The Apocriticus (Answers to the Pagan Critic) 3.35–3.41

[The philosopher's objection.] Indeed, while forbidding the eating of food sacrificed to idols, he teaches again that it is a matter of indifference, saying that one need not be inquisitive or ask questions, but may eat even what has been sacrificed to idols, provided only that no one gives warning — whereas he is recorded as saying, “What they sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons; and I do not want you to become partners with demons.” Saying and writing this, he writes again with indifference about eating, saying, “We know that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is no God but one”; and a little later, “Food will not commend us to God; neither if we eat are we the better, nor if we do not eat are we the worse.” Then, after so much babbling claptrap, like a man lying in bed, he chewed it over and said, “Eat whatever is sold in the meat market, asking no questions for the sake of conscience; for the earth is the Lord's, and its fullness.” O stage-farce, invented by no one! O outlandish and discordant utterance! O word that slays itself with its own sword! O novel archery that turns back on the archer and strikes him!

[The philosopher's objection.] We found a saying like these in his letters, where, after praising virginity, he changes again and writes, “In later times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to spirits of error, forbidding marriage, and abstaining from foods”; and in the letter to the Corinthians he says, “Concerning virgins I have no command of the Lord.” So the one who remains a virgin does not do well, nor does one who abstains from marriage, since he obeys the guidance of an evil one, as they have no command from Jesus about virginity. And how is it that certain women who live as virgins boast of it as something great and say that they are filled with the Holy Spirit like the one who bore Jesus? But we will stop speaking against Paul, knowing that he has armed such a battle of giants of words even against himself. If you have any resources to answer these things, answer without delay.

[The Christian (Macarius) answers the objection on Paul's becoming all things to all and circumcising Timothy (3.30).] When the eloquent man had stirred up such a swarm of subjects against Paul, and the multitude of headings, like bees that had been quiet till then, had rushed at us in a great crowd, we, stung all round as it were by the perplexities, of sheer necessity stood up against each one and fought, saying: You do not act justly in mocking so great a man, who shines in the contest and labour of godliness, and in cutting him down without mercy by the law of slander, if, in the reasoning and mind of the economy, he came down to the shortcomings of those who had just received the word of faith and raised them up to his own disposition of virtue. For a teacher too, and a physician, or even a general, is found to act in the same way. A teacher lisps along with a lisping pupil, becoming a lisper for the sake of improvement, and so brings the hearer up to the highest education, suffering and toiling with him for his benefit; if he did not do this, he would not bring the boy's character to improvement. A physician sometimes not only mixes a remedy and drug suited to the sick, but often reclines and eats with them and becomes a partner and sharer in their sickly condition, so that by mingling with the sufferer and eating with him he may in every way overcome the distress of the disease and bring the sick man to a health like his own. And a general, campaigning with intelligence and strength for the king and fighting countless barbarian nations, so as to bring all under his master's sceptre, loves and embraces the ways of the barbarians: now enjoying the barbarian diet and table, now embracing their customs and usages, now not turning away from the clothes they wear, now becoming one of them and doing what royal law does not permit; and in short, imitating the barbarians' way, he at last brings them captive to the king, having subdued a countless multitude by skill. For if a general did not do these things among unsubdued nations, he would strive in vain, wishing to subdue countless phalanxes with the sword. In the same way, after this example, Paul, wishing to bring together countless characters of men and to make, as it were, one order out of different customs and usages, becomes all things to all and so benefits them. He did not himself admire the practice of the many, but, knowing the profit to be gained from it, he went along with all. Now, as a teacher, he mingled with the Gentiles as his pupils — not himself remaining among them, but raising them to himself through fellowship and sharing his own virtue with them. Now, as a physician, he suffered with and lay beside those lying in the disease of deceit, fevered by the sharp attack of wickedness, saying, “Who is weak, and I am not weak? [Who is made to stumble,] and I do not burn with the pain?” Now, as a general, he more strategically enslaved men's minds by softening their choices with sympathy and by entering their way of life in appearance only: to the lawless becoming lawless, though he was not lawless — as the teacher becomes a lisper to the lisper, though he is not a lisper — so that by sharing the common table of the lawless, he might make the lawless a sharer in the lawful table, laying down the law for him. So with the Jews he did not think in a Jewish way, as a physician is sick with the sick though he is not sickly but healthy and strong, so that he may heal the disease. So he does not reject circumcision, for the sake of success with the Jews, as a general imitates the customs of foreigners for the sake of victory — in order to ratify everywhere what is good: not circumcision, but the occasion of good that comes from circumcision; so that, sharing in the law in part, he might subject the whole law to grace; so that, yielding to one Mosaic command, he might shut up the whole Mosaic ordinance in the Gospel; so that, stealing the mind of the ill-disposed by concession, he might drive their intention toward his own zeal. One may find a like way of thinking among wise physicians: they forbid drinking harmful drugs, yet sometimes, combining these same drugs with other kinds, they bid those troubled by suffering and in great distress to drink them, so that the combination of the rejected drug, given to the sick man, may overcome the hidden evil of the illness. In doing this they do not confound their own knowledge, but bring about what is better out of things forbidden. So Paul, knowing circumcision to be harmful, neither teaches nor hands it on; but at the right time, when the Jews were very gravely afflicted, he mixed it in with the gospel doctrines and applied it to those who were inhumanly oppressed, healing by his own means the disease lurking in the Jews. And let this be said to you persuasively.

