The Apocriticus (Answers to the Pagan Critic) 4.14–4.17

[The Christian (Macarius) answers the objection on the martyrdom of Peter and Paul (4.4).] Next we must examine the subject of Peter and Paul and those of like mind with them: how, after saying to Peter, “Feed my lambs,” and to Paul, “Speak, do not be silent, for I am with you, and no one will harm you,” he allowed both to receive different punishments. For he endured to see the one crucified and the other beheaded — and very fittingly, not before their contests or before the lessons and deeds of their teaching, but after the sweat they endured in teaching piously: calming land and sea from much turmoil, raising up islands sunk in the depth of error, filling all under heaven with undefiled light, cleansing souls stained with wickedness, rekindling by admonition minds wounded and all but quenched, breaking the darts of disobedience and cutting to pieces the swords of sins; noble protectors of the oppressed and most powerful champions of the wronged, excellent seekers of the lost, the support and help of those who fall. After showing the world many wonderful works, they gave up their life by the cross and the sword. Such an end of life met them so that they might win a greater praise of glory. For as the best and unconquered soldiers are honoured by the king most of all when, fighting for country and race even to death, they run risks out of love for their own people — so, through these leaders, the phalanx of the hostile demons had just been driven off and was allowing the multitudes of the faithful to live in quiet; the din of the enemies who led the people astray had ceased; and from then on the course of life was secure, the enclosure of godliness standing firm and the fold of the faith fortified. What, then, are these noble men recorded as doing after so great a display? They weave the ever-green crown of martyrdom, they make the unfading diadem of confession. Having enlisted for Christ throughout the world those who believe, they resolved to show them by what contests the crown of faith is forged, so as to persuade them not only to believe but also to suffer for godliness. For to believe in word is not very laborious, but to raise up faith by toil is glorious; a word spoken is often not true, but a deed that confirms the nature of the matter makes the word solemnly true. For this reason they seal their life with a violent death, leaving zeal to those who look on faithfully and gaining the prize of a great achievement; for what they endured in suffering willingly they left to their disciples as a way out, becoming patterns of invincible courage. So, that after many noble contests they might depart crowned by a final labour, they were allowed to enter the great and notable theatre of Rome, and the one to undergo the cutting off of his head, the other the cross, by which the coil of the dragon was cut to pieces; for the one, beheaded, as it were lured the serpent to greed with blood and milk, and the other cut him to pieces vigorously with the cross. Before their teaching and preaching, Christ sheltered them from suffering, rescuing Peter and Paul countless times from the ambushes of the Jews; but when the multitude of the Gentiles had passed over to the knowledge of the preaching, when the seeds of the faith had taken root, when they had persuaded the mountain country and the lands beyond the borders to hold to the heavenly commonwealth, then he sent them to the celebrated glory of martyrdom. And this was very nobly planned for them, because of the great talk of the unstable at that time. For many were then whispering and, in their envy, chewing their tongue with their teeth, saying, “The deeds of Peter and Paul could have been done by sorcery, and their extraordinary works brought about by some formula.” Their end, if it had appeared common and like that of others, would have been nothing great among them, nor much of a wonder; but their death was out of the ordinary and strange, not like that of those who escape punishment by sorcery, but enduring and remaining in bitter torments. For many, brought before the tribunal to receive punishment by sentence, had suddenly become invisible and vanished, and this drama of sorcery was plain. So the heralds of the heavenly kingdom must not do any such thing, but must truly suffer and show themselves stronger than the tortures, and by them show that they do not grow weary in suffering, having a mind of adamant that cannot be conquered, and that, like fire struck by the sword, they remain unconquered. For such reasons, and because of the nonsense of men's talk, the saints were allowed to be punished in the world, since great is the blame that the base heap on the holy. For if the just are sheltered from punishments, they are blamed by the unjust, who say, “If they had been allowed to die in torment, they would not have held out, but would quickly have denied.” And if, fighting with great endurance, they overcome the tortures, they are likewise whispered against by the credulous, who say, “If they were godly, they would not have been overlooked by all-seeing providence when they were judged.” Therefore God, who loves and cherishes the worthy, very well rescues some from sufferings and allows others to suffer, refuting both kinds of absurd chatter. For see: Daniel and those with him conquered fire and mastered lions, so that the Babylonians might know that they were servants of the one who made fire and created the beasts; for since the Babylonians deified fire, and the young men refuted its burning power, the servants of the great God rightly appeared stronger than the gods of the Assyrians. And again, so that those devoted to God might not appear unmanly, as though they always fled from the preparations for torture out of fear of suffering, Christ prepared the servants of godliness to bear the toil of pain nobly, so that in this too he might show that, whether suffering or not suffering, they keep the same resolve toward their Master. See, then: Peter and Paul, holding out in fearful labours, confirmed under torture their longing for the Saviour, so that the enemies of godliness might not find room here too for stupidity and nonsense, saying that Christ had won his disciples by flattery, and that if he had handed them over to terrors they would have denied their relation to him. These, then, are fittingly the reasons why Peter and Paul were allowed to suffer.

