The Apocriticus (Answers to the Pagan Critic) 4.10–4.13

[The philosopher's objection, followed by Macarius's narrative.] It is right to examine another matter much more learned than this (I say it by antiphrasis): “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.” Christ recited these things to the crowds about his own coming. If, then, he came for the sake of those sick with sins, as he himself says, were our fathers not sick, were our forebears not ill with sins? If those who are well have no need of a physician, and he did not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance — so that Paul indeed says, “Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the first” — if this is so, and the one who has strayed is called and the sick one healed, and the unrighteous is called but the righteous is not, then one who was neither called nor needed the Christians' healing would be free of error and righteous. For one who has no need of healing is the one who has turned away from the word current among the believers; and the more he turns away, the more righteous, healthy, and free from error he will be.

[Macarius:] After such elegance and cleverness of words, the whole audience present froze, and the understanding of the chosen witnesses shrank; and we, seeing the canon of the New Testament so trampled underfoot, were struck in mind, pained in soul, and troubled in every bodily sense, so that we too almost said, “Lord, save us, we are perishing.” But encircled by such a storm of contrivance, taking courage from some invisible help, we stood up against the tempest that lay upon us, setting the alliance of the Holy Spirit to face it; and like rowers we began to ply the oar of the tongue and made haste to strike the first wave.

[The Christian (Macarius) answers the objection on “The form of this world is passing away” (4.1).] This was the point about the form of the world and how it passes away. Truly, just as the visible form of the world passes away, so the speaker's fantasy has passed away, so the cloud of sophistic wickedness has been scattered, so the seething wave of words has fallen. Let us say, then, that the form of this world is understood in many ways. This temporary life, full of groaning, can be the form of the world. Take as the form of the world also the changing ages of the body, which passes from infant to boy, then to man, then to older man, and finally to old man; for a form is nothing other than the appearance of a thing. As the shadow that follows a man is a kind of form and outline of the man, but quickly passes away when the light ends, consumed and fleeing, unable to endure the stroke of the ray, so the appearance of bodily things here, being the form and shadow of the world, has no lasting and secure standing, but passes away in the swift revolution of the times. Consider as the form of the world also its deceit: the dignities among men, rank, military command, governorship, office, prefects if you like, and kingship itself. The form of all these, that is, their splendour (for “form” is used also of splendour), a brief turn of time has made to pass away. Yesterday someone lived in the palace; today he has taken his lot in the lowest prison. Another, presiding over the tribunal of the prefect's authority, was seized and thrown into the prison of the condemned. Another, after fighting a sea battle and showing a brilliant form of success, is at once stripped and wanders in misery. Another, having commanded an army and destroyed a barbarian phalanx, about to sit just next to the king's throne in the second place, became after his victory the victim of someone's envy, and instead of the brilliant prosperity he expected was carried down into the lightless pit of the departed. So the form of this world passes away, and the one who has must think as one who has not, and the one who rejoices must live as one who grieves. Another, sitting in dung and stench, suddenly appeared brilliant and notable, having thrown off the gloomy form of dejection; another, worn out in a sheepskin and rags and wandering pitiably over all the countryside, became rich through some opportunity and appeared admired among the powers of office, robbed by chance of the form of poverty. So neither sorrows are lasting for men, nor joys secure and firm; everything everywhere has its form passing away. Cyrus deposed Croesus and stripped him of his rule; Tomyris conquered Cyrus and brought him down; neither kept the form of kingship. Consider the beauty of cities as the form of the world, and you will learn how it has passed and passes away. Until now the city called Babylon was the royal metropolis of the Assyrians, encircling eight hundred and fifty stades round about, widening its wall to a breadth of fifty cubits and raising it to a height of two hundred and fifty, unassailable and impregnable; then, laid waste by the Persians, it lost all the comeliness of its form, and at last, made desolate, it keeps not a trace of its ancient prosperity. The nation of Macedonia was once admired, hanging