[The Christian (Macarius) answers the objection on Paul's claiming to be both a Jew and a Roman (3.31).] We must now speak also of what seems, from the words, to disturb the hearing: why, being a Jew by race, he declares himself a Roman. I will again draw for you the same picture of the general, so that the apostle's sagacity may appear in full light. For many speculations and the resolutions of many perplexities, taken heading by heading, receive an exact and clear plainness from the setting side by side of images, especially when what is said is open to dispute, or rather seems to contradict itself. Paul, then, being plotted against by the Jews and about to be punished with inexorable death, when the divine preaching was all but on the point of ceasing — for this is what the soul-destroying wickedness was hastening to bring about: to deprive the races of men of grace, and not to allow Paul to run the universal course of godliness nor be crowned for the labour of virtue, but to work grievous loss to both and to overshadow with envy the good things of the Better — so that the demon's malice might not achieve this, nor the plans of the evil-doers prevail, nor the achievement of the good collapse, overcomes the dangers by a general's reasoning: he embraces the race that was hostile to his own race, and flees from his kin, being persecuted by them. For the man whom the Jews loathed as an enemy, wishing to estrange him from his ancestral glory, they found an adversary, and were defeated. First they laid bare their injustice against him; then, laid bare by him, they were refuted, wounded by his understanding and the superiority of his wisdom. For as a general betrayed by his own people, taking refuge with those to whom he was handed over, comes to rule over his kinsmen, so Paul, handed over by the Jews to the Romans and saying, “I am a Roman,” defeated the Jews. For it was necessary — necessary — that one who served the word of salvation under the authority of Roman government should truly be a Roman (Rhōmaios), excelling nobly by the strength (rhōmē) of the Holy Spirit. So he did not lie in calling himself a Roman, since he became the teacher of a Roman nation. For as one who has left the hearth of the Galatians and lives and dwells in Asia is called an Asian, even if his race is known to be Galatian from of old, so Paul, and anyone like Paul, going about within the sceptre and land of the Romans, is undoubtedly a Roman, even though he is a Jew. He does not err in calling himself a Jew, nor does he sin in calling himself a Roman again; for he is kin to the one by the circumcision of the flesh, and belongs to the other by the doctrine of the divine preaching. And where he is harmed, he disowns the cause of the harm, fleeing altogether the reason by which his soul is injured; but where there is bright gain shining in doctrine, he takes refuge in it and embraces the race. So when he names himself a Jew by bodily law, he honours his own people; and when he names himself a Roman by reason of rank, he proclaims his nobility.

