul to God.

He is no longer self-controlled, but has come into a state of freedom from passion, waiting to put on the divine form. “If you give alms,” it says, “let no one know; and if you fast, anoint yourself,” so that God alone may know and not one of men; but not even the one who shows mercy ought to know that he shows mercy; for so he will be merciful at one time and not at another. But when he does good by settled habit, he will imitate the nature of the good, and his disposition will be nature and practice together. We must not be carried off and transferred, but arrive where we must by walking, passing through the whole narrow way. For this is to be drawn by the Father: to become worthy to receive the power of grace from God and to run up without hindrance. And if some hate the elect one, he knows their ignorance, pitying the mind of their ignorance.

Fittingly, then, this knowledge loves and teaches the ignorant, and trains them to honor the whole creation of Almighty God. And if he has learned to love God, he will not lose his virtue in any way, neither awake nor in dreams nor in any imagination; since a settled state never departs from itself so as to fall from being a settled state, whether knowledge is called a state or a disposition. For since differing thoughts never come in, the ruling part, remaining unaltered, does not take on any alteration of impressions, dreaming images from the movements of the day. That is why the Lord commands us to keep awake, so that our soul may never be moved by passion even in dreams, but commands us to keep our conduct at night pure and spotless as if carried on by day. For this is likeness to God as far as possible: to keep the mind in the same condition; and this is the condition of the mind as mind, while the varied disposition arises from passionate attachment to material things.

For this reason, it seems to me, they called the night euphronē (“the kindly time”), since at that time the soul, having ceased from the senses, turns in on itself and shares more in prudence (phronēsis). That is why the mysteries too are celebrated mostly at night, signifying the withdrawal of the soul from the body at night. “So then let us not sleep like the rest, but let us keep awake and be sober. For those who sleep sleep at night, and those who get drunk are drunk at night; but let us, who belong to the day, be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet the hope of salvation.”

And whatever they say about sleep must be understood of death too. For each shows the withdrawal of the soul, the one more, the other less; which one can also take from Heraclitus: “Man in the night … kindles a light for himself when he has died, his sight quenched; living, he touches the dead when asleep, his sight quenched; awake, he touches the sleeper.” “For blessed are those who know the time,” according to the apostle, “that it is already the hour for you to awake from sleep; for now salvation is nearer to us than when we believed. The night is far gone, and the day has drawn near. Let us, then, put off the works of darkness and put on the weapons of light.” By the day and light he allegorically means the Son, and by the weapons of light, metaphorically, the precepts. For this reason they say that one must go to sacred rites and prayers washed, pure, and bright;

and this outward adornment and purification is done for the sake of a symbol; but purity is to think holy things. And indeed the image of baptism too would be the one handed down from Moses to the poets, thus: “And she, having washed, with clean garments on her body,” Penelope goes to prayer; and “Telemachus, having washed his hands in the gray sea, prayed to Athena.” This was a custom of the Jews, as was their often washing after the bed. Well, then, was this too said: “Be pure not by washing but in mind.” For perfect purity, I think, is that of the mind, of deeds, and of thoughts, and also sincerity of words, and finally sinlessness in dreams.

Sufficient purification for a man, I think, is exact and firm repentance, if, having condemned ourselves for our former actions, we go forward, understanding afterward and raising our mind out of both what delights the senses and our former offenses. If, then, we must derive the etymology of knowledge (epistēmē) and take its meaning from standing (stasis), because it makes our soul stand in things, which before was carried now this way, now that, so too faith must be derived as the standing of our soul concerning what is. We long to learn about the one who is righteous always and in everything, who remains righteous neither fearing the punishment of the law, nor wary of the hatred of evil in those who live with him and prosecute offenses, nor suspecting danger from those wronged. For the one who abstains from doing any injustice for these reasons is not good willingly, but good out of fear. And Epicurus says that his wise man does not wish to do wrong for some gain; for he cannot have assurance of escaping notice. So if he is persuaded that he will escape notice, according to him he will do wrong.

