The Apocriticus (Answers to the Pagan Critic) 3.10–3.12

[The Christian (Macarius) answers the objection on “If you believed Moses, you would believe me” (3.3).] The third heading I must explain to you is what Christ said to the Jews: “If you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote about me.” That Moses wrote about Christ, the whole world has read openly and recognized: in one place he says that a prophet would be raised up in his stead; in another he tells of him fashioning man together with the Father; in another he recounts the Passion mystically in the bush; in another he writes of the cross and shows it in the rod; in another, the golden jar — the pure body — which holds the incorruptible food, the heavenly Word; and countless other things akin to these and following from them. And since you said that the writings of Moses perished in the captivity, and again that they were not accurately written by Ezra, it will be found that they were written a second time with complete accuracy. For it was not one who spoke to Ezra and another to Moses; the same Spirit taught both and plainly dictated the same things to both. And like a house pulled down by enemies, the Mosaic law was gathered together again by the same craftsman by the rule of his wisdom, who fitted each heading together harmoniously. And that the inspired words of old have cried aloud the Word of God, God the Word, and the crucified Christ, and that every prophetic tablet has made this known, you may plainly recognize if you love the truth. David sings in his psalmody and says, “The Lord has saved his Christ.” On Christ's being the Word, Isaiah says, “Out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem; and he will judge between the nations and rebuke many nations.” On Christ's being Lord God, David says, “God is the Lord, and he has shone upon us”; and again, that the Word, being God, was anointed as ruler insofar as he is man, he says, “Therefore God, your God, has anointed you.” And why must I bring you many well-worn testimonies, which the four quarters of the world have learned and accepted? Since, then, Moses wrote many far-shining testimonies about Christ, and the Jews were unwilling to take them as spoken of him, he rightly said to them, “If you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote about me.”

[The Christian (Macarius) answers the objection on the swine and the demons (3.4).] So, since this point is quite clear, let us investigate the question raised by another subject: the demoniacs, the swine drowned in the sea, and the swineherds who fled from the place. Do not let it trouble you that Matthew speaks of two demoniacs and Mark of one. For Matthew speaks of two demons, but does not say that two men were possessed; while Mark speaks of one man, but of many demons in him; so that the two of whom Matthew speaks were certain chief and cruel demons, and with them other demons besieged the man. Or perhaps Matthew introduces the number of persons, saying two men, while Mark makes known the nature that suffered without concerning himself with the number. For the common speech of free men often has such a usage. When a shepherd guards his flock, for instance, sometimes one speaks with reference to the nature: “The shepherd carefully guards the sheep” — and in saying this one does not mean one sheep, for they are many in number; but since, though the sheep are many, they have one nature, one says “sheep” by reason of the nature. And sometimes one says “the shepherd guards the sheep” in the plural, by reason of the number. In other ways too, by custom, the plural is expressed in the singular: “The barbarian met the king,” instead of “the barbarians” or “the barbarian nation”; and “The king gathered the soldier,” instead of “the soldiers”; and one may find countless expressions akin to these. So we need not wear ourselves out needlessly over this, if one said there was one demoniac and the other two. For the one, as I said, made known the nature, that it was human nature that was tyrannized; the other the person, that they were not one but two in number. It remains to ask how the demons, who had already for a long time subdued the rational creature with measureless torments, begged not to go into the abyss when their being was set ablaze by a ray of the Godhead; and why Christ yielded to their entreaty and allowed them to be sent into the swine as they asked. The demons, I think, being terribly smelted by the fire that shone out from the sight of the Saviour, longed in every way, fevered by the heat, to run into the waters and soothe the burning that lay on them. But since, being bodiless by nature, they could not enter the bath of the waters naked, they asked for the herd of swine as a ladder, so that entering through them they might relieve the heat. And craftily the demons ask for no other beasts as their vehicles, but for those forbidden in the Mosaic law, pretending to honour the letter of the legislation, which was being despised by those who then lived in Palestine. And do not suppose that the herd of swine was Jewish: it belonged to the Roman forces who had taken the cities of the East under the emperor, for a “settlement,” as the Romans call it. For cohorts and companies of the Roman power were then quartered in the provinces of the Jews, who had treaties with the Romans. From the time of Augustus, who enrolled the whole world, and of Tiberius, and even before those times, the Jews were subject to the Romans, and all their land was tributary. Indeed, the emperor appointed as king of Judaea Herod, the son of Antipater, who served the temple of Apollo at Ascalon; and he sends Pilate as governor and judge, who was himself a Greek; and the Romans had taken over all authority over the Jews, for the yoke of slavery had long hung over them because of their wickedness. So at that time there were herds of beasts belonging to Roman owners, and Roman stewards, answerable to their masters, looked after the property. Yet the demons, being enemies and avengers of the law, and burning, carried the swine into the water. And as for Mark's report that Christ asked, as though he did not know, what the demon's name was: Christ questions the loathsome creature not because he did not know what the demon is called, but to convict him from his own words of having become a deserter from the kingdom above. He says, “What was your