Recognitions 9.8–9.34

“But perhaps you may say that in those things in which natural necessity demands the service of arts and works, each one can have it in his power to keep justice and to impose what measure he wishes on his desires and acts; but what shall we say of the sicknesses and infirmities that befall men—that some are oppressed by demons and by fevers and chills, some are even driven by madness and lose their minds—and all those things which press on the race of mortals by countless mishaps? To this we shall say that if anyone considers the reason of the whole mystery, he will declare these things even more just than those we set out above. For God gave men a nature by which they can both be taught the good and resist evil—that is, so that they can both learn arts and resist pleasures and prefer the law of God in everything; and for this reason he permitted certain contrary powers to wander about this world and wrestle with us, for the reasons already stated above, so that from contest with them the palm of victory and the merit of rewards may arise for the just.

“From these, then, it sometimes happens that if some have acted without self-control, and have chosen not so much to resist as to yield and give them room in themselves, an intemperate and faulty offspring is begotten by their harmful breath. For while everything is given over to lust and no observance of intercourse is kept, the untimely generation without doubt takes on the vices and frailties of those demons at whose urging these things are done. And so the parents will be answerable for such defects in their children, since they would not keep the law of intercourse—though there are also other, more secret causes by which souls are made liable to these evils, which it is not the time to bring forward now. Yet each one ought to know the law of God, so as to take from it the observance of begetting and avoid the causes of uncleanness, so that what is begotten may be clean. For it is not right that in planting shrubs or sowing crops a suitable time should be sought, the earth cleaned, and everything suitable prepared, lest the seed sown be harmed and perish, and that in man alone, who is above all these, there should be no observance of sowing, no caution.

“‘But what of the fact,’ someone says, ‘that some, though they were without bodily defect in their early years, fall into these evils as time goes on, so that some are even hurled violently to death?’ About these too the reason is close and almost the same. For those powers we called hostile to the human race are in a way invited to each one's heart through many and various desires and receive room to enter; and their force and power is such that it only urges and incites, not such as to compel and accomplish. If, then, someone agrees with them so far as to do what he wickedly desires, he will find as the wage of his consent and act perdition and the worst death. But if, thinking of the coming judgment, he is restrained by that very fear and calls himself back so as not to fulfill in act what he conceived in evil thought, he will escape not only present ruin but also future punishments. For every cause of sin seems like tow smeared with pitch, which catches fire at once when it receives the heat of fire; and the blaze of this fire is understood to be the works of demons. If, then, someone is found smeared with sins and desires as with pitch, fire masters him most easily. But if the tow is soaked not with the pitch of sin but with the water of purification and regeneration, the fire of the demons will not be able to kindle in it.

“But someone will say: ‘And what shall we do now, who happen to be smeared with sins as with pitch?’ I will answer: nothing else but hasten to be washed, so that the material of the fire may be purged from you by the invocation of the holy name; and thereafter restrain your desires by fear of the coming judgment, and drive out the adverse powers with all firmness whenever they approach your minds. But you say: ‘If someone has fallen in love, how will he be able to restrain himself, even if he saw before his eyes that very river of fire they call Pyriphlegethon?’ This is the excuse of those who do not wish to turn to repentance. Well then, I do not want you to bring Pyriphlegethon into the middle now; set before yourself the punishments of men, and see how much fear avails. Can anyone, when he is led to punishment for a crime of love and tied to the stake to be burned, at that moment either feel desire for the woman he loved or set her beauty before his eyes? ‘By no means,’ you will say. You see, then, that present fear cuts off wicked desires. And if those who believe God, and confess the coming judgment and the punishment of eternal fire, do not restrain themselves from sin, it is certain that they do not believe with full faith. For if faith is sure, fear also is sure; but if something is lacking in faith, fear too is relaxed, and then the hostile powers find room to enter; and when they have agreed with their persuasions, they must also become subject to their power and be driven by their persuasions to the precipices of sin.