Such are the dark doctrines. But if one abstains from wrongdoing in the hope of the reward given by God to the righteous, not even he will be good willingly; for as fear makes the first righteous, so reward makes this one, or rather shows him to seem righteous. And the hope after death, good for the good and the opposite for the wicked, is known not only to those who pursue barbarian wisdom, but also to the Pythagoreans; for they too declared hope to be the goal for those who philosophize. Indeed Socrates too says in the Phaedo that noble souls depart from here with good hope, and again, rebuking the wicked, contrasts them, saying, “For they live with evil hope.” Heraclitus too seems to agree with this in what he says about men: “There await men when they die things they do not expect or imagine.”

Divinely, then, Paul writes plainly to the Romans: “Affliction produces endurance, and endurance proven character, and proven character hope; and hope does not put to shame.” For endurance is for the sake of future hope; and hope is also, by the same name, the rendering and restoration of hope, which does not put to shame, being no longer reproached. But the one who obeys the bare calling, insofar as he has been called, moves toward knowledge neither through fear nor through pleasures; for he does not look around to see whether any profitable gain or enjoyment will follow him from outside, but, drawn by love of the truly lovable and led to what is fitting, he is godly.

So not even if, by hypothesis, he received authority from God to do forbidden things with impunity, nor if he received besides a promise to receive the good things of the blessed as a reward for them, nay, even if he were persuaded that he would escape God's notice in what he does, which is impossible, would he ever wish to do anything contrary to right reason, having once chosen what is truly good and choiceworthy in itself and therefore lovable. For we have not understood goodness to lie in food for the belly. He has heard that food will not commend us, nor indeed marriage, nor abstaining from marriage in ignorance, but the knowing work according to virtue; since then even the dog, an irrational animal, might be called self-controlled, fearing the raised stick and so abstaining from the meat. Know well that, with such people, when the promise held out beforehand is taken away, the threatened fear removed, and the impending danger separated, their purpose is exposed.

For they are not attracted by the very nature of the thing, so as to grasp truly in the way of knowledge that all things created for our use are good, such as marriage, for example, and the begetting of children taken up with self-restraint, but that better than good is becoming passionless and virtuous for the sake of likeness to the divine. Led by external advantages or disadvantages, they abstain from some things and not from others; and even what they keep away from they clearly loathe, slandering creation and the Creator; and while seeming to live faithfully, they hold an unholy judgment. But “You shall not desire” needs neither the compulsion of fear, forcing abstinence from pleasant things, nor a reward persuading by promise to check the impulses; nor obedience because of the commandment.

Those who have obeyed God because of the promise are caught by the promise, taken by the bait of pleasure; nor would turning away from sensible things produce, as a consequence, attachment to intelligible things. On the contrary, attachment to intelligible things brings about, according to nature, a turning away from sensible things for the one who knows, who has chosen the good in the way of knowledge by the selection of the beautiful, admiring creation and sanctifying the Creator, and sanctifying likeness to the divine. “But I will free myself from desire,” he will say, “because of my kinship with you, Lord. For the arrangement created is good, and all things are well governed; nothing happens without cause; I must be in what is yours, Almighty; and even if I am here, I am with you. I wish to be without fear, so that I may be able to draw near to you, and to be content with little, practicing your just selection of good things from their likes.”

The apostle, teaching us most mystically and most holily the truly thankful choice, has shown that it is made not by rejecting the others as bad, but as the better among good things, saying: “So both the one who gives his virgin in marriage does well, and the one who does not give her in marriage does better,” for what is seemly and devoted to the Lord without distraction. We know that what is hard to obtain is not necessary, and that what is necessary has been made easy to obtain by God in his love of good. That is why Democritus says well that nature and teaching are similar, and briefly gives the reason: “For teaching reshapes the man, and in reshaping it makes nature”; and it makes no difference whether one was formed such by nature or refashioned by time and learning. The Lord has provided both, the one by creation, the other by the re-creation and renewal from the covenant. What benefits the more sovereign part is more choiceworthy, and the mind is the most sovereign of all. To whom, then, truly good things appear most pleasant, he obtains from himself the fruit he longs for, the stability of the soul. “But the one who listens to me,” it says, “will rest in peace, confident, and will be quiet without fear of any evil.” “Be confident with all your heart and your mind in God.” In this way it is possible for the one who knows already to become a god: “I said, you are gods, and sons of the Most High.”