the might of its power fearsomely over all land and sea alike; but now, subdued by the Roman rod, it pays the reckoning of what is imposed on it, having cast off the whole form of its glory. It would be superfluous to say how many principalities have flown away like smoke, or how many queens have perished, or how many famous men's glory has gone down with them. So if anyone wishes to go over the whole in thought, he will find the form of the world passing away under time and unable to remain. Consider life itself in your mind, and you will find it rightly passing away. Is not the infant, brought up in innocence before, today, having become an older man in years, consumed, melting away little by little with care? Did not one who had blooming strength in youth and the notable rank of a captain of the guard swagger in life and weigh heavy in his living, and today he lies in bed, given up? Philosophize about time itself, if you like, and you will find it not standing firm, but swiftly passing like a stream. Was it not spring not long ago, painted with the variety of the beauty of flowers, bright and notable with fragrance, holding a delightful and pleasant charm? Did not every shoot of buds peeping out make a sight of unspeakable pleasure? Did not the pure streams of springs, running, send out the clearest brooks of rivers? Was not the sea most pleasant for the sailors' service? Did not the land, like a mother, urge the farmers to furrow the clod? Did not the shepherds, sung around by the voices of lambs on their way, rejoice in delight? Did not the many-stringed melodies of musical birds mingle with the air an unspeakable and insatiable joy? Did not all creation, putting spring round itself like a crown, adorn itself with choice and brilliant ornament — and hardly had summer reached its prime when the graceful form of spring passed away? The flowers flashed their grace for a little and then withered; all the grass dried in the heat; the stalks of grain, bowed by the warmth, showed the old age of their own nature; streams and rivers, fighting the blaze and unable to win, retreated to less; the songbirds, apart from the cicadas, chirped faintly; from the midst of the aether the seething blaze scorched all the leaves of the plants; a parched change succeeded everything; a fiery bowl was set before every land creature; the clods turned to potsherds, and the springs played the part of rocks, unable to withstand the heat of the fire. The whole form of spring's adornment passed away, and a close and fiery summer took over the nature of things. See that this form too is not lasting, but swift, and flees away like a dream. Summer appeared in the midst; the farmers' fields appeared ready for harvest; the fruits of the orchards appeared ripe, and the clusters ripening in the vinedressers' vineyards; one cut the crop with the sickle and gladly took the ear from the stalk, judging the summer the umpire of his labours; another, picking a red apple, enjoyed it and delighted in feeling the fruit by its scent, as though rejoicing in a prelude of autumn. Then the harvest on the threshing floor was a pleasure, and the wheat and barley nourishing to the ploughmen; great was the labour of those who gathered in the summer, and seething heats fastened on their bodies; one gathered the sheaf with the sickle, another tossed up the heap with the winnowing fan, another lifted away the lightness of the chaff, another cleaned the grain with sieves, another took it up in a bag; like bees sharing the honeycomb, they shared out the summer. And what after this? Consider the matter: the harvest ceased, and the form of summer ran swiftly past. The season of the vintage appeared in its prime: the clusters weighed down the vine; the watchmen's huts in the orchards laughed; luxury succeeded the dry and toilsome season of harvest; all cut the grapes of the cultivated vines, and the most beautiful charm of what was happening was a delight to the soul, when the vines trained high on trees, as though they had sense, poured out their fruit, and others lay spread on the ground as though pregnant, bringing out the offspring of their own nature, ripe in their prime and in full mellowness, which the grape-gatherers threw into the vats, to swaddle them and by the care of the jars make dry wine. Everything was full of joy; everything done was luxurious. Then after these — to cut the account short — winter ran upon us, in which we are now exercising such subtlety of words, in which we are spreading out such a warp of sayings, weaving into it the many-coloured woof of questions. Having chilled the air with insatiable frosts and fettered the land with harsh winds, having shut the tame creatures under roofs and shut off all heat from the heavenly poles, it has made the region about the earth gloomy and very hateful to us, and has made us, who before luxuriated in clear air, keep indoors. So the snowflakes have darkened yesterday's whole form and stolen away the delight of every pleasure, so that from this the saying is plain: “The form of this