The Apocriticus (Answers to the Pagan Critic) 3.13–3.16

[The Christian (Macarius) answers the objection on Christ walking on the sea in the fourth watch (3.6).] Having extended our discussion of the rich man this far for you, let us join to it again that narrative: how in the evening Christ sent the disciples ahead to cross the expanse of the sea, came himself in the fourth watch of the night, and overtook them storm-tossed in the swell. He appeared to them in the fourth watch of the night counted not from the end but from the beginning, that is, at the fourth hour of the night. But if, as you say, we are forced to speak of the fourth from the end, this does no harm to the question, if Christ was seen by the apostles at dawn. For our task is only to ask whether they crossed a sea or not the expanse of a sea. And that, even if the place was a lake, it was in its effect a sea and open water — a sea in being tossed by the winds, a sea in carrying the boats of fishermen — one may at once see the plain sense of what is said. For by extension every gathering of water is called a sea, whether it is formed from rivers or from springs, either from the stirring-up (tholōsis) that it constantly undergoes from the winds, which makes the drinking water in it muddy (tholera), or from the saltness it has by attribution and not by nature. Let the children of grammarians or of technical writers etymologize these things; we will track down the nature of the matter — from where those who were entrusted with writing the gospel learned or received it, so that they wrote of lakes not as lakes but as seas. For either moved by the divine word and doctrine, or having learned it from someone educated, they chose to write “sea,” not “lake.” What then? We must now say what is sought. He who wrote the history of the world's coming into being — a truly divine and God-inspired man, who surpassed the whole nature of his kin in exceeding beauty, watered by an ever-flowing spring of wisdom and flowing with a great stream of understanding — when he was writing the history of beauty that never cloys, and came in thought to the liquid element, heard that the whole system and gathering of waters had been called “seas” by God. If, then, the blessed and truly celebrated mouth of the Creator — the unclouded beauty, the unfading good, the one without beginning who alone has immortality — in creation named every gathering of water a sea, how would the evangelists dare to annul the Creator's word and call “lake” what had been called “sea” by God on high? So, keeping the Creator's decree in mind, they called the lake a sea by extension. Let us then consider the text fittingly, and look closely at Christ's wonder, and not belittle that lofty history by the humility of its wording, but see from it the secret of the matter. Jesus had just marked the earth with astonishing prodigies. Five thousand, who had not even one morsel to support bodily life, he made to recline in the desert as in a great city and filled with most abundant provisions, supplying lavishly food prepared as from the storehouse of his own power; and, confirming the account of that festivity before their eyes, he filled twelve baskets with the leftovers and made the disciples carry them, so that those present might see the truth of the sign without doubt. Having done this, he decided to move his wonders to the sea, to mark it too with divine works. For since he had struck the dry land with marvels and had kindly treated the men on it, he decided to fill the watery element too with grace, whether it was in the place of a sea or of a lake, and to astound the disciples on it with prodigies. For he knew — knew clearly — that human nature was secretly finding fault and whispering with a thievish tongue, in the speech of ignorance: “Does he who has enslaved the earth to the working of signs have the same authority to do marvels on the sea? Can he who saves on dry land and tirelessly feeds those who attend him do extraordinary things on the waters?” Because of these idle reasonings, rightly, not yet having ceased from the wonders on land, he hastened to tread the paths of the sea, and sent the disciples ahead, so that, going on before and caught by the surge of a fierce storm, unable to complete the voyage by seamanship, they might fight hard against the force of the winds, renounce all human help, and come to the help that is bodiless. The boat was struck at the prow as a sudden, violent wind ran against their faces; the rowing stopped under the drag of the surf; the boat went round and round, overflowing; and besides, a moonless and very deep night, choking their sight, made the sailors despair of safety. For the whole nature of the elements was greatly troubled, seeing the creating Word, who for men's sake had become man, unrecognized. Then indeed the reins of the winds were loosed more than was needed, so that, having tamed the sailors with fears, they might show Christ walking on the waters as on a safe highway; so that, seeing him tread swiftly on the flowing element and not sink, they might come to think that this is he of whom the prophetic tablet cried out, saying, “He who walks on the sea as on solid ground”; so that from what appeared they might understand the prophecy. For Jesus, lightening the weight of his body by the Godhead, walked unwetted on the waters; or rather, gathering the flowing substance of the waters, he thickened it, making it like a paved path. So, stepping on the sea in one way or the other, he fulfilled the prophecy. And the sea, perceiving God in man, makes its back firm and carries its Creator and denies its own nature — not fleeing its boundary, but serving its maker beyond nature; while rational men, seeing the extraordinary things of countless works, through hardness of mind did not recognize Christ. Having, then, made the blessed prayer to the Father, and as man earnestly entreated him, as God he does not delay to overtake those held