And Empedocles too says that the souls of the wise become gods, writing thus: “And at the end they become seers, singers, physicians, and leaders among earthly men; from there they spring up as gods, highest in honors.” Man in general, then, is formed according to the idea of the connate spirit; for he is not fashioned formless and shapeless in the workshop of nature, where the birth of man is mystically accomplished, the art and the substance being common; but a particular man is characterized by the impression formed in the soul by what he chooses. In this way we say that Adam too was perfect as regards his formation; for nothing that characterizes the idea and form of man was lacking to him. But in becoming he was to receive his perfection, and to be justified through obedience; this was what was to grow to manhood, what rested with him. The cause lies in the one who chose, and still more in the one who chose what was forbidden; God is not responsible. For birth is twofold: that of things begotten, and that of things that become.

And the courage of man, who is subject to passion, they say, makes the one who shares in it fearless and invincible in substance; and anger is the mind's bodyguard in endurance, perseverance, and the like; while self-restraint and saving prudence are set over desire. But God is without passion, without anger and without desire; and he is not fearless in the sense that he does not avoid dangers, nor self-restrained in the sense that he rules over desires; for neither could the nature of God fall into any danger, nor does God flee cowardice, just as he will not desire, so as to rule over desire. Mystically, then, the Pythagorean saying was applied to us too, that man too must become one; since the high priest himself is one, God being one, according to the unchangeable state of always running toward good things.

For example, the Savior, in doing away with desire, did away with anger too, which is a desire for revenge; for in general the passionate belongs to every kind of desire; and a man deified into freedom from passion becomes undefiled and one. As those at sea held by an anchor pull on the anchor, but do not draw it to them, but draw themselves to the anchor, so those who, according to the life of knowledge, draw God to themselves, without knowing it bring themselves to God. For the one who serves God serves himself. In the contemplative life, then, one cares for oneself while worshiping God, and through one's own pure purification beholds God holily; for self-restraint, understood as self-possession, observing and contemplating itself unceasingly, is made like God as far as possible.

For example, what rests with us is that of which we are equally master, both of it and of its opposite, as philosophizing or not, and believing or disbelieving. Because we are equally masters of each of the opposites, what rests with us is found to be possible. And indeed the commandments can be done or not done by us, and praise and blame reasonably follow them; and those punished for their sins are punished for them alone; for what has happened has passed, and what has happened could never become unhappened. The sins before faith, then, are forgiven by the Lord, not so that they have not happened, but as though they had not happened. Yet Basilides says that not all are forgiven, but only the involuntary ones done in ignorance; as though some man, and not God, were providing so great a gift. To him Scripture says: “You supposed, lawless one, that I would be like you.” But even if we are punished for voluntary sins, we are punished not so that they may become undone, but because they happened. And punishment does not benefit the sinner toward not having done it, but toward sinning no more, and toward no one else falling into similar things.

Here, then, the good God trains for these three reasons: first, so that the one trained may become better than himself; then, so that those who can be saved through examples may be warned and turned back beforehand; and third, so that the one wronged may not be easily despised and apt to be wronged. There are also two ways of correction: the one instructive, the other punitive, which we have also called educative. It must be known, however, that those who fall into sins after the washing are the ones who are trained; for what was done before has been forgiven, but what follows is cleansed. About unbelievers it is said that they have been reckoned “as chaff which the wind drives away from the face of the earth,” and “as a drop from a bucket.”