[The Christian (Macarius) answers the objection on “Many will come in my name” (4.5).] Let us next make clear for you that saying of Christ about the Antichrist. He says, “See that no one leads you astray; for many will come in my name.” If I furnish you with the places and accounts recorded in the chronicles, you will recognize beyond doubt Christ's foreknowledge: how many, making use of the Saviour's name, lured many by the outward form they showed and at last brought them to their own destruction. So Manes in Persia, playing the part of the name of Christ, corrupted many a satrapy and much land of the East with his error, and to this day corrupts the world, creeping over it with destructive seeds. Another, in Phrygia, called Montanus, putting on in the name of the Lord an ascetic and feigned guise, showed himself the dwelling of a destructive demon and stirred up all the land from Mysia to Asia with his error; and the demon nesting and hiding in him had such power that it almost dyed the world with the drug of error. Why should I tell you of Cerinthus and Simon, or of Marcion, Bardesanes, or Droserius, or Dositheus the Cilician, or of countless others whose number I shrink from telling — how all these and their zealous followers, appropriating the name of Christianity, worked unspeakable error in the world? They have taken numberless spoils of captivity. So those who obey them, as antichrists or anti-gods, no longer wish to be called Christians, but like to be named after their leaders: Manichaeans, Montanists, Marcionites, Droserians, and Dositheans. You see the destructive camps of many antichrists terribly sharpened against Christ and the Christians, and do you say that none of those the Saviour foretold is present? You see the armed battle-line of anti-gods, and do you set aside the Saviour's foreknowledge? One must not set it aside, but agree with what he said. So much on this.

[The Christian (Macarius) answers the objections on the judgment of heaven in the Apocalypse of Peter and on heaven rolled up like a scroll (4.6, 4.7).] Come, let us look into the elegant subject in the Apocalypse of Peter, set out thus about heaven and earth being judged, in the words, “The earth will present all who are being judged to God on the day of judgment, being itself also about to be judged together with the heaven that surrounds it.” That there is no offence of heaven nor any wrongdoing of earth for which they are going to be judged is plain; and that the account of the divine utterances is free from falsehood is also evident and beyond all dispute. For even if we set aside the Apocalypse of Peter, we are driven, even against our will, to what the Apocalypse of Peter says by the prophetic and the gospel voice: the prophet says, “Heaven will be rolled up like a scroll, and all the stars will fall, as leaves fall from a vine and as leaves fall from a fig tree”; and the Gospel says, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.” We must therefore escape the surface narrative of the words … making the account according to its figure. What then? We must now search out the natures of things and of what has come into being: whether it came into being for the sake of something else, or for its own sake. For everything made by the creative Wisdom in creation came into being either for its own sake or for the sake of something else. Springs, fountains, rivers, dry land, mountains, sea, plants, trees, crops, air, aether, heaven, sun, stars, the moon of many phases, creatures of the water, of the air, of the land, four-footed beasts — these plainly came into being not only for the sake of existing, so that creation might be completed through them, but also for man, so that he might receive every service from them and enjoy the ministry fitting to them. But man is fashioned for the sake of no other thing; he receives his existence for his own sake, so that he alone may glorify the wisdom of the Creator, who made his rational wisdom finely — and glorify him continually, not as one who gives praise and honour as a gift to his maker (for the Maker has that advantage everlastingly, before the world and man came into being), but as one who, through glorifying, reaps the gift of the one glorified and is strengthened by him in the principle of his own being. For as one who looks at the sun and celebrates the ray of its light in praise bestows no encomium on the sun (for before these words it already has the adornment of its own brightness), but by looking at it draws the enjoyment of the light and makes himself glorious by attending to it, so man, in honouring his maker, brings no gift to the Creator, but deifies himself by sharing in the Godhead. And as one who comes near the fire is warmed, not giving heat to the fire himself but being warmed by the fire, so one who glorifies his helper with genuine praise fills himself with glory and much grace. Man, then, having come into being, as has been said, for nothing other than his own good fame, receives the things of creation as servants for his service. So the world was rightly created for man; but man came into being not for the sake of the world, but for his