name?” And he answered, “Legion.” For he was not one then; but he was once a legion, guarding the power of the kingdom above, as it is written, “Or can I not now call upon my Father, and he will provide me twelve legions of angels?” That legion ran away and wallowed in the evil of apostasy, finding man a ready hiding-place — a legion truly shield-throwing and wretched, not a legion but a bandit, stripping and plundering the region about the earth and plunging those it captures into incurable disasters. So, in order that Christ might teach his hearers from what kind of service the legion had fallen, he says, “What is your name?” — not that he himself might learn (for he knew), but that those present might. For the demons, being severely tormented, took refuge, in order to obtain mercy, in the ancient name of their rank, to remind a great and kindly king, as it were, of the loyalty of their former service, all but saying: “We were once a legion; we were soldiers of your impartial power. Remember the position we once held, have mercy, and do not send us into the abyss. We are your legion, but now we are bandits of wickedness; once we served, now we plunder; once we spent our time near your palaces, now we have come near to the regions under the earth. For then we dwelt in a pure watchtower, but now we have been scattered in filth and …. We ask to receive a dwelling worthy of us, so that from now on we may not trouble rational beings. For having come into the punishment of stench, we seek as our vehicle what delights in stench; we beg to go into a herd of swine. Justly cast out of the incorruptible land, we are eager to take not flocks of sheep, nor horses, nor oxen (for these animals are clean and undefiled), but a gathering of foul-smelling and disorderly swine, so that by what is done we may teach the inhabitants and expose the habit of our loathsomeness. For everyone whose mind is strong and whose judgment is sound will fear to imitate a swinish and filthy way of life, learning that demons drag such a person into the depth of destruction; and in another way he will learn of our fall from our evil condition and will not be eager to acquire a choice like ours. So, that we may be a memorial to the world, a great example and a common school, give us the swine as guides into the sea, so that all may learn that we have no power to rule even over base things unless we are commanded and receive leave from the divine Spirit; so that from now on the whole world may despise us, as having no authority even over swine, since not even the beasts penned in the country fall under our tyranny.” For the sake of this wise proceeding, I think, the Saviour sends the demons not into the abyss but into the herd of swine, and through them into the sea, benefiting in each thing and teaching well: making plain to men the punishment of the demons, and plain the lesson not to emulate the life of any filthy beast. For if he had sent them into the abyss, as you say, it would have been unclear to each, because unseen; doubtful, because beyond perception; suspect, because bodiless. For someone might have suspected that they had disobeyed Christ and gone off, not into the abyss, but to men living nearby or beyond the borders, and that by running away they had done worse harm. But as it is, it was not so: it became clear and plain to all that the demons, leaving their human dwelling, went into the sea when the swine perished. And receive … of this story.

[The Christian (Macarius) answers the objection on the camel and the needle (3.5).] Receive readily the next question too, about “Sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.” I will tell you the story of the matter from the beginning. A rich man came to Christ, solemn in bearing but crooked and not upright in mind, and spoke deviously, saying, “What shall I do to inherit eternal life?” He answered him gently, not as a teacher but as a kindly father, saying, “Keep the commandments”; and he explained that eternal life lies in the commandments, guiding him like a tutor through the commandments to the highest watchtower, and then, through his wealth, bringing him into the very kingdom of heaven — if only, looking more wisely to what is better, he would at once exchange the small for the greater, and measure out to the poor his heap of perishable things in order to receive what is imperishable. For wealth did not, as you say, shut the rich man out of the kingdom; on the contrary, it would bring him in, if he managed it well and soberly. For as a soldier who uses his armour well and finely is through it renowned, brilliant, and conspicuous; through it enters solemnly before the king; through it shines within the palace; through it is distinguished among those in authority; through it holds the cities unassailable — but if he handles it badly and does not carry it as he should, through it he becomes easy prey for every enemy; through it he is thrown out of the camp as a traitor; through it he becomes plunder carried off by the enemy; through it he is seen as disloyal and banished; through it he is punished and cut off from life — and no one in all this blames the armour, but the one who did not use the armour well. Just as no one, seeing someone shining in armour, says that the armour makes his glory, but the zeal of the one who uses the arms, so no one with sense will ever praise anyone's habit or condition, but the one who possesses it, if he has used it wisely. For neither grammar nor rhetoric adorns the grammarian or the rhetorician, nor does stone adorn the mason; it is the craftsman who skilfully dresses the material who receives the praise; the grammarian who labours at grammar makes the habit of his knowledge distinguished; and so too the rhetorician, the carpenter, and the physician. But if, on the contrary, each should neglect his own knowledge and through carelessness slip into the chorus of the uncultured, we judge that the cause of their disgrace is not the art of letters or of affairs, but each one's carelessness and contempt. So too, one who has wealth and manages it well becomes a sharer in the heavenly kingdom, and one who uses it badly is shut out of it, and suffers this, reasonably, not from his wealth but from his own wretchedness. Nor is one who endures poverty improperly praiseworthy because of it; for many are poor, and not all are praiseworthy, but each rightly so by