fast in the storm; but coming on the waters he frightened the boat (for the one walking appeared to be a man, but what he did showed something foreign to man, walking on the watery element). First a strong fear shook them, second the sight troubled them not a little, and third the struggles of the voyage wore them down. But speaking to them, he quenched with the word the turmoil that lay on them, sending the ray of his word to the apostles brighter than the light of the sun. For saying, “It is I; do not be afraid,” he brought down like a cloud the distress that had come over them, saying: “It is I, who a little while ago filled the five thousand with food while you served them; it is I who called you then while you were at sea; it is I who said to you, ‘Come after me and I will make you fishers of men’; it is I who hold the reins of the sea and of every element; it is I who welcome hungry crowds on land and pity those in danger on the sea.” Peter, seeing the watery element not giving way at all as the Saviour ran over it, but appearing like frozen crystal, judged that it was held together and controlled by a strong spirit; but believing not genuinely, wavering in doubt and supposing that the words came from a phantom, he said: “If you are the one who a little while ago was with us and provided for the others; if you are the one who with a word put to sleep long-standing afflictions, who gives fatherly gentleness to those in need; if you are the one we longed for, for whose sake we threw away the world — bid me come to you on the waters.” Saying this rashly and without understanding, he at once received the penalty for the “if”; not long after, he received the verdict on the “if.” For seeing the Master walking easily on the waters, he doubted whether it was he who was doing it, as though someone else also had authority to walk on water; by what he said, he assigned himself his place. So the Saviour, wishing to turn him from his error and to prick the sickness of his unbelief, says briefly, “Come,” so that through the “Come” he might not be able to come on the waters, but might come to faith, he who disbelieved in the Only-begotten. For it is not lawful for a man to walk on water; nor did the prophet say, “those who walk,” but “he who walks on the sea,” testifying of one and not of many that this extraordinary act is God's, and that the marvel is not proper to men. So, when Peter stumbled at the very crux of the matter, Christ — to say the timely thing in good time — put him to shame and taught him: first, because he disbelieved in saying, “If it is you”; second, because he made bold to walk on the waters as God's equal; and third, because he wished to make false the prophecy that says, “he who walks on the sea.” For if Peter had walked too, it would have lied in saying “he who walks” and not “those who walk.” So the sea all but drowned the servant who was rashly playing the bold youth as the Master's equal, eager to punish a presumptuous fellow-servant — had not Christ, taking pity on him in his danger, quickly seized his hand and saved him as he sank because of the rotten rudder of his tongue, and persuaded him for the future not to put forward a word akin to the devil's. For as the devil, doubting, said, “If you are the Son of God,” so Peter, disbelieving, said, “If it is you, bid me come to you on the waters, that I may be fully assured”; holding the wonder as a fact, he doubted, and seeing the plain truth in deeds, he hesitated. So Christ, wishing to benefit him sufficiently, says: “Come. If the evidence of sight is too weak to testify for us, come on the waters; being firmly persuaded by them that it is we, take up a firm resolve out of the fluid element. You love what is impossible, wishing to take up the same power as the Creator. Come on the waters — not treading on the wave as we do, but receiving from it the unadulterated word of faith in us. Ah, Peter, great is the struggle, and you need a fourth watch to help you. The night is blindness, the open sea storms, and over you hangs the cloud of ignorance; the boat is tossed on the lightless deep, but you are shaken by unbelief more than the boat; the onrush of wind has shaken the sea, but the pettiness of rashness makes you tremble. The make-up of your body is of four mixtures, and their principle does not keep its union, being loosed by doubt. You do not know what you are saying; you speak as in a dream when you say, ‘If it is you.’ What sea serpent prompted you to say this? Oh, what a change the short time of our absence has made! The chief of the disciples is tossed in soul by an invisible wind; the first of the apostles is swallowed by the depth of unbelief.” And he solemnly takes hold of his hand before he suffers anything worse. For, as it seems, Peter suffered a double shipwreck: going down from the boat, his body is plunged under; disbelieving us, his soul is swallowed up; his soul is tormented by the seas of ignorance, and his body plunged in the salt sea. This being so, Jesus took hold of him, saying, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” He comes, then, in the fourth watch of the night, for four things troubled the sailors: dark air, the onrush of wind, moonless night, and a howling sea. He comes to the sailors in the fourth watch, for the four elements were raging against them. And if you would like us to explain the passage by the law of anagogy, looking a little beyond the literal letter, let us consider the most luminous sense. The sea is our briny existence; the night is this life; the boat is the world; those sailing in it all night, as it were, through the whole of life, are the human race; the contrary wind is the devil's great opposition; and the fourth watch is the Saviour's coming. For the intelligible night, that is, life, was divided from above into four watches. In the first watch the patriarchs appeared and comforted life with the lamp of faith; in the second watch the law came and steered