world is passing away.” For where, tell me, is spring, or summer again, or again autumn? Will not this winter too cease and pass away? Where have the breezes of the winds prevailed for ever? Where have the powers of high office remained? Where has calm held the sea continually? Where has the vault of heaven itself held the world in its embrace unchanged? What among things that have come into being does not undergo alteration? What nature refuses to pass on? What among created things is not apt to change every day? If you yourself wish the world not to pass away, like the unbegotten — if you wish this, give it the principle of what has no beginning, attribute to it the sense of the everlasting, do not give it newness, and it will not grow old and will refuse an end. For what has no coming into being is rightly ageless; what has not begun is reasonably endless; the unbegotten is fittingly unchangeable. If, then, you claim that the form of the world does not pass away, judge it unchangeable and everlasting. By this reasoning, neither heaven came into being, nor earth, nor sea, nor rational or irrational animal, nor bird, but all are everlasting and will deny the being of coming into existence. But no man full of good sense will accept such a doctrine, not even the races of the Scythians and barbarians; he will say that the one is begotten and the other unbegotten, that the ones pass away and the other remains the same. So Paul, knowing that the whole form of the world will pass away, rightly said, “Let those who have be and think as though they had not.” For possession is not secure for the one who has it, since it passes away with turns, seasons, hours, and changes. “Let not the one who rejoices rejoice”; for what he rejoices in is easily changed. For not even a day is altogether long and unending, so that we might rejoice as always having it bright; it comes and goes again, now seen fair and now stormy, so that its form comes and passes away. Nor is any night great and never filled, so that, receiving deep darkness in it, we might sleep for long ages; it is a shadow, now of ten hours, now of twelve, not having a stable and unmoving form. This is enough on “The form of the world is passing away.”

[The Christian (Macarius) answers the objection on “We who are alive will be caught up in the clouds” (4.2).] Now let us see what the cloud is, and who those are who are caught up in the cloud to meet the Lord in the air and will always be with the Lord. Let us not chew the words over on the surface like irrational animals, but, as rational beings feeding at a rational table, let us search out carefully the apostle's meaning; for here he philosophizes on mystical heads. He says that the corruption which has accompanied human nature as a result of free will and choice will be made to vanish at the second coming of Christ, and that the godly will be snatched, as it were, out of the great mire of the affairs here and drawn up out of mortal life. For as the nature of water, being salty, bitter, and very heavy, lies below in seas and lakes, but when it is snatched up in clouds runs into the air, so he will forcibly draw up by angelic power human nature, which lies below in the bitterness of life and has been thrown into the sea of death — the power which he calls a cloud allegorically, because of the way it works. For since the form of the cloud is at one time high and lofty, and at another low, keeping company with the earth and sometimes coming down into its hollows, so likewise the being and swiftness of the angels, ministering to the glory of the Creator, at one time comes down to earth in God's service and at another goes up again when it has completed the work of its ministry; for this reason he likened angelic nature to clouds, because of the likeness of their working. So, having snatched up Habakkuk out of the midst of Judaea like water from a lake … Jacob too saw angels going up and coming down from heaven. So the divine and prophetic tablets regularly call the angels clouds openly. In one place: “I will command the clouds not to rain on the vineyard”; for if the vineyard, allegorically, is nothing other than the people, the clouds would fittingly be angels supplying the rain of visions to the people. In another: “Behold, one like a son of man coming with the clouds of heaven,” that is, with the angels. And that we may know that Daniel allegorically called the angels clouds, with whom the son of man was coming, the evangelist says, “When the Son of Man comes, and all the angels with him.” For he interprets what the clouds are in Daniel with which the son of man came, calling them angels in the words, “When the Son of Man comes, and all the angels with him.” And again elsewhere he names the angelic order a cloud, in “Cloud and darkness are round about him, and fire will go before him.” For there too, in the judgment of Christ's second coming, he signified by the cloud round about the angelic order guarding the divine tribunal; by darkness he showed the unseen and hard-to-interpret economy of the