“So the astrologers, ignorant of mysteries of this kind, think these things happen by the courses of the stars; and hence, answering those who come to them to consult about the future, they are mistaken in very many things. No wonder, for they are not prophets; but by the practice of a long time, these authors of errors find a kind of refuge in the things in which they were deceived, and introduce certain ‘climacterics,’ so as to feign knowledge about uncertain things. For they call a climacteric a time of danger, as it were, in which someone is sometimes killed and sometimes not; not knowing that it is not the course of the stars that does these things but the working of the demons, who, serving to confirm the error of astrology, deceive men into sinning by the calculations of astrology, so that when, either by God's permission or by the demand of the laws, they have paid the penalty of sin, the astrologer may seem to have told the truth. Yet they are deceived even in this; for if they have quickly turned to repentance and conceived remembrance and fear of the punishment to come, the penalty of death is dissolved for those turned to God through the grace of baptism.

“But someone will say: ‘Many have committed murder and adultery and other crimes and suffered no harm.’ This indeed rarely happens to men, though to those who do not know the counsel of God it seems to happen often. But God, who knows all things, knows how and why the sinner sins, and what cause leads each to sin. This, however, must be recognized generally: if some are not as evil in mind as in acts, and do not fall into sin driven by purpose, to them punishment is rendered more quickly and rather in the present life; for everywhere and always God renders to each according to his acts as he judges fitting. But of those who practice wickedness by purpose, so that sometimes they even rage against those from whom they have received benefits, and take no thought for repentance, he defers the punishments to the future. For these do not deserve, like those of whom we spoke above, to end the vengeance of their crimes in the present life; but they are permitted to fill up the present time as they wish, because their correction is no longer such as needs temporal chastisements, but such as demands the punishments of eternal fire in the underworld, where their souls will seek repentance where they cannot find it.

“But if, while placed in this life, they had set before their eyes those punishments they will suffer there, they would surely have restrained their desires and in no way fallen into sin. For understanding in the soul can do much to cut off all its desires, especially when it has received the knowledge of heavenly things, through which, having received the light of truth, it will turn away from all the darkness of evil acts. For as the sun dulls and covers all the stars with the splendor of its brightness, so the mind, through the light of knowledge, makes all the desires of the soul ineffective and idle, sending out over them like its rays the remembrance of the coming judgment, so that they can no longer even appear in the soul.

“That the fear of God avails much to restrain desires, take the example of human fear. How few are there among men who do not desire what belongs to others? Yet by fear of the punishment established by the laws they are restrained and act with more self-control. Nations are subject to a king through fear, and an armed army obeys. Slaves, though stronger than their masters, yet endure their masters' commands because of fear. Even wild beasts are tamed by fear; the strongest bulls submit their necks to the yoke, and huge elephants obey their trainers through fear. But why use human examples, when divine ones are not lacking? Does not the earth itself remain under fear of the command, which it testifies to even by its movement and trembling? The sea keeps its appointed boundary, the angels keep peace, the stars hold their order and the rivers their courses; and it is certain that demons too are put to flight by fear. And not to extend the discourse further by going through each thing, see how the fear of God, holding each thing, keeps all in its own harmony and the framework of its order. How much more, then, ought you to be sure that the desires of demons which arise in your hearts can be extinguished and wholly abolished by the admonition of the fear of God, since even the instigators of desire themselves flee when fear masters them? Knowing that this is so, if you think anything should be answered, begin.”

Then the old man said: “My son Clement has fitted his argument together so wisely that he has left us nothing to say to it. But the whole discourse he gave about the nature of man has this content: that besides the freedom of choice that is within, there is also some cause of evil from outside, by which men are incited through various desires, yet not compelled to sin; because, he says, fear is far stronger than these, resisting and restraining the impulses of desires, so that when natural movements occur, the demons who incite and inflame them being put to flight, sin cannot be committed. But these things do not bring me to belief; for I am aware of certain things from which I know well that by the configuration of the stars men become murderers or adulterers and commit other evils. And likewise honorable and chaste women are compelled by it to act well.

