Miscellanies 4.9.70–4.15.98

About martyrdom the Lord has spoken plainly; and let us put together what is written in different places. “And I say to you, everyone who confesses in me before men, the Son of Man will also confess in him before the angels of God; but whoever denies me before men, I will deny him before the angels.” “For whoever is ashamed of me or of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him, when he comes in the glory of his Father with his angels.” “Everyone, then, who confesses in me before men, I too will confess in him before my Father in heaven.” “And when they bring you into the synagogues and before the rulers and authorities, do not be anxious beforehand how to defend yourselves or what to say; for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you must say.”

Heracleon, the most esteemed of the school of Valentinus, explaining this passage, says word for word: “Confession is of two kinds: one in faith and conduct, the other in voice. Confession in voice takes place also before the authorities, which alone,” he says, “most people wrongly consider to be confession; but hypocrites too can make this confession. But this saying will not be found to have been spoken universally; for not all who are saved made confession by voice and departed, among whom are Matthew, Philip, Thomas, Levi, and many others. And confession by voice is not universal but partial. The universal one is the one he now speaks of, in works and actions corresponding to faith in him. And the partial one before the authorities follows this confession, if it is necessary and reason requires. For this man will confess with his voice too, having rightly confessed before in his disposition.

And he said well of those who confess, ‘in me,’ but of those who deny he added ‘me.’ For these, even if they confess him with their voice, deny him, not confessing him by their action. Only those confess in him who live in the confession and action that accord with him, in whom he too confesses, having laid hold of them and being held by them. That is why they can never deny him; but those deny him who are not in him. For he did not say, ‘whoever denies in me,’ but ‘me’; for no one who is in him ever denies him. And ‘before men’ means both the saved and the Gentiles alike: before some by conduct, before others also by voice. That is why they can never deny him; but those deny him who are not in him.”

So far Heracleon. In other respects he seems to agree with us on this passage; but he did not notice this: that even if some did not confess Christ before men by action and life, yet by confessing with the voice in courts, and not denying him even when tortured to death, they show that they believed from the disposition. And a disposition that is confessed, especially one not turned aside even by death, makes a cutting off at once of all the passions that were begotten through bodily desire. For there is, so to speak, at the end of life a sudden repentance in action, and a true confession toward Christ, the voice bearing witness to it. And if the Spirit of the Father bears witness in us, how are they still hypocrites, those whom he said bear witness with the voice alone? And it will be given to some, if it is profitable, to make a defense, so that through both the witness and the defense all may be helped: those in the church strengthened, those from the Gentiles who have inquired into salvation marveling and led to faith, and the rest held by amazement.

So confessing is necessary in every case, for it rests with us; but making a defense is not in every case, for this does not rest with us. “And the one who endures to the end will be saved.” For who of the right-minded would not choose to reign in God rather than to serve? Some, then, “confess that they know God,” according to the apostle, “but deny him by their works, being abominable and disobedient and unfit for any good work.” But others, even if they confess only this, have accomplished one good work at the end. Martyrdom, then, seems to be a purification of sins with glory. The Shepherd, for example, says: “You will escape the working of the wild beast, if your heart becomes pure and blameless.” And the Lord himself says: “Satan has demanded to sift you; but I have interceded.”

The Lord, then, first drank the cup for the purification of the men who plotted against him and of the unbelievers; imitating him, the apostles, as truly knowing and perfect, suffered for the churches they founded. So also those who, knowing, walk in the apostolic footsteps must be sinless and, through love for the Lord, love their neighbor too, so that, if circumstances call, they may drink the cup for the church, enduring afflictions without offense. And those who bear witness by deed throughout life and by word in court, whether awaiting hope or fearing, are better than those who confess salvation with the mouth only. But if someone rises further, to love, he is truly blessed and a genuine martyr, having confessed perfectly both to the commandments and to God through the Lord, whom, having loved, he recognized as brother, giving himself wholly for love of God, as though gratefully and lovingly returning a deposit, the man that was demanded.