incarnation; by the blazing fire he hinted at the punishment flashing out of the cloud; he tells you that the throne is the seat of long-suffering; he suggests by judgment the sternness of the law; and he points to righteousness as the gift of the Gospel, so that what the law wore down by judgment the gift of the Gospel might justify by grace. And elsewhere, “He who makes the clouds his ascent”; and here a pillar of cloud led the people by day … guided the people. And so that we may know that the apostle's account of the cloud is about angels, I will make the text plain from the Gospel, where it says: “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, he will send his angels to the four corners of the world, and they will gather his elect from one end of the earth to the other.” You see the righteous being gathered and, in a sense, caught up by a cloud to meet the Lord. And that the apostle very often likens the natures of things to one another, I make plain and evident to you from this: wishing to speak of knowledge and ignorance, he likened knowledge to day and ignorance to night, saying, “The night is far gone, the day has drawn near; let us walk decently as in the day”; and again, “You are all sons of light and sons of day.” In saying this he did not at all mean physical light or a physical day, but a truly intelligible and blessed light, and a mystical day shining with incorruption. So here too, when the universal end has seized the world and humanity has flowed out like water, there is need of a trumpet, of thunder, and of an intelligible cloud: that the world may be terrified by the trumpet; that Hades may be shaken and moved by the thunder; and that those poured out like water and flowed out of the vessel of the earth may be gathered by the mystical cloud from one end of the earth to the other to meet Christ — that is, at the fearful and just tribunal, at which the King will quickly set those caught up by the cloud on the right and on the left. For he will sound the trumpet, not a trumpet of horn nor a reed of bronze, but with an angelic voice, and will raise all, having put off corruption, making them light and lifted up. For as Elijah was caught up to heaven by horses — angels in the reality of the matter, but in the narrative horses of fire, showing their swiftness by a chariot of fire — so now too in a cloud, which has the angelic principle as its being, but the name of cloud because of its working. And since you said that each of the things that have come into being delights in a suitable dwelling and place and cannot welcome a strange way of life, know that each thing whose being has come into existence is preserved by remaining in another, not in itself: for instance, the wet in the dry, as water in a jar; the hot in the cold, as fire in air; and again, conversely, the dry in the wet, as earth in the abyss; the cold in the hot, as the water of hail in lightning. For one thing finds its dwelling in another, but it is impossible for a body to remain in one of the same kind; no one has found other fire in fire, nor a different nature of water in water; but men find earth in water, and in earth they have opened hidden veins of water. So in the wet the dry naturally dwells, and in the dry the wet usually lurks; so sparks of fire are often found hidden in the cold, and coldness remains secretly in fire; so too the heavy is friendly and shares a hearth with the light, as the soul with the body, and the light wishes to rest on the heavy. For every nature of things receives its constitution not from itself but from another principle: for instance, if the just did not exist, the notion of the unjust would not subsist; likewise, if the godly did not appear, one could not find the ungodly to test him; nor the heavy without the light, nor the hot without the cold; and if anyone wishes to ride through the whole in reasoning, he will find each of the things that are defined by reference to others. So it is not strange if clouds will draw men away from the earth, freed from corruption and released from the mud of wickedness; for the relation that clouds have to waters, the angels have to men. If, then, clouds do not grow weary carrying water, much less will angels in carrying human nature. And that the divine word likens men to waters you may learn, since the prophet says, “Behold, many nations like water,” and, “The multitude of many nations will roar like water.” If, then, men are waters, there is need of an intelligible cloud, which will lift the earthy substance like water. Nor let Paul's saying trouble you, “We shall be caught up,” as though he seems to lie because the resurrection did not happen in his days. For it is his habit to rank himself with the principle of human nature and not to separate himself from his kin. He rightly judged that all are in himself insofar as he is a man, and in his love of truth he judged that he himself is in all; and he anticipated the times or again delayed them; for so a lover of his companions acts, loving the kinship of those of his own kind.