own sake and his own honour. Since, then, the world was given to man as a dwelling, like a great house, and man, having received creation as the residence of his existence, grew very careless and did not keep the principle of his nobility, but took in a kind of drunkenness of folly and danced away the giver's grace, dishonouring the gift, finding fault with the Better, and committing many drunken outrages lawlessly against the Divine — for this reason the Creator, seeing him going astray in this way, and further growing blind and stumbling against good things, so that he might not dash himself utterly against divine things, fall, and be wholly destroyed, decided to send him away through death as into another place, so that, once he had been dissolved and had vanished outside the enclosures, he might bring him a second time into incorruption and a new way of life. Since these things have been so timely decided, and the master is being removed from the house, the house too must suffer something unwelcome. For as it is right and fitting for one who guards a hut in a vineyard to stay there until the fruit of the vines has been gathered, and after that to leave the hut to pass away — so that it is taken down, the leaves of the vines are shed, and the admired comeliness of the vines passes — so, since human nature and being has stayed in the world as in a hut, when the fruit of godliness has been gathered everywhere and man has gone from here, the beauty of heaven and earth must be quenched, the rational being of men having departed to the proper bound of its appointed term. For whom will the brightness of the world then be useful? For whom are the streams of the rivers suited? For whom is the sea navigable and the dry land arable? Crops and the seeds of plants and fruits will count for nothing when man is not present. For whom will heaven kindle the extraordinary lamps of its luminaries? When the summit of things has been taken from the midst, will not the whole go too? It will depart with him, in a way suffering with him and condemned with him, to be changed together with him and to have the whole bruise of the stain wiped away together. For as the whole of man, consumed at the universal end, will receive the principle of a second existence in incorruption, so the whole world, corrupted together with him, will take up a better beauty in its second state, putting off with him the garment of suffering and putting on with him the robe of impassibility itself. For if a silversmith takes a silver vessel grown old with time, breaks it up, melts it down, and renews it by fire, bringing it to a better state — not dissolving the existence of the vessel but casting the wrinkle out of it — and makes it again most beautiful and new, would not one who had seen it in its first gloomy state rightly say that the whole vessel had passed away and been dissolved, while the principle of the vessel remained undiminished? So, since the whole world, because of the filth of disobedience that came into it, has come, as it were, to the melting-pot of the consummation, it must take up a second and better principle of being; so that one who sees the second, fine existence of creation will greatly marvel at the Saviour's word, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away” — that is, this visible form will pass away, but the word of the Creator, which remains in the creature, will not pass away, but, being the same, will renew all. For even if the structure of a house is dissolved through neglect, the principle of the craftsman's art is not dissolved; he will raise up the fallen house brilliant again and make the dwelling worthy of better service, so that the fall of the house may be thought to have happened for the sake of the better. In the same way, after this example, the creative Word, the untiring craftsman, will put together again and make brilliant the world, which has been worn out by great negligence and has wholly fallen, and would otherwise perish to no purpose. For the whole nature and being of things that have come into being, except the bodiless, must take up a second and better birth. See, the prophetic word has taught us its philosophy from an image, saying, “As leaves fall from a vine, and as leaves fall from a fig tree.” For as the falling of the leaves is thought to be the end of the comeliness of vine and fig tree, yet the principle of their existence is not destroyed, but remains in a better state and puts forth leaves again, so heaven, throwing off all the comeliness of the stars at the consummation, will receive a second comeliness, better than the first. See too the mystical riddle in the narrative: though many, countless trees shed their leaves, he mentioned only the vine and the fig tree — not the apple, not the pear, not even the willow, though it throws off its leaves more thickly — because only the fig tree and likewise the vine throw off their leaves not little by little but all at once; and perhaps because both receive the most care from farmers, the word hinting through them that God, deeming heaven worthy of great care, will not overlook it when it suffers at the end, but like