When, again, he says, “When they persecute you in this city, flee to the other,” he does not advise flight as though being persecuted were evil, nor does he order us to avoid death through flight as though we feared it; but he wishes us to be the cause or joint cause of no evil to anyone, either to ourselves or to the persecutor and the killer. For in a way he commands us to keep clear of him; and the one who disobeys is rash and reckless.

And if the one who kills a man of God sins against God, the one who presents himself to the court becomes guilty of the one who kills him; and such would be the one who does not avoid persecution, but by boldness offers himself to be caught. He, as far as it rests with him, becomes a fellow worker in the persecutor's wickedness; and if he also provokes him, he is wholly the cause, calling out the beast. Likewise, if he gives any cause for conflict, loss, enmity, or lawsuit, he has created an occasion for persecution. That is why we have been commanded to hold on to nothing in this life, but also to give the tunic to the one who takes the cloak, not only so that we may remain free from passion, but so that we may not, by laying claim, make those who sue us savage against us and through us stir them to blasphemy of the Name.

“Yes,” they say, “if God cares for you, why are you persecuted and killed? Or does he himself hand you over to this?” But we do not suppose that the Lord wished us to fall into these circumstances, but that he foretold prophetically what was going to happen: that we would be persecuted for his name, killed, impaled. So he did not wish us to be persecuted, but made known beforehand what we will suffer, training us for endurance by foretelling what would happen, to which he promised the inheritance. And yet we are not punished alone, but with many. “But those,” they say, “being criminals, justly undergo punishment.”

Unwillingly, then, they bear witness to our righteousness, we who are unjustly punished for righteousness. But the injustice of the judge does not touch providence either; for the judge must be master of his own judgment, not pulled by strings like lifeless instruments, perhaps taking only occasions from the external cause. He is tested, at any rate, in how he judges, as we are in the choice of what is to be chosen and in endurance. And even if we do no wrong, the judge looks on us as wrongdoers; for he does not know our affairs nor wish to learn them, but is carried away by an empty prejudice; that is why he too is judged. They persecute us, then, not having found us unjust, but supposing that by the mere fact of being Christians we wrong life, both living so ourselves and urging others to choose the same life.

“Why, then, are you not helped when persecuted?” they say. What wrong, indeed, are we done as regards ourselves, being released by death to the Lord and undergoing a change of life as a change of age? If we are right-minded, we will be grateful to those who provided the occasion of a swift departure, if we bear witness out of love. If we did not seem to the many to be bad men, and if they too knew the truth, all would rush onto the road, and there would be no election. But our faith, being the light of the world, convicts unbelief. “For Anytus and Meletus might indeed kill me, but they could not harm me in any way; for I do not think it lawful for the better to be harmed by the worse.” So each of us may say boldly: “The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what will man do to me?” “For the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and no torment will touch them.”

Basilides, in the twenty-third book of his Exegetica, says this in these very words about those punished in martyrdom: “For I say that all who fall under the so-called afflictions have either sinned in other offenses without being found out and are brought to this good by the kindness of the one who leads them about, being in fact accused of other things, so that they may not suffer as condemned for acknowledged crimes, nor be reviled as the adulterer or the murderer, but because they are … Christians; which will comfort them so that they do not even seem to suffer. And even if someone who has not sinned at all comes to suffering, which is rare, not even he will suffer anything through the plotting of some power, but he will suffer as the infant too suffers, who seems not to have sinned.”

Then, going on, he adds again: “As, then, the infant, which has not sinned before, or has not actually sinned in anything, but has in itself the capacity to sin, is benefited when it is subjected to suffering, gaining many hard things; so, even if a perfect man happens to have sinned in nothing by deed, but suffers, he has suffered this like the infant: having in himself the sinful element, but not having received an occasion for sinning, he did not sin. So not sinning is not to be reckoned to him. For as the one who wishes to commit adultery is an adulterer even if he does not succeed in committing adultery, and the one who wishes to commit murder is a murderer even if he cannot murder, so too, if I see the sinless one I speak of suffering, even if he has done nothing evil, I will call him evil because of his wish to sin. For I will say anything rather than call providence evil.”

