Miscellanies 6.6.44–6.7.61

But just as the preaching has now come at the proper time, so at the proper time the law and the prophets were given to the barbarians, and philosophy to the Greeks, accustoming their ears to the preaching. So the Lord who rescued Israel says: “In an acceptable time I heard you, and in a day of salvation I helped you; I gave you as a covenant of the nations, to settle the land and inherit the inheritance of the desert, saying to those in chains, ‘Come out,’ and to those in darkness, ‘Be uncovered.’” For if the prisoners are the Jews, of whom the Lord said, “Come out of the chains, you who wish,” speaking of those who are willingly bound and have laid on themselves “burdens hard to bear” (he says) by human additions, it is clear that those in darkness would be those who have their ruling faculty buried in idolatry. For to those righteous according to the law, faith was lacking; that is why the Lord, when healing them, said, “Your faith has saved you.” But to those righteous according to philosophy, not only faith in the Lord was lacking but also turning away from idolatry. So when the truth was revealed, they too repent of what they had done before. That is why the Lord preached the gospel also to those in Hades.

So Scripture says: “Hades says to Destruction: We have not seen his form, but we have heard his voice.” It was not, surely, the place that took on a voice and said this, but those set in Hades who had given themselves over to destruction, as though willingly throwing themselves from a ship into the sea; these, then, are the ones who heard the divine power and voice. For who in his right mind would suppose that the souls of the righteous and of sinners are under one condemnation, and so charge providence with injustice? What then? Do they not show that the Lord preached the gospel to those who perished in the flood, or rather who were bound, and to those held in prison and custody? And it was shown in the second Miscellany that the apostles, following the Lord, also preached the gospel to those in Hades. For it was necessary, I think, that just as here, so there too the best of the disciples should become imitators of the teacher, so that he might bring to conversion those of the Hebrews, and they the Gentiles: that is, those who had lived in righteousness according to the law and according to philosophy, yet not perfectly, but had ended their life in sin. For it befitted the divine plan that those who had greater worth in righteousness, who had lived excellently and repented of their offenses, even though they were in another place, making their confession, being among those who belong to God Almighty, should be saved, each according to his own knowledge.

The Savior too, I think, is at work, since saving is his work; which is just what he has done, drawing to salvation through the preaching those who were willing to believe in him, wherever they happened to be. If, then, the Lord went down to Hades for no other reason than to preach the gospel, as he did go down, either he preached to all or only to the Hebrews. If to all, then all who believe will be saved, even if they happen to be from the nations, having made their confession there; for God's punishments are saving and educative, leading to conversion and choosing the repentance of the sinner rather than his death; and all the more since souls released from bodies can see more clearly, even if they are darkened by passions, because they are no longer screened by the poor flesh. But if he preached only to the Jews, who lacked knowledge of the Savior and faith in him, it is clear that, since God shows no partiality, the apostles too, as here so there, preached the gospel to those of the nations who were fit for conversion. And it is well said in the Shepherd: “So they went down with them into the water; but these went down alive and came up alive, while those who had fallen asleep before went down dead but came up alive.”

Indeed, the Gospel also says that many bodies of those who had fallen asleep were raised, clearly having been transferred to a better order. There took place, then, a universal movement and transfer according to the Savior's plan. A righteous man, then, insofar as he is righteous, does not differ from another righteous man, whether he is under the law or a Greek; for God is Lord not of the Jews only but of all men, and more closely Father of those who know him. For if to live well is to live lawfully, and to live reasonably is to live according to law, and those before the law who lived rightly were reckoned to faith and judged to be righteous, it is clear that those too who were outside the law but lived rightly, because of the particular character of the soul, even if they were in Hades and in custody, on hearing the Lord's voice, whether his own or that working through the apostles, turned and believed with all speed. For we remember that the Lord is the power of God, and power could never be weak. Thus, I think, it is shown that God is good and that the Lord is able to save with justice and equality toward those who turn, whether here or elsewhere. For the active power does not reach here only, but is everywhere and is always at work.

For instance, in the Preaching of Peter the Lord says to the disciples after the resurrection: “I chose you twelve, judging you disciples worthy of me” (whom the Lord wished), “and considering you faithful apostles, sending you into the world to preach the gospel to the people throughout the inhabited world, that they may know that there is one God, making known through faith in me, the Christ, the things that are to come, so that those who have heard and believed may be saved, and those who have heard and not believed may bear witness, having no defense to plead, saying, ‘We did not hear.’” What then? Did not the same plan take effect in Hades too, so that there also all souls, having heard the preaching, might either show repentance or confess that their punishment is just, because they did not believe? It would have been no ordinary unfairness if those who had departed before the Lord's coming, without the gospel having been preached to them and without giving any cause of their own by believing or not believing, should have a share either in salvation or in punishment. For surely it is not right that some should have been condemned without trial, and only those after his coming should have enjoyed the divine justice. To all rational souls it has been said from above: “Whatever any of you did in ignorance, not knowing God clearly, if having come to know him he repents, all his sins will be forgiven him.” “For behold,” he says, “I have set before your face death and life, to choose life”; God saying that he set both before them for comparison and choice, not that he made both.