his own skill in it. Wealth did not harm the rich man; the rich man's uncouth choice showed the wealth to be useless and unprofitable. Nor did poverty lead the poor man up to heaven; the poor man's mind made his poverty profitable to his soul. For the virtue and disposition of goodness makes its achievement shine in rich and poor alike. As a dose of medicine, having one power, whether given to the sick or the healthy, does not produce one condition in those who take it, but changes the feeling of some for the worse and brings the bodies of others to a better state — not because the power of the drug does this, but because those who take it experience the dose unequally owing to the unequal state of their bodily constitution — so the word of virtue, being one and the same, has brought many rich men up to what is better and carried many off to what is worse and base; and likewise it has made many poor men refugees and friends of God, and made many others hateful to God and hated — not supplying this from its own power (for then, being one, it would either have benefited all or harmed all), but bestowing its workings on each according to the choice it found him to have, as each was able to receive it. So no one who lost his wealth in this life for love of the kingdom of heaven was put to shame in eternal life, or missed the mark by giving up his own goods. For by giving what he had, he received what he had not; by laying aside the burdens of earth, hard to bear, he took up a glory that is light and without weight. For the sake of this subject I will tell you of one rich man — passing over in silence, because of the length it would take, the many who accepted wealth here as an occasion of heavenly wealth. Passing over the many, I will mention one only, for the one will be the refutation and accuser of the many: that much-enduring and much-afflicted man whom you have surely heard celebrated on the pillar of holy Scripture, the governor of the East called Job. He was rich, first and not second of those in his time. With an upright soul he served the sceptre of the one sovereign power; with an undeviating council of reasonings he revered the rule of the Better; he exalted his way of life with genuine goodness and magnified his life with blameless conduct, doing what was just each day in deed and word. Having wealth as though not having it, he was humble night and day, not selling his possessions and doling them out little by little to the poor, but giving away the very substance of his possessions and filling the laps of the needy without stint: now clothing the naked with the fleeces of his own flocks; now giving the hungry the morsel he himself was eating — not another, but from his own table; now laying it down that his house was common to strangers; now sitting beside the infirm in friendship as one of them and lamenting their pains. And at last, having lost all his property for the longing for, and enjoyment of, eternal life, and having judged all the possessions of this life as vanished for the sake of the undefiled dwelling in heaven, he loved the dunghill; having put off his wealth, he handled his sores like gold and looked on the worms as precious pearls; above every royal fragrance of spices he loved the stench (the furthest corner of the dunghill was a pleasant and sweet dwelling to him). Neither did wealth shut this man out of the kingdom, nor did poverty tear him away from godly virtue — rather, in wealth he loved God and in poverty he loved virtue; being rich he was rich in virtues, and becoming poor he loved his Creator. For him poverty gave birth to wealth, and wealth magnified the glory that is according to God, as he rightly willed — for wealth served his will and poverty obeyed it. This man conquered wickedness in poverty and humbled the brow of pride in wealth; this man in weakness broke the power of temptations and in wealth routed the temptations of the passions; this man was seen well-pleasing to God in wealth and in poverty alike. Therefore, bearing without yielding the blows of his adversaries in the skin of his flesh, he received a celebrated prize for his labours; therefore, fighting nobly with potsherds against the phalanx of Beliar pressing on him, he overthrew the bodiless battle-line of the spirits. Dwelling on the dunghill because of poverty, he built a renowned tower of piety; losing bodily fragrance and sitting in stench, he breathed the fragrance of immortality. Being rich he was noble, and becoming poor he was nobler still. So do not suppose that the Lord said without qualification, “It is easier for a camel to enter through a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.” For many rich men are found to come within the kingdom; but he casts the rich man out of heaven with a reason, saying, “Those who have riches will enter the kingdom of heaven with difficulty.” Those, then, who have and do not share, who do not sympathetically share with those who have not, but confine their wealth to their own enjoyment of life alone, who never speak kindly with the poor, never console pitiable poverty, never lighten the want of any who lament, but turn away from the pitiable … — these are strangers to the kingdom of heaven. No one faces a court without advocates; no one goes up to the tribunal bearing the bruises of an accusation; no one appears before a king wrapped in kinds of charges; no one sets out for a feast stained; no one brings burdens into a banquet; no one goes within the palace bearing the marks of a suspicion of tyranny. The poor are the advocates of the rich; without them wealth is useless before God. Possessions are marks of wickedness, and one must throw them away and be free of charges. Property paints a picture of suspicion; it is better to put it off by good management and serve the Divine with boldness. The things of abundance become stains and wrinkles on men, and one must scatter them by better reasoning and hasten to the blessed hearth. The guarding of possessions is a heavy burden, and it is right to shake off the weight and walk unencumbered to the festal assembly above. Money becomes the accuser of greed, and it is profitable to throw it away quickly and to drive on without it into the kingdom of heaven — if indeed a man truly believes that there is a kingdom of the holy in heaven. If he does not believe, why does he busy himself at all, arguing idly without faith?