Then, going on, he speaks even about the Lord plainly as about a man: “If, however, leaving all these arguments, you come to shame me by pointing to certain persons, saying, for instance, ‘So-and-so, then, sinned, for so-and-so suffered,’ I will say, if you allow me, that he did not sin, but was like the suffering infant; but if you press the argument more forcefully, I will say that whatever man you name is a man, but God is righteous. For no one is pure from filth,” as someone said. But Basilides' hypothesis says that the soul, having sinned beforehand in another life, undergoes punishment here: the elect honorably through martyrdom, the other purified by an appropriate punishment. And how is this true, when confessing and being punished, or not, rests with us? For in the case of one who will deny, Basilides' providence is undone.

I ask him, then, about the confessor who has been arrested: will he bear witness and be punished according to providence, or not? For if he denies, he will not be punished. And if he says from the outcome that this man did not need to be punished, he will unwillingly bear witness that the destruction of those who deny comes from providence. And how is the most glorious reward still laid up in heaven for the martyr because of his martyrdom? And if providence did not allow the sinful man to come to sinning, it becomes unjust on both counts: in not rescuing the one dragged to punishment for righteousness, and in rescuing the one who wished to do wrong; he having done what he willed, and providence having hindered the deed and unjustly protecting the sinful man.

And how is he not godless, deifying the devil and daring to call the Lord a sinful man? For the devil tempts, knowing what we are, but not knowing whether we will endure; but wishing to shake us from the faith and bring us under himself, he tempts. This alone has been permitted him, both because we must be saved by ourselves, having received starting points from the commandment, and for the shame of the tempter who fails, and for the strengthening of those in the church, and for the conscience of those who marvel at the endurance. But if martyrdom is a requital through punishment, then faith and teaching too, because of which martyrdom comes, are fellow workers of punishment; what greater absurdity could there be? But against those doctrines, whether the soul is reincarnated, and about the devil, we will speak at the proper times; now let us add this to what has been said: where is faith any longer, if martyrdom happens as requital for sins committed before? Where is love for God, persecuted and enduring for the truth? Where is praise of the one who confesses, or blame of the one who denies? And what use is right conduct any longer, putting desires to death and hating nothing created?

And if, as Basilides himself says, we take one part of what is called God's will to be having loved everything, because all things preserve a relation to the whole, another to desire nothing, and a third to hate nothing, then punishments too will be by God's will, which it is impious to think. For neither did the Lord suffer by the Father's will, nor are the persecuted persecuted by God's will; otherwise one of two things follows: either persecution will be something good because of God's will, or those who inflict and afflict are innocent. But nothing happens without the will of the Lord of the universe. It remains, then, to say briefly that such things happen because God does not prevent them; for this alone preserves both the providence and the goodness of God.

We must not think, then, that he causes the afflictions, far be it to think so; but we must be persuaded that he does not prevent those who cause them, and uses the enemies' daring deeds for good (“I will pull down the wall,” at any rate, he says, “and it will be for trampling”), such providence being an art of training, for others because of each one's own sins, but for the Lord and the apostles because of ours. For example, the divine apostle says: “For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in the passion of desire like the Gentiles who do not know the Lord; that no one transgress and wrong his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we told you before and solemnly warned you. For God did not call us to impurity but in sanctification. Therefore the one who rejects this rejects not man but God, who also gives his Holy Spirit to you.” For the sake of this sanctification of ours, then, the Lord was not prevented from suffering.

If, then, one of them should say in defense that the martyr is punished for sins before this embodiment, but will receive again the fruit of his conduct in this life, for so the government has been ordered, we will ask him whether the requital comes about by providence. For if it is not of the divine government, the arrangement of purifications is gone and their hypothesis has fallen; but if the purifications are by providence, the punishments are by providence too. And providence, even if it begins to be set in motion by the Ruler, as they say, was sown in substances together with the origin of the substances by the God of the universe. This being so, they must confess either that the punishment is not unjust (and those who condemn and persecute the martyrs act justly), or that persecutions too are worked by the will of God. No longer, then, do toil and fear, as they themselves say, come upon things as rust upon iron, but they come to the soul of its own will.