And in another scripture he says: “If you listen to me and are willing, you shall eat the good things of the land; but if you do not listen to me nor are willing, the sword shall devour you; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken these things.” And again David says plainly, or rather the Lord speaking in the person of the holy one (and this holy one is one from the foundation of the world: everyone who at various times has been saved, or will be saved, through faith): “My heart was glad and my tongue rejoiced. And moreover my flesh will dwell in hope,” he says, “because you will not abandon my soul to Hades, nor let your holy one see corruption. You have made known to me the ways of life; you will fill me with gladness with your presence.”

Just as the people is precious to the Lord, so the whole people is holy: together with the Jew, also the one who turns from the nations, who was foretold as the proselyte. Fittingly, then, Scripture says that the ox and the bear will be together. For the Jew is called an ox, from the animal under the yoke that the law judged clean, since the ox both divides the hoof and chews the cud; and the Gentile is shown by the bear, an unclean and wild beast. This animal gives birth to unformed flesh, which it shapes into the likeness of the beast with its tongue alone; for the one who turns from the nations is formed by the Word so as to be tamed from a beastly life, and once tamed, he too is purified like the ox. For instance, the prophet says: “Sirens will bless me, and daughters of sparrows, and all the beasts of the field.” Among the unclean animals the beasts of the field are known, that is, of the world; for he calls beasts those who are wild with respect to faith and filthy in life and not cleansed even by the righteousness of the law. But changing from being beasts through faith in the Lord, they become men of God, advancing from first willing to change to becoming so. For the Lord exhorts some, and to those who have already set their hand to it he stretches out his hand and draws them up. For the Master of all will not shrink from anyone's person, nor will he regard greatness, because he himself made small and great and provides for all alike.

And David says: “Though the nations were caught in the destruction they made, and their foot was taken in the very snare they hid, yet the Lord became a refuge for the poor, a helper in due season and in affliction.” Fittingly, then, those in affliction had the gospel preached to them. And for this reason he says: “Declare among the nations his doings,” so that they may not be judged unjustly. If, then, he preached the gospel to those in the flesh for this reason, that they might not be condemned unjustly, how did he not also preach it, for the same reason, to those who had departed before his coming? “For the Lord is righteous and has loved righteousness; his face has beheld uprightness.” “But he who loves unrighteousness hates his own soul.”

If, then, all sinful flesh perished in the flood, the punishment having come upon them for their correction, we must believe, first, that the will of God is educative and effective to save those who turn; and then, that the finer part, the soul, could never suffer anything terrible from the coarser element of water, since through its fineness and simplicity it is not held fast (which is why it is also called incorporeal). But whatever is coarse, having been thickened by sin, is cast off together with the fleshly spirit that lusts against the soul. Now even Valentinus, the leader of those who champion community, writes word for word in his homily On Friends: “Many of the things written in the public books are found written in the church of God. For these common things are the words from the heart, the law written in the heart. This is the people of the Beloved, loved by him and loving him.”

For by public books, whether he means the Jewish Scriptures or those of the philosophers, he makes the truth common. And Isidore, both son and disciple of Basilides, in the first book of his Expositions of the Prophet Parchor, also writes word for word: “The Athenians say that it was revealed to Socrates that a daemon attended him; and Aristotle says that all men have daemons that accompany them during the time of their embodiment. He took this prophetic teaching and set it down in his own books, without acknowledging where he had stolen this doctrine from.” And again in the second book of the same work he writes thus: “And let no one think that what we say is proper to the elect was said beforehand by certain philosophers. For it is not their discovery; they appropriated it from the prophets and attributed it to one who, by their own account, was not wise.” And again in the same work: “For it seems to me that those who make a profession of philosophy do so in order to learn what the winged oak is, and the embroidered robe upon it, all that Pherecydes set out as theology in allegory, taking the theme from the prophecy of Ham

As we noted long ago, by philosophy we do not mean the discipline of each school, but what is truly philosophy, … a wisdom of skill that gives experience in the affairs of life; and wisdom we call firm knowledge of things divine and human, a sure and unchangeable apprehension that embraces what is, what has been, and what will be, which the Lord has taught us both by his coming and through the prophets. And it cannot be overturned by argument, having been handed down by the same will by which it is also altogether true, as known through the Son. The one is eternal, the other useful for a time; the one is one and the same, the others many and indifferent; the one is without any movement of passion, the other goes with passionate desire; the one is perfect, the other lacking.

This wisdom, then, is what philosophy desires, being a matter of the soul, of right reason, and of purity of life; it is disposed toward wisdom with love and affection and does everything for the sake of attaining it. Among us, philosophers are those who love the wisdom of the maker and teacher of all things, that is, the knowledge of the Son of God; among the Greeks, those who take up arguments about virtue. Philosophy would be the unobjectionable doctrines of each of the schools (I mean the philosophical schools), together with the life that agrees with them, gathered into one selection. These too, stolen from the God-given grace of the barbarians, have been adorned with Greek style. For some things they stole, others they misheard; and among the rest, some things they said under inspiration but did not work out perfectly, and others by human conjecture and reasoning, in which they also go astray. They think they attain the truth perfectly, but, as we understand them, only partially.