[The Christian (Macarius) answers the objection on “The gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world, and then the end will come” (4.3).] Since this heading has been sufficiently treated for you, let us speak of the saying about the Gospel, briefly stated thus: “And the gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world, and then the end will come.” The word “end” may be taken in many ways. The end of war is the word of peace; the end of ignorance is the lesson of knowledge; the end of impiety is recognized as the radiance of piety; the end of tyranny is the tablets of freedom that are seen; the end of wickedness is the achievement of virtue; the end of licentiousness is the flashing brightness of chastity; the end of scheming, villainy, and deceit is simplicity and innocence of character; the end of folly, revelry, and Bacchic frenzy is sincerity, sobriety, and steadiness. If, then, as the Gospel is clearly preached, these things have received their end, and the whole four quarters of the world have passed over to the festival of godliness, renouncing the old error of their way of life; if the race of men, licentious before, today dwells in the citadel of chastity and loves the beauty of purity like a pearl; if some who once served temples of images have now appeared as polished and notable temples of the Holy Spirit; if those who of old had an insatiable thirst for blood and forged the sword against their own kin, consuming by slaughter and consumed by envy, now have an unbreakable bond of peace and a friendship that cannot be torn apart; if those who once had ignorance like a thick gloom of mist now make the lesson of wisdom blaze brighter than the sun; if an inhuman tyrant once tortured the world and now royal kindness fawns on it; if wickedness besieged rational nature, and now virtue guards and shelters it; if villainy and deceit made reason useless, and now a free character kindles the mind — how, from the account of affairs that were once in a bad state and are now in a good one, is it not plain, credible, and clear that the world has received an end of its tragic way of life? But if you seek a universal and bodily end, and wish to receive your answer according to the letter, be patient a little and you will know what is sought: the end does not delay but is at the doors, and yet the Gospel has not yet been read to many men. Seven nations of the Indians, whose lot is the desert between the south and the east, have not yet heard the word of any of the evangelists; nor have the Ethiopians called Macrobians, between the west and the south, who live by the mouth of the Ocean, who make it their law neither to do wrong nor to be wronged, drinking milk and eating meat, living about a hundred and fifty years, never ill up to the end nor ever sick — they have not yet learned the word of the Gospel. Why should I tell you of the peoples of the west, or the Moors, or those beyond the Ister, the northern river, which, swollen by thirty-five rivers, flows boundless, great and impassable in summer and winter, navigable for countless merchant ships, and shuts off the whole land of the Scythians, where twelve nations of nomad barbarians live, much fiercer than wild beasts (Herodotus will tell you their names and teach you their customs and usages) — to whom the word of the Gospels has not gone, but who still practise the evils of their ancestors, living a dreadful and fearsome way of life? The divine Gospel must be preached to all for a testimony, and only then will bodily life receive its end. For when the gospel word of incorruption has borne witness to every nation and found it either obedient or not about the undefiled life after death, then the word is guiltless of the nations' loss, as having foretold and testified beforehand; and they, having embraced danger for themselves by self-chosen wickedness, it will justly let receive the ruin of destruction. So the spring of the times lengthens the times because of the hardness of men, keeps the appointed term, and makes the appointed term very slow. For wisely, in a way we do not know, the Master of the ages, turning the axle of the times and rolling them on, makes the seasons very slow and steals from the fixed quantity. For if the children of the philosophers, in the thickness of the body, acquired so much understanding as to make the triangle a square and the square a triangle, and to keep the principle of the figure of both — neither spoiling the form of the triangle when they transfer it into the figure of the square, nor corrupting the nature of the square when they transform it again into a triangle, but changing each thing mystically by some principle of wisdom, neither corrupting nor confounding the principle of either — it is no great thing if the Father of wisdom, having fixed a short end within the appointed term, makes it slow and long for the benefit of men, neither diminishing anything of the whole of time nor altering the bound of the matter. So he makes the day a thousand years, and the thousand years not many days but one day. For he did not fashion the day into a thousand years, but lengthened the multitude of the thousand years within the day, harming the setting of neither. He did not tear the day apart, stretching it, as it were, into a thousand years, but kept it whole, complete, and entire in its properties; nor again did he crush the thousand years and their intervals into one day and blur them, but united the principle of the nature of both. We ought not, then, to be impatient if, having fixed the end as swift, he delays it; for he does not pass beyond the appointed term of the end, and he is not mistaken in lengthening, by unspeakable understanding, what is narrow and swift. For our sake and for the sake of succession he alters seasons, turns times, and shortens life if it profits the living, and lengthens it again if that is useful and good. And you, then, agreeing that these things are so, examine the next question, since you have a sufficient answer about the end.