Miscellanies 6.8.62–6.10.83

For Paul too, in his letters, plainly does not disparage philosophy, but thinks it right that one who has shared in the height of the one who knows should no longer run back to Greek philosophy, which he calls allegorically “the elements of the world,” since it is a kind of elementary teaching and preparatory training for the truth. That is why, writing also to the Hebrews, who were turning back from faith to the law, he says: “Or do you again need someone to teach you what are the elements of the beginning of the oracles of God? And you have come to need milk, not solid food.” In the same way, then, he writes to the Colossians, who had turned from among the Greeks: “See that no one will be the one who carries you off as spoil through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the elements of this world and not according to Christ,” enticing them to run back again to philosophy, the elementary teaching. And if someone says that philosophy was discovered by the Greeks through human understanding, still I find the Scriptures saying that understanding is sent by God.

The psalmist, at any rate, considers understanding the greatest gift and asks for it, saying: “I am your servant; give me understanding.” And is it not the breadth of knowledge that David asks for when he writes: “Teach me goodness and discipline and knowledge, for I have believed your commandments”? It is agreed that the covenants are authoritative and are given to those more highly honored. At any rate the psalm says again of God: “He has not done so for any nation, and he has not shown them his judgments.” “He has not done so” shows that he did do it, but not so. The “so,” then, is in comparison with the preeminence that has come to us; for surely the prophet could have said simply “he has not done” without adding “so.” And indeed Peter too says in the Acts: “Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation the one who fears him and works righteousness is acceptable to him.”

God's impartiality, then, is not from a point in time but from eternity; nor did his beneficence ever begin, nor is it confined to certain places or people, for his doing of good is not partial. “Open to me the gates of righteousness,” he says; “entering by them I will give thanks to the Lord. This is the gate of the Lord; the righteous shall enter by it.” And Barnabas, explaining the prophet's saying, adds: “Of the many gates that are open, the one in righteousness is this one, which is in Christ, in which all who have entered are blessed.” That prophetic saying too holds the same meaning: “The Lord upon many waters”: not only the various covenants, but also the ways of teaching, both among the Greeks and among the barbarians, that lead to righteousness. And David, bearing clear witness to the truth, sings: “Let the sinners be turned back to Hades, all the nations that forget God.” They forget, evidently, one whom they formerly remembered, and they set aside the one whom they knew before they forgot him. There was, then, a dim knowledge of God even among the nations.

Let these things be so. But the one who knows must be very learned. And since the Greeks say, following Protagoras who began it, that to every argument an argument is opposed, it is fitting that he be prepared for such arguments too. For Scripture says: “He who says much will also hear in return.” “And who will understand the Lord's parable, except one who is wise and understanding and loves his Lord?” Let such a one, then, be faithful; let him be able to express knowledge; let him be wise in the discernment of words; let him be vigorous in deeds; let him be pure. “For the greater he seems to be, the more humble-minded he ought to be,” says Clement in the letter to the Corinthians. Such a man is able to obey that precept: “And some snatch out of the fire, but on those who doubt have mercy.” The pruning hook, of course, was made primarily for pruning, but with it we also separate tangled branches and cut the thorns that grow along with the vines, which are hard to get at; yet all these relate to pruning. Again, man was made primarily for the knowledge of God, but he also farms, measures land, and philosophizes: the first for living, the second for living well, and the third for studying things that admit of demonstration.

Indeed, let those who say that philosophy takes its rise from the devil consider this too: Scripture says that the devil transforms himself into an angel of light. To do what? Clearly, to prophesy. And if he prophesies as an angel of light, he will say true things. If they are angelic and luminous, he will then prophesy useful things too, when he is transformed in likeness of activity, even if he is different in the substance of his apostasy. For how could he deceive anyone unless he drew the lover of learning into familiarity by true things, and so afterward dragged him down into falsehood? Besides, he will be found to know the truth, and if not with firm apprehension, at least not without experience of it. Philosophy, then, is not false, even if the thief and liar speaks true things by a transformation of activity; nor must we ignorantly condemn beforehand what is said because of the speaker (which must also be observed with those who are now said to prophesy), but we must examine what is said, whether it holds to the truth.

Speaking now in general terms, we would not be wrong to say that all things necessary and profitable for life come to us from God, and that philosophy was given especially to the Greeks, like a covenant of their own, being a foundation for the philosophy according to Christ, even if those who practice Greek philosophy willfully shut their ears to the truth, despising the speech of the barbarians or fearing the danger of death that hangs over the believer under the civil laws. But as in the barbarian philosophy, so in the Greek, tares were sown by the tares' own farmer. Hence both the heresies among us grew up along with the fruitful wheat, and those who preach the godlessness and pleasure of Epicurus, and whatever else contrary to right reason has been sown in Greek philosophy, are bastard fruits of the husbandry given by God to the Greeks.

