Symposium (The Banquet of the Ten Virgins) 8.14–8.17

THECLA: “Let us speak first, then, as far as we can, about such people, stripping bare the sorcery in which they take pride, as though they alone had grasped with what figures the heaven is adorned, according to the Chaldean theories. For they say that the circuit of the world is like the turnings of a well-rounded sphere, the earth having the place of centre and point. For since the revolution is spherical, the earth, they say, must be in the middle of the whole, the distances being equal on all sides, and the heaven turns around it, since it is older. For if a circumference is formed from a point and centre, which is what a circle seems to be, and it is impossible for a circle to be drawn without a point, and a circle cannot exist without a point, how, they say, did not the earth, and the chaos and depth around it, exist before everything? For truly into chaos and depth these wretched people have slipped through error, because ‘knowing God, they did not glorify him as God or give thanks, but became futile in their reasonings, and their senseless heart was darkened’; and this, even though the wise among them have said that nothing earthborn is more honoured and older than the Olympians. That is why those who have come to know Christ are not truly always children, like the Greeks, who have buried the truth under myths and fictions rather than the art of reasoning, and who, fitting the misfortunes of human beings to the heavenly bodies, are not ashamed to describe the circuit of the world with geometrical theorems and figures, teaching that the heaven is adorned with images of birds and fish and land animals, and that the qualities of the stars were fixed from the misfortunes of men of old, so that the movements of the planets depend on such bodies. For they say that the stars revolve around the nature of the twelve signs of the zodiac, drawn along by the motion of the zodiacal circle, so that through their mingling what befalls many is seen, according to their conjunctions and separations with one another, and their risings and settings. For, according to them, the whole heaven, being spherical and using the earth as its centre and point, since all the straight lines falling from the circumference to the earth are equal to one another, is divided by the circles that surround it: of these the greatest is the meridian; the second, which divides it into equal parts, is called the horizon; the third, which divides these, is the equator. On either side of it are two tropics, the summer and the winter, one toward the north and the other toward the south. Beyond these is the so-called unzoned circle, around which are the Bears, and the antarctic outside the tropics. And the Bears, turning about themselves and weighing on the axis through the poles, produce the motion of the whole world, having their heads at each other's loins and not touching our horizon, while the zodiacal circle touches all the circles, making an oblique motion. And in it, they say, is a number of signs, called the twelve twelfths, beginning from the Ram and ending with the Fishes; and they present these as having been set among the stars for mythical reasons: saying that the Ram is the one that carried Helle, the daughter of Athamas, and Phrixus to the Scythians, and the Bull's head is in honour of Zeus, the bull that carried Europa across to Crete; and the circle called the Milky Way, which begins from the knot of the Fishes and runs to the Ram, is said to have poured from the breasts of Hera for Heracles by Zeus's command. So, according to them, before Europa and Phrixus and the Dioscuri and the other signs set among the stars from men and beasts, there was not yet any fate of birth, but our forefathers lived without a birth-fate. For we must try, like doctors using the healing drugs of arguments, to quench the falsehood if we can, examining the truth in this way.

“If it was better, you wretches, for human beings to be under a birth-fate than not, why was there not a birth-fate from the very beginning, from when the human race came into being? And if there was, what need was there of those recently set among the stars, the Lion, the Crab, the Twins, the Virgin, the Bull, the Scales, the Scorpion, the Ram, the Archer, the Fishes, the Goat-horned, the Water-carrier, Perseus, Cassiopeia, Cepheus, Pegasus, the Water-snake, the Raven, the Bowl, the Lyre, the Dragon, and the rest, from whose ordering you teach that the many have acquired this mathematical, or rather accursed, foreknowledge? Either, then, there was a birth-fate also for those before, and the establishment of these signs is vain; or there was not, and God changed life to a better state and way of living, since those before lived a worse time. But the men of old were better than those of today, which is why they were even called the golden race. So there is no birth-fate. If the sun, riding over the circles and travelling through the signs in yearly revolutions, brings about the changes and turnings of the seasons, how did those who lived before the signs were set among the stars and the heaven was adorned with them survive, when summer, autumn, winter, and spring were not yet distinguished, through which the nature of the body grows and is maintained? But they did survive, and were longer-lived and stronger than those of today, God directing the seasons then as now. So the heaven has not been embroidered with such figures. If ‘the sun and the moon and the other stars,’ which were made for the marking and keeping of the numbers of time, for the adornment of heaven, and for the changes of seasons, are divine and better than human beings, they must also live a better, blessed, and peaceful life, far excelling ours in righteousness and virtue, moving with an orderly and happy motion. But if they contrive and cause the misfortunes and follies of mortals, being busy with licentiousness and the changes and turns of life, then they are more wretched than human beings, looking at the earth and at perishable and lawless deeds, and living no better than human beings, if indeed our life depends on their emanation and movement.