the boat; in the third watch the prophets appeared and fought alongside the sailors; and in the fourth watch Christ came to dwell among us, stopped the turmoil of the voyagers, and checked every onrush of the adversaries, flashing the brightness of his love for mankind on the sailors at the fullness of the night. Knowing this, the apostle subtly wrote the mystery: “The night is far gone; the day is at hand.” For so the fourth watch of the night is made known, in which Christ appeared and made a bright day of the knowledge of God. It is possible also from another inspired writing to learn this hidden mystery. You have surely heard of the great Elijah, who departed from this accursed life in a fiery chariot. He heard clearly from the divine voice the substance of the present matter, where it says: “Stand before the Lord tomorrow. And behold, a strong wind breaking up mountains and shattering rocks; the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind an earthquake; the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake fire; the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire a sound of a light breeze” — in the light breeze is the Lord. Hear clearly here too the times of the four visions. The strong wind hints at the patriarchal word of godliness, which broke up the mountain worship of the demon and with zeal of faith unsparingly shattered images of stone — such were Abraham and those with him. After the wind it speaks of an earthquake: the Mosaic law, which, famed for its commandments, shook the world — now all Egypt; now Horeb and Mount Sinai, as it is written, “The mountains skipped like rams,” that is, were shaken; now the desert with its many terrors for forty years; now the land of the Canaanites and Palestinians. After the earthquake it speaks of fire: the seething and brilliant vision of the prophets, as Jeremiah says, “Are not my words like fire? says the Lord.” And after the fire a sound of a light breeze: here he plainly heralded the word of the angel Gabriel, a light voice, who brought the good news to the virgin Mary; or perhaps the light breeze is the saving body, and the voice the Word teaching in it. For very fittingly he says that the Lord is not in the wind, nor in the earthquake, nor in the fire, but in a light breeze — that is, in a fine and pure body. Fittingly, then, the account establishes that here too the Lord is in the fourth vision, as he was seen by the apostles in the fourth watch and saved the sailors.

[The Christian (Macarius) answers the objection on “You always have the poor, but you do not always have me” (3.7).] Next let us see what he means by, “You always have the poor, but me you do not always have,” and what he says after the resurrection, at the conclusion of the Gospel: “I will be with you all the days until the end of the age.” A change in the speaker rightly changes the times too. For when he was about to suffer and to fulfil the economy of death, he rightly said that the disciples would not always have their teacher. But when he had broken the rod of death and conquered the law of the bodily condition, mystically exchanging the corruptible for the incorruptible — making the corruptible stronger than corruption and adorning the temporary with his own beauty, undoing all expectation of terrors, transferring what is mortal from mortality to immortality, changing what is earthly from earth to the heavenly, taking it up from tyrannical slavery into a free kingdom, raising the perishable way of life to an imperishable one, in a word making man God — then, as God, he says that his uncircumscribed authority is present everywhere with the disciples and is not enclosed by time, or place, or thickness of body, or quantity, or quality, or colour, or shadow, or anything past, future, or present. For after the Passion he passed through the whole universe — present, future, and past, quantity, quality, colour, shadow, thickness of body — setting a bound to the very things called bounds, so that the universe is within him and nothing outside. For as if he had kindled on the cross a lamp of fire — inexhaustible, unquenchable, abundant, divine, great — and conducted the hidden Godhead through it, in an instant he passed through all things everywhere and sealed them: earth, heaven, the whole world and what is above the world, Thrones, Glories, Excellencies, the Seraphim themselves, and whatever is higher than these; he marked all things through the cross. What need is there to speak of the unseen depths and the regions below, under the earth and invisible, how, coming upon all with the lightning of the Godhead, he spread out the lordship of his own authority? Indeed, not as man but as God he leads the thief, because he believed, at once up to the all-blessed paradise which he himself planted and rooted ineffably from the beginning. For it is not as certain myth-mongers argue with their sophistries — chewing the words of rotten old women, belching the smoke of kitchen stench, imitating the madness of rabid dogs, forging an opinion like that of the enemies of Christ, partners and advocates of Jewish madness — who chop up the sense by dividing the words differently, and report badly what was well written, saying, “Truly I say to you today,” and then, separating it, “you will be with me in paradise”: they say this instead of, “Today, I say to you, you will be in paradise with me,” as though the promise to the thief were deferred to a future time. And who in his senses will accept this tale of marvels? Who with a sound mind and healthy reasoning will accept the doctrine of those who have opened such a shop of filthy words in this life? Such words belong to dogs that eat one another; such babble to venomous asps; such fables to hissing snakes — words that have dared to rob the truth with sophistries, terribly sharpened in speech for the overthrow of good things, that dare to circumscribe Christ in the Passion. And who (let us ask these empty-minded