This pleasure-loving and self-loving wisdom the apostle calls “the wisdom of this age,” as teaching only the things of this world and about it, and consequently subject, under their government, to the rulers here. That is why this partial philosophy is elementary, while the truly perfect understanding is concerned with intelligible things beyond the world, and with things still more spiritual than these, “which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, nor has it entered the heart of men,” until the teacher made the account of them clear to us, revealing the holy of holies and, ascending further, things holier still, to those who are genuinely, and not illegitimately, heirs of the Lord's adoption. For we dare to say (for here lies the faith of the one who knows) that the one who truly knows understands all things and comprehends all things, with firm apprehension even of things that are hard for us, as were James, Peter, John, Paul, and the rest of the apostles. For prophecy is full of knowledge, as given by the Lord and again made clear through the Lord to the apostles. And is not knowledge the property of the rational soul trained for this, so that through knowledge it may be enrolled for immortality? For both are powers of the soul: knowledge and impulse.

Impulse is found to be a movement that follows some assent; for one who has an impulse toward some action first gets knowledge of the action, and second the impulse. Let us consider this further. Since learning is prior to doing (for by nature the one who acts first learns what he wishes to do), and knowledge comes from learning, and doing from having an impulse; and since knowledge comes from learning, and impulse follows understanding, and action follows impulse; knowledge would be the beginning and maker of every rational action, so that the particular character of the rational soul would rightly be marked out by this alone. For in truth impulse is, as it were, knowledge moving toward things, while knowledge itself is a kind of vision by the soul of things, either of some things or, when perfected, of all.

And yet some say that the wise man is persuaded that there are some things incomprehensible, so that he has a kind of comprehension even of these, comprehending that the incomprehensible things will remain incomprehensible. This is common even to those who can see only a little ahead; for such a person affirms that there are some incomprehensible things. But the one who knows, of whom I speak, himself comprehends what seems incomprehensible to others, believing that nothing is incomprehensible to the Son of God, and therefore nothing is beyond teaching; for he who suffered out of love for us would hold back nothing in the teaching of knowledge. This faith, then, becomes a firm demonstration, since truth follows what has been handed down by God. And if anyone longs for wide experience, the disciple of wisdom “knows the things of old and conjectures the things to come; he understands the turns of speech and the solutions of riddles; he foreknows signs and wonders and the outcomes of seasons and times.”

For the one who knows is such that he is subject only to the affections that arise for the maintenance of the body, such as hunger, thirst, and the like. But in the case of the Savior it would be ridiculous to suppose that the body, as a body, demanded the necessary services for its maintenance; for he ate not for the sake of the body, which was held together by holy power, but so that it might not enter the minds of those who were with him to think otherwise about him, as indeed later some supposed that he had been manifested only in appearance. He himself was entirely free from passion; no movement of passion, either pleasure or pain, found its way into him. The apostles, having mastered anger and fear and desire in a more knowing way through the Lord's teaching, did not admit even what seem to be the good forms of passionate movement, such as boldness, zeal, joy, and cheerfulness; they were in no way changed, by a firm settledness of mind, but always remained unaltered in a habit of discipline, at least after the Lord's resurrection. For even if someone accepts the aforesaid goods when they arise with reason, they are still not to be admitted in the perfect man. He has no occasion for boldness (for he is never among terrors, since he considers nothing in life terrible, and nothing can draw him away from the love of God); nor does he need cheerfulness (for he does not fall into grief, being persuaded that all things turn out well); nor indeed does he become angry (for there is nothing that will move him to anger, since he always loves God and is wholly turned to him alone, and therefore hates none of God's creatures); nor is he zealous (for he lacks nothing needed for being made like the beautiful and good; nor, then, does he love anyone with this common friendship, but he loves the Creator through the creatures).

So he does not fall into desire or any craving, nor is he in need, as far as the soul is concerned, of anything else, since he is already united through love with the Beloved, to whom he has been made akin by his own choice, and drawing nearer to him by the habit that comes from discipline, being blessed through the abundance of good things; so that for these reasons he strives to be made like the teacher in freedom from passion. For the Word of God is intellectual, and in this respect the image of mind is seen in man alone; hence the good man is godlike and resembles God in soul, and God in turn is manlike; for the form of each is the mind, by which we are characterized. That is why those who sin against a man are also unholy and impious.