At any rate they know nothing beyond this world. And indeed, just as geometry, dealing with measures, magnitudes, and figures by drawing on flat surfaces, and painting, which appears to take in the whole field of vision in scene-painting but in doing so deceives the sight, using by its technique points placed according to the incidence of the lines of sight (hence appearances of projection, recession, and aspect are preserved, and some things seem to stand out, others to recede, and others to appear in some other way on a flat and smooth surface), so too the philosophers imitate the truth after the manner of painting. Self-love is the cause of all sins for each person on each occasion. Therefore one must not be a lover of self, choosing the glory that comes from men, but, loving God, must become truly holy, with prudence.

If, then, anyone treats partial things as universal, and honors the servant as lord and ruler, he misses the truth, not understanding what David said in confession: “I ate earth and ashes like bread.” For self-love and conceit are earth and error to him. If so, knowledge and understanding come from learning. And if there is learning, one must seek the teacher. Cleanthes claims Zeno as his teacher, Theophrastus Aristotle, Metrodorus Epicurus, and Plato Socrates; but if I go back to Pythagoras and Pherecydes and Thales and the first wise men, I come to a halt, seeking their teacher. And if you say the Egyptians, or the Indians, or the Babylonians, or the Magi themselves, I shall not stop asking for their teacher. I lead you back even to the first generation of men, and from there I begin to inquire: who is the teacher? No man, for they had not yet learned; nor any angel either, for men do not hear as angels, as angels, communicate, nor do angels have a tongue as we have ears. Nor would anyone ascribe organs of voice to angels, I mean lips and the parts next to them, throat and windpipe and chest and breath and air being struck. Far indeed is God from shouting aloud, separated by unapproachable holiness even from the archangels themselves. And we have been taught that the angels too, and their rulers, learned the truth; for they came into being.

It remains, then, that we climb higher still and long for their teacher. And since the unbegotten is one, God Almighty, and one also is the first-begotten, “through whom all things came to be, and without him not one thing came to be” (“For truly God is one, who made the beginning of all things,” Peter writes, indicating the first-born Son, understanding accurately the words: “In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth”), and he is called Wisdom by all the prophets, he is the teacher of all created beings, the counselor of God who foreknew all things; and he from above, from the first foundation of the world, has taught “in many ways and in many portions” and brings to perfection. Hence it is fittingly said: “Do not call anyone on earth your teacher.” You see where the true philosophy has its handles. Even if the law is an image and shadow of the truth (the law is indeed a shadow of the truth), yet the self-love of the Greeks proclaims certain men as teachers.

Just as every family goes back to God the Maker, so the teaching of good things goes back to the Lord, both the teaching that justifies and the teaching that leads by the hand to it and helps. But if some, having received seeds of the truth in whatever way from some …, did not nurture them, but handed them over to barren and rainless ground and choked them with wild weeds, as the Pharisees turned aside from the law by introducing human teachings, the teacher is not to blame for this, but those who chose to mishear. Those of them who were persuaded by the Lord's coming and the clarity of the Scriptures come to full knowledge of the law, just as those who come from philosophy are established, through the Lord's teaching, in full knowledge of the true philosophy. For “the words of the Lord are pure words, silver refined by fire, tested, purified seven times in the earth.”

Either the righteous man, like silver often refined, becomes tested, having become the Lord's coin and received the royal stamp; or, since Solomon too says, “The tongue of the righteous is silver refined by fire,” he is indicating that teaching that is tested and wise is praiseworthy and acceptable when it has been richly purified “in the earth,” that is, when the knowing soul is sanctified in many ways by abstaining from earthly fires. And the body too, in which it dwells, is purified, being claimed as its own for the purity of a holy temple. This first cleansing of the soul in the body is abstinence from evils, which some consider perfection; and this is simply the perfection of the common believer, Jew and Greek. But in the one who knows, after what others consider perfection, righteousness advances to the activity of doing good; and in whomever the heightening of righteousness has grown into doing good, in him perfection abides in an unchangeable habit of doing good, after the likeness of God. For those who are the seed of Abraham, still servants of God, are the called; but the sons of Jacob are his elect, who have tripped up the activity of evil.

If, then, we call Christ himself wisdom, and also his activity through the prophets, by which it is possible to learn thoroughly the tradition of knowledge, as he himself taught the holy apostles during his coming, then knowledge would be wisdom, being understanding and apprehension, firm and secure, of things present, future, and past, as having been handed down and revealed by the Son of God. And indeed, if contemplation is the goal of the wise man, the one who is still a philosopher reaches for divine understanding but does not yet attain it, unless by learning he receives the prophetic voice made clear to him, through which he receives “what is, what will be, and what was before,” how they are, were, and will be. This knowledge, handed down unwritten from the apostles to a few by succession, has come down to us. From this, then, knowledge or wisdom must be exercised into an eternal and unchangeable habit of contemplation.