Much could be said about these things, which will be reserved for examination later, when we treat of them at the right time. Valentinus writes word for word in a homily: “From the beginning you are immortal, and you are children of eternal life, and you wished to divide death among yourselves, so that you might spend and use it up, and death might die in you and through you. For when you dissolve the world but are not yourselves dissolved, you are lords over creation and all corruption.” For he too, like Basilides, supposes a race saved by nature, and that this distinct race has come down here from above for the destruction of death, and that the origin of death is the work of the one who created the world. That is why he takes that Scripture thus: “No one will see the face of God and live,” as though he were the cause of death. He hints at this God when he writes in these very words: “As much as the image is less than the living face, so much is the world inferior to the living Aeon.”

“What, then, is the cause of the image? The majesty of the face, which provided the painter with the model, so that it might be honored through his name. For the form was not found authentically, but the name filled up what was lacking in the formation. And the invisibility of God also cooperates toward faith in what has been formed.” For he called the Demiurge, who was called God and Father, an image of the true God and a prophet, and Wisdom the painter, whose work is the image, to the glory of the invisible one; since whatever proceeds from a pair are fullnesses, but whatever from one are images. But since what appears of him is not the soul from the middle, the distinctive element comes, and this is the inbreathing of the distinctive spirit; and in general what is breathed into the soul, into the image of the spirit, and in general what is said about the Demiurge who was made according to the image, they say was prophesied in Genesis in the form of a sensible image concerning the creation of man. And they transfer the likeness to themselves, handing down that the insertion of the distinctive spirit was unknown to the Demiurge.

When, then, we treat of there being one God proclaimed through the law, the prophets, and the gospel, we will argue against this too (for the question is fundamental); but we must meet what is pressing. If the distinct race comes to destroy death, then Christ did not abolish death, unless he too is said to be of the same substance with them. But if he abolished it so that it might not touch the distinct race, these do not abolish death, these imitators of the Demiurge, who breathe the life from above into the soul from the middle, their own image, according to the choice of their doctrine, even if they say this happens through the Mother. And even if they should say they wage war against death together with Christ, let them confess the hidden doctrine, that they dare to run down the divine power of the Demiurge, correcting his creation as though they were better, trying to save the psychic image which he himself was unable to rescue from corruption. And the Lord too would be better than the Creator God; for a son would never contend with his father, especially among gods.

That this is the Father of the Son, the Creator of all things, the Almighty Lord, we have postponed to that inquiry in which we have promised to argue against the heresies, showing that he alone is the one proclaimed by the Son. But the apostle, writing to us for endurance in afflictions, says this too comes from God: “Because it has been granted to you for Christ's sake not only to believe in him but also to suffer for him, having the same struggle that you saw in me and now hear to be in me. If, then, there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort of love, any fellowship of the Spirit, any affection and compassion, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, united in soul (sympsychoi), minding one thing.” And if he is poured out upon the sacrifice and service of faith, rejoicing and rejoicing with them, and calls those to whom the apostle's word is addressed, the Philippians, partners in grace, how does he call them united in soul and yet psychic? Likewise, writing about Timothy and himself, he says: “For I have no one like-souled (isopsychon) who will genuinely care for your affairs; for all seek their own, not the things of Jesus Christ.”

Let not those just mentioned, then, call us “psychics” by way of reproach; nor the Phrygians either; for these too already call “psychics” those who do not pay attention to the new prophecy; against them we will argue in our work On Prophecy. The perfect man, then, must practice love, and from here hasten to divine friendship, fulfilling the commandments through love. And loving one's enemies does not mean loving evil, nor impiety, adultery, or theft, but the thief, the impious man, and the adulterer; not insofar as he sins and pollutes the name of man by such activity, but insofar as he is a man and the work of God. Indeed sinning lies in activity, not in substance; that is why it is not the work of God.