a farmer will fill it again with every care and ornament; and perhaps also because of the reproach that came from them: from the fig tree an unseemly garment was sewn for Adam, and from the vine came Noah's unbecoming nakedness and reproach. Since, then, the passing away of the world and of heaven is because of human failings, which seemed to have appeared from the vine and the fig tree, he rightly said, “As leaves fall from a vine and as leaves fall from a fig tree.” Moreover, that saying too seems more mystical: “Heaven will be rolled up like a scroll.” For when the disciples no longer read the heavenly tablet, and there no longer exist those able to philosophize on the tablets above, the school must be dissolved, the learners being at rest, and the teacher's book must be rolled up — and opened a second time in a new and mystical way, when man, made according to the image of the blessed being, puts off his misfortune, that is, his old age; when the soul takes up the pure crown of glory; when it receives freedom from painful and harmful things. And since, you say, heaven is the Maker's throne and earth his footstool, when these pass away, where will the one seated be found, and where the words of the one seated? Understand the meaning of what is said in a manner worthy of God, and do not enclose the incomprehensible in a throne or a footstool. The prophet did not engrave this tablet for our instruction so that we might learn that the Divine is seated with the earth under its feet as a footstool, but so that we might picture in our mind the greatness of the Creator — not cutting it up into quantity and quality, but recognizing it in a power of unspeakable beauty. For if neither the eye nor the mind of men has grasped heaven, nor even seen exactly the wonder of the earth, what manner of being must he be who makes heaven his seat and earth his footstool? It is not at all necessary, then, that when the seat departs from the midst and the footstool is likewise taken away, the one seated on it should also suffer; for even before heaven and earth came into being, the Divine had a mystical and immovable throne, as the prophet says, “Your throne, O God, is for ever and ever,” and again, “Your throne, Lord, is from of old; from everlasting you are.” Another of your inspired words also cries aloud, saying, “You, Lord, founded the earth, and the heavens are the works of your hands; they will perish, but you remain”; and again, “But you are the same, and your years will not fail.” For even if heaven and earth suffer something, they will receive a better grace; but their craftsman, being older than they and having an unoriginate principle of being, will suffer nothing with them when what has come into being is corrupted, since he alone has the dignity of everlastingness. Yet concerning the change of the things and natures that have come into being, the prophet spoke of destruction, saying, “All will grow old like a garment, and like a cloak you will roll them up, and they will be changed.” For as a fuller's skill sometimes cleans a garment by rolling it in the washing trough, and by changing it makes it bright and notable, so the all-wise and creative nature will scour away the filth of wickedness from creation, grown old over many ages, and make it like a new and bright garment. Let the account have this explanation according to the letter. But I will give you another account according to allegory, so that you may see how manifold and many-sided the teaching of the divine oracles is. Hear the passing away of heaven and earth mystically, and be taught mystically the principle of human existence. Man, having received his being from heaven and earth, came to be rational and irrational, receiving his soul from heaven and his body from earth. The rational is in the soul, which is the throne of God the Word, if it adorns its condition according to the principle of its own worth; and the irrational is in the body, which accordingly is the footstool of the creative Word, who at the last of time deigned to take up the incarnation as in a footstool. John the Baptist spoke of this matter of the mystery as in a secret: “I am not worthy to loose the strap of his sandal”; and another of the saints, seeing this extraordinary thing, says, “Worship at the footstool of his feet, for it is holy.” For he did not say here that one should worship the element of earth (for it is wholly accursed), but the saving and only-begotten body, which was joined by an unspeakable principle with the Godhead. Since, then, man is rightly heaven and earth, and is the throne and the solemn footstool of the Creator — for God the Word says, “I will dwell in you and walk among you” — and since he has been shaken by many passions of wickedness, falling into one plight after another, for this reason he allowed the whole man at the universal consummation to pass away from here, from this painful life, by the economy, and all the brightness of rank here to fall like the stars and vanish together, so as to receive a second way of life in a second life; and so the saying is fulfilled, “There will be a new heaven and a new earth.” This is sufficient.