men) split the earth and opened the gloomy prison of death? Who broke the bonds laid for long ages by hateful Hades? Who prevented heaven from shining with the brilliance of the sun's rays? Who raised from the tombs the dead, long since loosed from the bond of their souls, as though they had slept only a little? Surely it was God the Word, who was not then separated from the one being crucified. Was he able to do these things, and most capable of things beyond them, yet not sufficient to do lesser things? For it is much greater to shut heaven, hide its lights, open Hades, and send the departed back to life than to open paradise and bring in the thief. And this too is absurd: if the sun, having taken up the rule of the day, takes in the whole world at one moment and with one ray lights up the bounds of the whole cosmos, then the intelligible Sun — all-luminous, shadowless, risen ineffably from the Father for all, come into being without time and holding times within him, truly the true light that cannot be hidden, enlightening every man coming into the world, beauty above the world, unspeakable, uncircumscribed — was not present everywhere, but being on the cross was not in paradise, not in heaven, not at the bounds of the universe, not in the Father who without intermediary begets the Only-begotten impassibly? A man asleep journeys over the earth of his imagination, reaches cities, crosses rivers, and by the unsleeping reason of his soul visits those far away; and did Christ on the cross, held in the body, become inferior to a man? Does the maker, moulder, and craftsman of man not hold paradise? Has he not embraced the world? Does he not drive the universe like a charioteer? Does he not hold the reins? Being in the Father, does he not steer the whole of heaven and what is beyond the heavens? Alas for the folly! Alas for the blasphemy! The power of the cross would not be for the common good, if it had no strength to grant at once the request of those who believe. Before the cross, cleansing was ready for the leper who believed; salvation likewise for the blind man and the paralytic; resurrection for dead Lazarus, when his sisters believed; and countless other misfortunes and afflictions were healed at once at the word of those who believed. And on the cross — where the whole economy was brought to its conclusion, where the mystical contests were fulfilled, where the kingdom truly passed to its heir — would the believer not at once receive the bright pledge of his faith? But what do the advocates of this ignorant school say? “As God he had authority to bring the thief into paradise immediately, but as man not yet.” To them we must say, if they had met us: O you who drip with the drunkenness of ignorance, children and descendants of the thunderstruck, in whom did the believer believe? In a mere man, or in one who is both God and man? Unless you wish to divide Christ from God and God from Christ, so that believers may believe separately in Christ, that is, in the man, and separately in God the Word, who became flesh and consented to take what is proper to men. Away with it! May this never even enter the mind of a believer! For Christ is not one and the Only-begotten Son of God another; Christ is the Only-begotten of God, and the Only-begotten of God is Christ. So Christ is not one and Jesus another; Jesus is the Christ and Christ is Jesus. Hades shudders at the name of Christ; it cannot stand it if it hears “Jesus.” So the multitude of names does not bring in a multitude of sons; the Son is one, having many names. So if anyone calls on Jesus for help, he will not be mistaken; if on Christ, he will not stumble; if on the Son, he will never sin; if on the Only-begotten, he will not be scandalized. For with such a mind the thief on the cross believed in Christ and sees paradise with the one in whom he believed. For if, when a medicine made of some substance or herb is laid in one part of a house, the smell of the medicine reaches every part of the house in an uncircumscribed way, how much more will the mystical, great, and divine medicine, the saving body, hung on the cross as in a great house — that is, the whole world — take hold of all things with the odour of the Godhead, reaching east, west, north, and south, the whole belt of the world, with the strong and life-giving power of its fragrance? So after the resurrection nothing enclosed Jesus — not place, nor time, nor quantity, nor quality, nor breadth, nor length, nor height, nor depth; but if anyone calls on Christ in the west, or in the east, or in the innermost recesses, one may find Christ there before the calling. For the instrument of the body is inseparable from God the Word; the strap of that matter, as John said, cannot be loosed. By this principle he brings the thief into paradise; by this principle he was with the apostles; by this principle he is not separated from the faithful until the end. Before the Passion, however, he spoke the truth in saying, “You always have the poor with you, but me you do not always have,” when the mystical death of the economy was about to separate him bodily from the disciples; when a woman filled an alabaster jar with very precious ointment and poured it all on his head; when there was much talk among the grumblers that the poor should rather have been fed from the ointment, and not he who became poor for our sake be anointed. This grumbling was kindled by the worker of the betrayal, who valued the ointment made from herbs at three hundred denarii, yet in his drunken folly sold for thirty the heavenly ointment that had been poured out on earth. But it is not fitting now to make a tragedy of the stage-business of Judas; the contests over the questions overwhelm this, and resolving the perplexing headings wears one out. Therefore, taking this subject as persuasively answered, if any other occasion of inquiry remains, bring it into the open; for the labour of such debate profits us not a little.