Sinners are called enemies of God, enemies, that is, of the commandments which they have not obeyed; as those who have obeyed are friends; the one named for their intimacy, the others for their estrangement by choice. For enmity and sin are nothing without the enemy and the sinner. And to desire nothing does not teach us to have no longing for the objects of desire as though they were alien, as those have supposed who teach that the Creator is other than the first God, nor as though birth were abominable and evil; for these opinions are godless. We call the things of the world alien, not as absurd, nor as not belonging to God the Lord of all, but because we do not remain among them for the whole of the age; alien in ownership and belonging to successive owners, but each one's own in use, for whom they came into being, only insofar as it is necessary to be with them. We must use what is not forbidden, then, well, according to natural appetite, refusing all excess and passionate attachment.

And how great is his kindness! “Love your enemies,” he says, “bless those who curse you, and pray for those who mistreat you,” and the like; to which he adds, “so that you may become sons of your Father in heaven,” hinting at likeness to God. Again he says: “Be well-disposed quickly to your adversary, while you are on the way with him.” The adversary is not the body, as some would have it, but the devil (and those who are made like him), who travels with us in this earthly life through men who emulate his works. It is not possible, then, for those who confess that they belong to Christ but spend their time in the works of the devil not to suffer the most hostile things. For it is written: “lest he hand you over to the judge,” and the judge to the servant of the devil's rule.

“For I am persuaded that neither death,” that inflicted by persecutors, “nor life,” that in this life, “nor angels,” the apostate ones, “nor rulers” (and the rule of Satan is the life he chose; for such are the rulers and authorities of darkness under him), “nor things present,” in which we are during the time of life, such as the soldier's hope and the merchant's gain, “nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing,” by its own activity working against the faith of the man who chooses (creation and activity are called by the same name, being our work): such activity “will not be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” You have the summary of the knowing martyr.

“We know that we all have knowledge,” the common knowledge in common matters, and that there is one God; for he was writing to believers. That is why he adds, “But not in all is knowledge,” the knowledge handed down among few. There are some who say that the knowledge about things sacrificed to idols does not reach all, “lest our liberty become a stumbling block to the weak; for the weak man is destroyed by your knowledge.” And if they say that one must buy everything sold in the market, taking “asking no questions” as a question equivalent to “asking questions,” they will offer a ridiculous interpretation. For the apostle says, “Buy all the rest from the market, asking no questions,” with the exception of the things indicated in the catholic letter of all the apostles, with the approval of the Holy Spirit, which is written in the Acts of the Apostles and was carried to the believers by the ministry of Paul himself. For they declared that it is necessary to abstain from things sacrificed to idols, from blood, from things strangled, and from sexual immorality, keeping themselves from which they would do well. Another thing, then, is what the apostle said: “Do we not have the right to eat and drink? Do we not have the right to take about a sister as wife, as the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas? But we did not use this right,” he says, “but we endure all things, so as not to put an obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ,” either by carrying burdens about, when one should be unencumbered for everything, or by becoming an example to those who wish to practice self-control, not building them up to eat what is set before them without fear and to associate with a wife casually. Especially those entrusted with so great a ministry should be set before learners as a spotless example.

“For though I am free from all, I have made myself a slave to all,” he says, “that I might win all.” “And everyone who competes exercises self-control in all things.” “But the earth is the Lord's and its fullness.” For conscience' sake, then, one must abstain from what one must abstain from. “Conscience, I say, not your own,” for it is knowing, “but the other's,” so that he may not be badly built up, imitating in ignorance what he does not know, becoming a despiser instead of magnanimous. “For why is my freedom judged by another's conscience? If I partake with thanks, why am I blasphemed for what I give thanks for? So whatever you do, do all to the glory of God,” whatever one has been permitted to do under the rule of faith.