“If no action happens without desire, nor desire without need, and the divine is without need, then it has no thought of wickedness. And if the nature of the stars is set nearer to God, being better than the virtue of the best human beings, the stars have no thought of evil and are without need. Again: everyone who is persuaded that the sun and the moon and the stars are divine will agree with us that they are far removed from evil and incapable of earthly actions, being free of the passion of pleasure and pain; for such loathsome appetites do not belong to heavenly beings. But if they are by nature outside these things and without need, how do they contrive for human beings what they themselves do not want and are outside of? Those who declare that man is not free, but say that he is steered by the inescapable compulsions of fate and unwritten decrees, are impious toward God himself, making him the provider and maker of human evils. For if he himself, with unfenced and inconceivable wisdom, harmoniously directs the whole circular motion of the stars, steering the rudder of the world, and the stars bring the qualities of vice and virtue into life, dragging human beings to them with bonds of compulsion, they declare God to be the cause and giver of evils. But God is not the cause of any harm to anyone. So there is no birth-fate. Everyone who has even a little understanding will agree that the divine is just, good, wise, true, beneficial, not the cause of evils, free from passion, and everything of that kind. And if the just are better than the unjust and injustice is loathsome to them, and God, being just, rejoices in righteousness, while injustice, being contrary and hostile to righteousness, is hateful to him, then God is not the cause of injustice. If what benefits is wholly good, and self-control benefits household and life and friends, then self-control is good. And if self-control is good by nature, and licentiousness is contrary to self-control, and what is contrary to the good is evil, then licentiousness is evil. And if licentiousness is evil by nature, and through licentiousness come adulteries, thefts, rages, and murders, then the licentious life is evil by nature; but the divine is free from passions. So there is no birth-fate. If the self-controlled are better than the incontinent and incontinence is loathsome to them, and God, being without thought of passions, rejoices in self-control, then incontinence is hateful to God too. That action according to self-control, which is virtue, is better than action according to incontinence, which is vice, can be learned from kings, rulers, generals, wives, children, citizens, masters, servants, tutors, and teachers; for each of these, when self-controlled, is beneficial to himself and to the community, but when licentious, harmful to himself and to the community. And if there is a difference between the effeminate and the manly, the licentious and the self-controlled, and the state of the manly and self-controlled is better and that of their opposites worse, and the former are near to God and his friends, the latter far from him and his enemies, then those who speak of a birth-fate declare that injustice and justice are the same, effeminacy and manliness, incontinence and self-control; which is impossible. For if the good is opposed to the evil, and the unjust is evil, and the just is opposed to it, and the just is good, and the good is hostile to the evil, and the evil unlike the good, then the just is different from the unjust. So God is not the cause of evils, and, being good, does not rejoice in evils, as the argument itself has established. And if there are some who are wicked, they are wicked through lack of sense and not through a birth-fate, ‘having by their own wickedness sorrows beyond their lot.’ If birth-fate brings it about that someone kills another and stains his hands with blood, but law forbids this, punishing the wicked and by threat restraining the decrees of birth-fate, such as to do injustice, commit adultery, steal, and poison, then law is opposed to birth-fate. For what birth-fate has decreed, law forbids, and what law forbids, birth-fate forces people to do. So law is hostile to birth-fate. And if hostile, then the lawgivers did not give laws according to birth-fate; for, decreeing what is contrary to birth-fate, they abolish birth-fate. Either, then, there is a birth-fate and there should have been no laws, or there are laws and they are not according to birth-fate. But, they say, it is impossible for anyone to be born or anything to be formed without a birth-fate; for they say that one cannot even move a finger without fate. Then Minos, Draco, Lycurgus, Solon, and Zaleucus were born lawgivers by birth-fate and laid down laws forbidding adulteries, murders, violence, robberies, and