For it is nonsense to say that the one who knows, the perfect man, must not be deprived of anger and boldness, as though without these he would not rise above circumstances nor endure terrors; and that, if we should also take away his cheerfulness, he would be utterly overwhelmed by griefs and for that reason depart from life most wretchedly. And if he had no share in desire, as some have thought, he would not, they say, gain a longing … for likeness to the beautiful and good. If, then, every appropriation of what is beautiful comes about with craving, how, they say, does one who craves the beautiful remain free from passion? But these people, it seems, do not know the divine quality of love. For love is no longer a craving of the one who loves, but an affectionate appropriation, which has restored the one who knows to the unity of the faith, no longer needing time and place. He who through love is already among the things amid which he will be, having anticipated his hope through knowledge, does not even crave anything, since he has, as far as possible, the very object of craving. Fittingly, then, he remains in the one unchangeable habit, loving in the manner of knowledge; nor will he strive to be made like the beautiful, since through love he possesses beauty. What further need has he of boldness and desire, who through love has received appropriation to the God who is free from passion, and through love has enrolled himself among his friends?

We must, then, exempt the one who knows, the perfect man, from every passion of the soul. For knowledge produces training, training produces a habit or disposition, and such a state produces freedom from passion, not moderation of passion; for the complete cutting off of desire reaps freedom from passion. Nor does the one who knows share in those much-talked-of goods, that is, the passionate goods that lie next to the passions: I mean, for example, gladness (which lies next to pleasure), dejection (for this is yoked to grief), and caution (for it is subordinate to fear), nor indeed spirit (this is ranked beside anger),

even if some say that these are no longer evils but already goods. For it is impossible that one who has once been perfected through love, and who feasts eternally and insatiably on the never-cloying gladness of contemplation, should still delight in small and grovelling things. For what reasonable cause is left to him to run back to worldly goods, when he has attained the unapproachable light, even if not yet in time and place, yet by that knowing love through which the inheritance and the complete restoration follow, the rewarder confirming by deeds what the one who knows, having chosen it knowingly through love, has already anticipated and taken beforehand? Is it not so that, departing to the Lord through his love for him, even if his tent is seen on earth, he does not remove himself from life (for that is not permitted him), but he has removed his soul from the passions (for that is granted him), and he lives having put his desires to death, and no longer makes common use of the body, but only allows it the use of necessities, so as not to give cause for its dissolution?

How then does he still need courage, since he is not among terrors, not being present here, but already wholly united with the Beloved? And what need of self-restraint has he who does not need it? For to have such desires as to need self-restraint for self-control over them belongs to one not yet pure but subject to passion; and courage is taken up because of fear and cowardice. For it is certainly no longer fitting that the friend of God, whom God foreordained before the foundation of the world to be enrolled in the highest adoption, should fall into pleasures or fears and be occupied with the repression of passions. For I would dare to say: just as he stands foreordained through what he will do and what he will attain, so he too, having foreordained, holds through what he has known the one whom he has loved; he does not have a future hard to discern, as the many live by guessing, but has received through knowing faith what is unclear to others.

And for him, through love, the future is already present. For he has believed God, who does not lie, both through prophecy and through the coming; and what he has believed he possesses, and he holds fast the promise (and the one who promised is truth), and he has securely received, with understanding, the fulfilment of the promise through the trustworthiness of the one who promised. And he who knows that his state among the things where he is is a firm apprehension of things to come, goes out to meet the future beforehand through love. For instance, he will not even pray to obtain the things here, being persuaded that he will obtain the truly good things; but he will pray always to hold to the faith that attains and succeeds. And besides this he will pray that very many may become as like himself as possible, for the glory of God, which is perfected through full knowledge. For whoever is made like the Savior is himself a kind of savior, so far as it is lawful for human nature to receive the image, carrying out without transgression what accords with the commandments.