[The Christian (Macarius) answers the objection on Paul's using the law to his own advantage (3.32).] These things having been said, come, let us resolve the next proposition, about “Who ever serves as a soldier at his own expense? And who tends a flock and does not eat of the milk?” He sent this opinion to the Corinthians not because he needed to receive first-fruits from men; he mentioned military order fittingly because he wished the character of his disciples to become grateful through these things. For as a soldier who labours and toils faithfully for the king is fed on the public provisions that the subjects supply, but when he is not fed with the king's grain and serves with his supplies from home, he more readily plots, taking up a disloyal attitude, and does harm to all by plundering without mercy — so one who has become a herald of the gospel labour loves his toil and honours the contest when those who are taught share by bodily things in the bodiless gifts of the word, when they earnestly give themselves to the laws of the gospel in love. For thus the eagerness of those who labour in the word makes progress, when it sees the choice of those who are benefited campaigning and toiling with it; when those who are shepherded by the word of instruction, like good flocks, bear a deep fleece of good works and pour out richly in milk endless streams of noble deeds, so that the pastoral word, sharing in these, is gladdened and flourishes the more in teaching good things, when the discipleship has advanced to a sufficient work of godliness and enriches the zeal of the teacher's eagerness. That God-speaking man, then, wishing his own disciples to advance in good works and to make the labour of the word worthy of their way of life, makes the teaching like seed and those taught like good and fruitful land, so that the teacher, like a farmer, may be fed from the land of his hearers, and the learners, like good land, may yield a rich crop of faith, having received the seed of the knowledge of God. For it is a grievous thing, worthy of lament and distressing, that a vinedresser should clean the plant with his pruning-hook, and yet the vine, at the time of ripeness, should not bring its clusters in season, but should blight the hopes of the one who laboured. So the apostle, to benefit his hearers greatly, set out the images of a wonderful picture — general and shepherd, vinedresser and farmer — and to confirm them he called on the law as a strong support, making it his witness. It is not, then, for greed, as you supposed, that he seeks gifts and honours, but to make them grateful and well-disposed. For the Divine too sometimes demands first-fruits and gifts — not because it lacks anything, nor because it needs anything (for it has all abundance of wealth in visible and invisible creatures), but because it wishes to enrich the grateful in grace and to repay small things with great goods; therefore it demands tribute and exacts taxes. This statement of the answer is sufficient for you.

[The Christian (Macarius) answers the objection on Paul's attitude to the law (3.33).] Next let us look briefly at that heading where he says, “If anyone does one thing of the law, he is a debtor to do the whole law.” He is not blaming the law, nor speaking ill of it; he is telling you of the law's great strictness and of how hard it is to fulfil, which Christ came and fulfilled, freeing man from much labour. If, then, anyone wishes to carry out as unfulfilled what was fulfilled by the Only-begotten, taking Christ's fulfilment as lacking, then necessarily, not having received the grace of the Gospel and being enslaved to the law, he is bound to carry out as law the whole of the Master's commands. So, as one who strives, as it were, in the dust beside the Saviour — who alone fulfilled the law for all and closed the whole range of the commandments — he brands such a man sufficiently and strikes him publicly, all but saying: “How do you dare, man, to carry out afresh as unfulfilled what has been fulfilled, doing this as an insult to Christ? For if you wish to practise the things of the law and yourself carry out the ordinance, you accuse Christ of not having fulfilled the law and the prophets himself. You attempt a dreadful and novel thing, man, plundering, as though unfulfilled, what has been fulfilled by a divine rule …. The stadium of labours and races has been closed, since one ran for all and received the prize; and you open it again and order those who cannot reach the turning-post to run! In doing this, in the madness of your reasonings, you are a debtor to carry out the whole law. For one who hears of a citadel lying a hundred parasangs away and wishes to go to it on horseback gains nothing by riding ninety-five parasangs and not riding the five; he has stayed outside the city just as before he set out on the road. And again, in the same way, one who guards a great city under siege by enemies, with thirty-five fortified gates, gains nothing by securing thirty-four gates and leaving one open through forgetfulness; for the enemy, coming in from outside through it, works the same destruction on the city that he could have worked coming in through all. So one who has fulfilled countless commandments of the law but has left one commandment unfulfilled is convicted, through it, as though he had not done the others either. Hence no one has ever been able to fulfil the law. Come, let us look not at the multitude of the commands it laid down, but at the keeping of two ordinances only — I mean the sabbath and circumcision — whether it is possible for a