thefts, as if these did not exist and happen by birth-fate. But if these too happen by birth-fate, the laws are not by birth-fate; for otherwise birth-fate would be abolished by itself, invalidating itself and fighting against itself, in one place establishing laws forbidding adultery and murder, punishing and pursuing the wicked, in another working murders and adulteries. But this is impossible; for nothing is at odds with itself, hostile to itself, destructive of itself, and unprofitable to itself. So there is no birth-fate. If everything whatever that happens happens by birth-fate, and there is nothing apart from birth-fate, then law too must have come into being by birth-fate. But law destroys birth-fate, teaching that virtue can be taught and is acquired by diligence, and that vice is to be avoided and grows from lack of education. So there is no birth-fate. If birth-fate makes people wrong one another and be wronged by one another, what need is there of laws? And if they exist so that the wronged may defend themselves against sinners, God caring for the wronged, it would have been better not to make people wicked by fate than, after making them so, to correct them by laws. But God is good and wise and does what is better. So there is no birth-fate. Either upbringing and customs are the causes of sins, or the passions of the soul and the desires through the body. Whichever of these is the cause, God is not the cause. If it is better to be just than unjust, why is a human being not such from birth? And if afterwards, so that he may become better, he is corrected by teachings and laws, then he is corrected as being free, and not as being evil by nature. If the wicked are wicked by nature through birth-fate, by the decrees of providence, they are not blameworthy and deserving of punishment by the laws, since they live according to their own nature and have not been able to change. And again: if the good, living according to their own nature, are praiseworthy, birth-fate being the cause of the good being good, then neither are the wicked, living according to their own nature, to be blamed before a just judge. And, to speak plainly, one who lives according to the nature he has does no wrong; for he did not make himself such, but fate did, and he lives according to its motion, led by inescapable compulsions. So no one is evil. But there are evil people, and vice is blameworthy and hateful to God, as the argument has established, while virtue is dear and praiseworthy, God having ordained a law to punish the wicked. So there is no fate.

“And why do I lengthen the speech, dwelling so long on refutations, when I have set out the more necessary points, useful for persuasion and for assent to what is profitable, and have made plain to all, even from a few arguments, the inconsistency of their contrivance? So that even a child can now see through and perceive the error: that it is up to us, and not in the stars, to do good or evil. For there are two movements in us, desires natural to flesh and to soul, differing from each other. That is why they have also received two names, the one of virtue, the other of vice. And we must obey the most beautiful and golden guidance of virtue, choosing the best things before the base. But enough about these things; I will hold back my speech. For I am ashamed, after the speeches on chastity, and I cover my face at being forced to set out the opinions of star-gazers, or rather vain-gazers, who spend the time of their life in conceit, occupied with nothing but mythical fictions. Let these gifts too, woven together from divinely spoken words, be brought to you from me, my lady Arete.” EUBOULION: How very combatively and gloriously Thecla spoke, Gregorion! GREGORION: What then if you had heard her yourself, speaking fluently and with a ready tongue, with great grace and charm? So that anyone who attended would admire her, her appearance blooming along with her words, as she continued picturing, with deep feeling and as if they were really present, the things she described, her face flushed with modesty; for she is by nature wholly white, both in body and soul. EUBOULION: You speak rightly, Gregorion, and there is nothing false in what you say. For I have known her wisdom from her other brave deeds too, and could tell how many and what great things she accomplished, making a display of surpassing love for Christ, and how she often appeared distinguished in meeting the great and foremost contests of the martyrs, having zeal equal to her eagerness, and strength of body equal to the vigour of her resolves. GREGORION: You too speak most truly; but let us not linger, for we shall often talk of these things again. Now I must first report to you, as I undertook, the speeches of the remaining virgins, namely Tysiane and Domnina; for these are still left.