The one whose practice is to worship the divine through true righteousness, of works and of knowledge: his voice in prayer the Lord does not wait for, saying: “Ask, and I will do it; think, and I will give it.” For in general, what is unchangeable cannot take firm hold and stability in what is changing; and in continual change, the ruling faculty becoming unstable for that reason, the power of habit is not preserved. For what is always being altered by things coming in and falling upon it from outside, how could it ever come to be in a habit and disposition, and, in short, in the possession of understanding? And yet the philosophers too consider the virtues habits, dispositions, and forms of understanding. As knowledge is not born with men but is acquired, and learning it needs attention at the beginning, and nourishment and growth, and then from unceasing practice comes into a habit, so, when perfected in the mystic habit, it remains unshakable through love. For he has not only apprehended the first cause and the cause begotten by it and holds firmly about them, possessing in a steadfast way steadfast, unchangeable, and immovable principles, but also about good and evil, about all coming into being, and, in a word, about the things of which the Lord spoke, he has the most exact truth from the foundation of the world to the end, having learned it from the truth itself; not choosing before the truth itself anything that might appear persuasive or compelling by Greek reasoning, but having received what was spoken by the Lord as clear and manifest. Even if these things are still hidden from others, he has already received knowledge of all things. And the oracles we have declare about things that are, how they are, about things to come, how they will be, and about things past, how they came to be.

And in matters of understanding, being alone truly understanding, he will excel and will champion the account of the good, always devoted to intelligible things, copying from those archetypes above his management of human affairs, as sailors steer the ship by the star; ready and prepared for every fitting action; accustomed to disregard all that is troublesome and terrible when he must endure it; never doing anything rash or out of harmony either for himself or for the community; foreseeing, and unbending to pleasures, whether waking or in dreams. For, accustomed with self-restraint to a frugal diet and self-sufficiency, he is simple and dignified, needing few necessities for living, busying himself with nothing superfluous; and even these he does not treat as primary, but accepts them, as far as necessary, from the fellowship of life, as needed for his sojourn in the flesh. For knowledge is primary for him.

As a consequence, then, he also devotes himself to the studies that train him for knowledge, taking from each discipline what contributes to the truth: pursuing in music the proportion in harmonies; in arithmetic noting the increases and decreases of numbers and their relations to one another, and how most things fall under some proportion of numbers; in geometry contemplating essence itself by itself and becoming accustomed to conceive of continuous extension and unchangeable essence, different from these bodies; and again from astronomy, raised from the earth in mind, he will be lifted up with heaven and will travel round with its revolution, always investigating divine things and their harmony with one another; setting out from these, Abraham ascended to the knowledge of the Creator. And the one who knows will also make use of dialectic, choosing the division of genera into species, and will take up the distinguishing of beings until he touches the first and simple things. But most people fear Greek philosophy as children fear bogeys, afraid that it will lead them away.

But if their faith (for I would not call it knowledge) is such that it can be dissolved by plausible argument, let it be dissolved; by this above all they confess that they will not hold the truth. For truth is invincible, it says, but false opinion is destroyed. For instance, we choose purple by comparing it with another purple. So if someone admits that he does not have a trained heart, he has neither the money-changers' table nor the criterion of arguments. And how is he still a banker, if he cannot test and distinguish genuine coin from counterfeit? And David cries: “For the righteous will not be shaken forever”: neither, then, by deceitful argument nor by misleading pleasure; hence he will not be shaken from his own inheritance. “He will not be afraid of an evil report”: neither, then, of empty slander nor of false opinion about himself; nor will he fear cunning arguments, since he can discern them and can ask and answer rightly. For dialectic is like a fence, so that the truth is not trampled by the sophists. For those who are praised in the holy name of the Lord, according to the prophet, must “rejoice in heart, seeking the Lord.” “Seek him, then, and be strengthened; seek his face continually,” in every way. For having spoken in many portions and in many ways, he is not known simply.

So our one who knows will be very learned, using these not as virtues but as certain helpers; and in distinguishing what is common and what is particular he will attain the truth. For the cause of all error and false opinion is the inability to discern in what way things share with one another and in what way they differ. And if someone does not follow the argument according to the distinctions, he will unawares confuse the common and the particular; and when this happens, he necessarily falls into pathlessness and error. The distinguishing of names and of things, even in the Scriptures themselves, produces great light in souls; for one must attend both to words that signify several things and to several words when they signify one thing; from this comes the ability to answer rightly. But much useless learning must be declined, which busies one with things of no concern; the one who knows uses the disciplines as auxiliary preparatory exercises, both for the exact transmission of the truth, as far as attainable, without distraction, and for protection against arguments contrived to cut the truth away.

He will not, then, fall behind those who make progress in the general studies and in Greek philosophy, yet not as his primary aim but as something necessary, secondary, and dependent on circumstances. For what those who labor in the heresies use cunningly, the one who knows will use for good. Since, then, the truth that appears in Greek philosophy is partial, the real truth, like the sun shining on colors, white and black, shows what each of them is; so it too refutes every sophistic plausibility. Fittingly, then, it was proclaimed beforehand also among the Greeks: “Beginning of great virtue, queen Truth.”