man to fulfil it. Suppose someone's child was born on a sabbath: the law commands that it be circumcised on the eighth day; the same law commands that the sabbath not be profaned. What then would a man do? Circumcise the child? But he does not fulfil the sabbath. Keep the sabbath without circumcising? But he has wrongly annulled circumcision. Doing either, he sets aside the other; or rather, fulfilling one he is convicted by the other as a transgressor. If, then, to fulfil the command of only two commandments is burdensome to a man, heavy and toilsome, how could anyone fulfil the whole law? A human ear is not even able to hear the multitude of it, let alone carry it out in deeds; nor can a man even remember the law's ordinance, much less accomplish it in practice. For its sayings are like countless snowflakes: here successive and continual sacrifices of calves, rams every day, some offered toward evening and some toward dawn; there a multitude of birds, and of different kinds, doves and turtledoves and fowls, some for lepers, some for women after childbirth, some for purification; there first-fruits and tithes and the removing of leaven, maws and lobes and shoulders and skins. Not even the herds of four-footed beasts suffice for offerings wholly burned, nor can the countless kinds of birds gathered into one satisfy the altar kindled every day. Thence came continual sprinklings and washings: a man rising from a dream was washed; again, after seeing a corpse, he was washed; one who touched with his garment a woman sitting apart in her impurity was washed at once; when a weasel or a shrew touched a vessel, he broke the vessel; when a leper stayed in a house, he scraped the wall; a member of the household who came back from a journey among the Gentiles he set apart for a full week; he washed away the very nature of the waters by constantly drawing and carrying them for sprinkling. Neither time, nor place, nor leisure suffices to read the law and remember the multitude of its commands; the mind is darkened, the tongue grows weary, reasoning fails. It has subdued and worn out house and suburb and all the countryside; it has unnerved many whole generations; it has weighed down and wasted the tribe of the Jews and a countless nation. Who, then, is able to meet this and bear the command of its ordinance? One alone faced the law with courage: the Lord Jesus, who fulfilled it, set its bound, and brought it to an end, so that no one need any longer be subject to it. For as the cubit measures length and breadth, but the one who made it fills it by measuring, setting it against another measure, so the law, which is the measure of conduct, life, and action, is measured by no one, nor does anyone set its bound; he alone who made and laid it down fulfilled it, measured it, and sealed it, placing the measure between himself and a greater measure in the love of the Gospel, and setting the bound to the old law. So the law, which measured and proportioned many things in life, has been measured by the gospel measure and fulfilled. So the one who wishes to fulfil what Christ has fulfilled errs greatly and sins grievously, taking up the word and mind of an antichrist.” Dictating these things plainly, the apostle turns back the Galatians, who had basely returned from freedom to slavery and wished to fulfil again what had been fulfilled. Paul is not blameworthy, then, if for the sake of testimony he cites the law, saying, “In the law it is written, ‘You shall not muzzle an ox while it treads out the grain,’” and “The law is holy, and the commandment holy.” For the law is holy, receiving its completion from the Holy One; and the unmuzzled ox is the company of the apostles, threshing and winnowing the great harvest sown by him who went out from the Father to sow the earth. So the apostle rightly says, “These things were written not about oxen but about us.” …

[The Christian (Macarius) answers the objection on “The law came in so that the trespass might abound” (3.34).] These things having been sufficiently said, it is right, fitting, and very consistent to go over with you that saying of the apostle spoken expressly about the law, where he says, “The law came in so that the trespass might abound”; and how sin is the sting of death, and how the law is the power of sin, the working of sins, I will now say. Nature bore much injustice in life, and it could never have received correction if the law had not been given, which justly punishes injustice. For the one who offended and practised unholy deeds was not answerable, since the law did not discern what was done nor convict the cause of the transgression. So the offence was light for those who sinned, since they had no rebuke from the laws; nor was the one who practised virtue conspicuous, since neither was the one who did evil answerable. And so it happened, things being carried along in this way, that the life of men, like a boat without a helmsman, was swallowed into the deep in the confusion of evils. For ignorance and lack of instruction about what was done produced a bitter storm of forgetfulness. So one who committed envy or the defilement of adultery, having no command not to do this in life, ventured on the worst evils as though they were good, since no one prevented the baseness of his deeds. Many, overstepping the usages of natural good order, became servants of raging wickedness; many, spitting out the innate understanding of goodness, boldly did whatever was unlawful — the law not yet governing human life, not yet compelling life to keep the order of the rational rule, and the rational being