[The Greek (the philosopher), introducing a new series of objections.] He, smiling a little and mocking us, answered, saying: “As the bolder contestants, boasting of victory right up to the contest, challenge many to run in the stadium, you seem to me to have taken up the same manner, wishing another question to be put to you as if from the starting-line. Speak to us, then, my friend, beginning from here. That much-repeated saying of the Teacher is this — he says: ‘Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life in yourselves.’ This is truly not merely bestial and absurd; it is more absurd than every absurdity and more bestial than every bestial way, that a man should taste human flesh and drink the blood of those of his own tribe and kin, and by doing this have eternal life. For tell me, if you do this, what excess of savagery will you bring into life? What other wickedness more accursed than this pollution will you invent? Ears cannot bear — I do not say the deed, but even the mention of this novel and strange abomination. Not even the phantoms of the Furies ever disclosed this to those who live outlandish lives; nor would the Potidaeans have accepted it, had not an inhuman famine wasted them. Once the banquet of Thyestes was of this kind, from a brother's grievance; Tereus the Thracian filled himself with such food unwillingly; Harpagus, deceived by Astyages, feasted on the flesh of his dearest; and all these underwent such loathsomeness against their will. But no one living in peace ever prepared such a table in his life; no one was taught so foul a lesson by a teacher. Though you go past Scythia in your inquiries, though you go through the long-lived Ethiopians, though you ride round the whole circle of the Ocean, you will find lice-eaters and root-eaters, you will hear of reptile-eaters and mouse-gnawers, but men who abstain altogether from human flesh. What, then, is this saying? For even if allegorically it has something more mystical and profitable, the smell of the wording, coming in through the hearing, harmed the soul itself, troubling it with disgust, and spoiled the whole sense of the hidden meanings, making a man dizzy at the calamity. Not even the nature of irrational animals would ever endure this, though it saw inexorable and unbearable famine; not dog of dog, nor any other animal, will ever taste the flesh of its own kind. Many teachers invent strange novelties; but none of the teachers has found a tragedy more novel than this — no historian, no philosopher, none of the barbarians nor of the ancient Greeks. See, then, what has befallen you, that you urge the credulous without reason to be persuaded; see what an evil comes rioting not only into the countryside but into the cities as well. So it seems to me that neither Mark nor Luke nor even Matthew wrote this, judging the saying not refined but strange and discordant and far removed from civilized life. And even you yourself would not welcome it on reading it — much less anyone else brought up in a liberal education.”

[The philosopher's objection.] Consider carefully that heading too, where he says: “These signs will follow those who believe: they will lay hands on the sick and they will recover; and if they drink a deadly drug, it will not harm them.” So those chosen for the priesthood, and especially those who lay claim to the episcopate or presidency, ought to use this mode of testing: the deadly drug should be set before them, so that the one not harmed by drinking the drug might be preferred to the others. And if they do not dare to accept such a test, they should confess that they do not believe what was said by Jesus. For if it is proper to faith to overcome the evil of a drug and to put down the pain of the sick, then the believer who does not do these things either has not genuinely believed, or, believing genuinely, has an object of belief that is not powerful but weak.