[The Christian (Macarius) answers the objections on the parables of the mustard seed, the leaven, and the pearl, and on things hidden from the wise and revealed to infants (4.8, 4.9).] Next I will add for you the account of the parable of the mustard seed, the leaven, and the pearl, and how very fittingly he likens the kingdom of heaven to them. For great things, whose condition is seen from afar, receive clarity not from great subjects but from cheap and small things that are thought worthless among men. If you wish to examine the zeal of the philosophers and that toilsome study and care of theirs, you will find exactly the whole subject of the present account. For when they wish to grasp in thought the enormous dry land of the earth, sown with mountains, hills, and ridges, they liken it not to some huge and great body, but to a small and wholly weightless point, admitting neither depth nor breadth; so they compare an earth so vast and so great; and how they may grasp it from a point — this they philosophize about, spending their days on this matter and embracing the labour of study all night long. For they liken it, in comparison with the heavens, to a grain of millet; and there are some who have measured even heaven, which human nature cannot at all encompass, by a very small sphere. You may learn this from the wisdom of Aratus the Cilician, who, busying himself with the nature of visible things and especially of heavenly ones, depicted the whole course of the bodies above on a little sphere, comparing the great vault of the heights to a paltry thing. What need is there to tell you of those who dared to compare atomic nature, because of its fineness, to the all-wise and unoriginate being? If, then, you yourself do not deny that this is the view of the philosophers, why do you blame the kingdom of heaven for being likened to leaven? What does leaven have that deserves slander? It prepares flour for life for men, and, though very small, brings the quality of countless bushels to bread-making. For giving strength to the masses of flour newly moistened and leavening them, it produces a well-composed and digestible mixture and achieves what is chief for life; without leaven bread is raw and flabby and unfit for taste and nourishment. If, then, the kingdom of heaven also strengthened a way of life poured out in disorder, leavening into its own order, in a sense, what before was flabby, without nourishment, scattered, dissolved, and blameworthy — what is strange in the matter? what is alien in the achievement? what is grievous or superfluous in what happened, if the Word of things above the world, in sympathy, mixed himself in us, calling back our being through communion with us to the virtue of its own lot, so to speak? He is like leaven, which a woman — that is, creation — took and hid in three measures of flour: in the past, the present, and the future of time, to mix and give quality to the age, to set right beginning, middle, and end, to make body, spirit, and soul courageous, to seal height, depth, and breadth with grace. And if it is compared to a grain of mustard seed, even so it is not insulted, but honoured. For mustard, a fine and very small seed, is very sharp and hot, drawing out and cleansing the impurities about the brain; sprinkled often on food and at table, it makes the condition of those who dine healthy, cutting the thickness of hidden phlegm and the wetness of harmful humours; sown, it is invisible like a speck because of its fineness, but when it sprouts it rivals trunks of trees in height. If, then, the word of the kingdom of heaven works like mustard — cleansing serpentine wickedness from the heart, drying up the humours of licentiousness, it checks all wetness and the great inflammation of disorder, secretly draws out the heap of the bile of sins lying within, and heals man; mingled, as it were, in the gathering of the multitude, it makes the mind of souls steady and prepares the whole rational being to be healthy, biting with reproofs and cutting with teaching, warming with sympathy and kindling reason, reclining and eating with those who learn divine things, sown in the world and showing the fruit of virtue above the world, cast into the earth and leading the earthly up to sanctification — if, then, it has such a working of good things, it is fittingly likened to mustard, because of the fineness of its works; and not to a bean or any other pulse, whose nature the Greeks in their folly decreed to be divine, but to mustard because of its purity, and likewise to the pearl because of its great value. As the pearl, coming into being in a watery flesh, is an ornament in the world, the first and incomparable, so the Godhead of the one who came to dwell among us, coming in flesh and filling it with unclouded light, adorned the life of the wretched with virtue, preparing many to shine in their achievements — as many as have acquired this pearl in purity through good works. So, very fittingly for God and persuasively (not unpersuasively, as you say), the saving Word likened himself to the things mentioned, not giving the mysteries as to infants or the senseless, but as to men complete and perfect in mind, and as to infants who have not tasted the devil's wretchedness; but from the evil-wise and hateful, who are prudent in loathsomeness, he hid the treasures of the heavenly doctrines and shut the gates of true understanding.