not yet able to take up the discernment of the better, being overpowered by the irrationality of the bodily passions, because of the thickness lying on its free will and because the race was still childish in mind. But when little by little, as if out of some smoke of wickedness, they looked up and saw the clear air of holiness, then the law appeared like a guide and one who leads by the hand, bringing and directing man into a bright life, showing the base and the good to those who see, and convicting the faults of hidden deeds. It struck wrongdoers vigorously, promised honour to those who acted justly, and allowed the blameless to live in freedom. When the law is present, the offender's wrong is great, as when light shines the shame is laid quite bare; but when the law is not present, the offender's wrong is nothing base. As the burglar's offence is not detected when there is no light and the darkness helps the one who does it, so, when the law shone round with the fine rays of the commandments, the offence of those who erred was great and manifest and needed much correction and punishment; but before the law appeared to prevent the doing of the worst things, the trespass went unexamined. What then followed from this? The commonwealth was being corrupted; a suffering like a great plague was wasting life; the community was carried along by a desire to do worse things, since no one prevented it, and by a hatred of doing better, since the man who lived accursedly was not punished; there was no account taken of the godly in life, and the deed of the offender went unaccused. On such irregularity of life there suddenly came the law, stern and fearsome together, examiner and accuser of what was done, teacher and at the same time sharpest reproof. It did not cleanse the charge already incurred, but magnified it and made it burdensome, forging against it the inexorable sword of punishment; and by punishing what had been done it hindered what was to come. Yet it did not pity in sympathy those who were caught, since the law is neither autocrat nor master, but steward and minister of the Master's will. So, when the law was present, the trespass reasonably abounded, because the sinner was not allowed to live after his offence but was punished without mercy or sympathy. And it came about that sin was the sting of death, or a deadly sting, stinging so that man should not live or exist, having received this power through the law, which forbids sinning and punishes the sinner at once by sentence. Therefore the apostle says very aptly and wisely that sin is the sting of death, but that without the law it has no strength at all. For as a goad is a blade able to kill the one goaded by it, but without someone holding or wielding it, it is an instrument of death and yet cannot act, so sin was the sting of death to the soul, but had no strength at all until the law had in a sense grasped it and felt it out by knowledge. So, that we may escape the harm of sin and avoid the strength of the law that supplies it, he advises us to flee not to the law but to the Master of the law, and be saved. For if sin is strong through the law, stronger is the one who has taken the Master of the law as his helper. As sin, having overpowered the soul through the law, killed it without any delay or sympathy, so man, through Christ, who appeared as Master of the law, became stronger and destroyed sin. Do not suppose, then, that Paul has abolished the law by forbidding anyone to live by it. For one who takes a pupil from his attendant and joins him to a teacher to learn does not annul the attendant's labour, but rather honours it, because through it the learner gained what is better. So Paul says that the law, which became an attendant (paidagōgos) to men at the times when it was needed, which benefited the community and trained nature, now that Christ is present to improve man and deem him worthy of a better education, fittingly rests and no longer gives commands to the nations. For as the moon with the stars, useful at night, neither altogether drives away the gloom of the shadow that lies over us nor lets the darkness grow wholly thick, but makes the air dimmer and softens it with moderate lights; but when the sun suddenly peeps over with the warm shafts of its rays, the moon rests and the whole starry vault hides itself, having comforted suitably those who were in the night; yet they are not destroyed nor lose the principle of their existence, but remain, yielding the rule of the day to the sun; and no sailor, no merchant, no traveller who used the light of stars and moon for his work at night still seeks that light for help when the sun is present, but seeing the sun's insatiable brightness blazing, he rejoices in it alone and welcomes his work — so the old covenant of the law, like the moon, with the prophets as stars, shone on life, comforting human life gloomy in ignorance and great dejection. But when the all-luminous Sun, the Christ of God, appeared, wearing the twelve-rayed crown of the apostles, then the law fell silent and the prophets rest, and the grace of the Saviour alone does everything, fulfilling all. We must keep in step with it alone and not seek the old things to gain virtue; for they remain from now on inactive, and the nature of their works is at rest. To remember them as good and noble is right, fitting, and very consistent; but to wish to be under their government is altogether unsound and altogether irrational. For even if someone wishes to follow them again, they will refuse such service in action, since they have ceased from their labours.