“For instance, when Mars, holding a cardinal point, in his own house, regards Saturn in square aspect together with Mercury at a cardinal point, with the full Moon coming upon him, in a daytime nativity, he produces murderers and those who will fall by the sword, the bloodthirsty, drunkards, the lustful, the demon-possessed, prying searchers into secrets, sorcerers, the sacrilegious, and whatever else is like these, especially when none of the benign stars regards them. And again Mars himself, having the square figure toward Venus, partly toward a cardinal point, with none of the benign stars regarding, makes adulterers, and leads men to marry sisters and daughters and mothers. Venus with the Moon in the terms and houses of Saturn, if she is with Saturn, with Mars bearing witness, makes women mannish, ready for farming, building, and every man's work, to have intercourse with whomever they wish and not be reproached by their husbands for adultery, to use no softness, no ointments, no women's clothes or shoes, but living after the manner of men; and makes men to be like women and do nothing manly, if the maleficent Venus is with Mars in Aries; and on the contrary she makes women, if she is in Capricorn or Aquarius.”

When the old man had set out much about these things, and listed each astrological figure and also the positions of the stars, wishing to show by them that fear is not enough to restrain desires, I answered again: “Truly, father, you have argued most learnedly and expertly, and reason itself invites me to answer something to what you have discussed, since the science of astrology is known to me and I gladly converse with a learned man. Hear, then, in answer to what you have said, so that you may clearly recognize that birth-fate from the stars does not exist at all, and that those who flee to God can resist the attack of demons; and, as I said before, that natural desires can be restrained not only by the fear of God but also by the fear of men, as we shall now teach.

“In every region or kingdom there are laws laid down by men, whether in writing or lasting by custom, which no one easily transgresses. First, the Seres, who dwell at the beginning of the world, have a law not to know murder or adultery or harlotry, not to commit theft, and not to worship idols. And in all that region, which is very large, neither a temple nor an image is found, nor a harlot, nor an adulteress, nor is a thief brought to trial; nor is a man ever reported to have been killed there. Yet no one's freedom of choice was compelled, according to you, by the fiery star of Mars to use the sword for a man's slaying, nor did Venus placed with Mars compel another's marriage to be violated, though certainly among them Mars holds the middle circle of heaven every day. But among the Seres the fear of the laws is stronger than the constellation of birth-fate.

“Likewise among the Bactrians, in the regions of the Indians, there are immense multitudes of Brahmans, who also, from the tradition of their ancestors, with harmonious customs and laws, commit neither murder nor adultery, nor worship images, nor are accustomed to eat living things; they are never drunk, never do anything maliciously, but always fear God. And they do this while the rest of the Indians commit murders and adulteries, worship images, get drunk, and practice other such crimes. And in the western parts of India itself there is a certain region where strangers, when they happen upon it, are seized, sacrificed, and eaten; and neither did the good stars prevent these from such crimes and accursed foods, nor did the evil stars compel the Brahmans to do anything evil. Again, there is a custom among the Persians of taking mothers and sisters and daughters in marriage, and under all that sky the Persians contract incestuous marriages.

“And lest those who follow astrology be allowed to use the refuge in which they say that there are certain zones of the sky to which it is granted to have certain properties of their own: some of that very nation of the Persians have gone abroad, who are called Magusaeans, of whom to this day some are in Media, some in Parthia, some also in Egypt, but more in Galatia and Phrygia; and all of these keep the unswerving form of this incestuous tradition and hand it down to their descendants to be kept, even when they have changed their zone of the sky. Yet Venus with the Moon in the terms and houses of Saturn, with Saturn, Mars also bearing witness, did not compel them to have a birth-fate among the rest.

“Among the Geli also there is a custom that the women farm, build, and do every man's work, and they are also allowed to have intercourse with whomever they wish, and are not accused by their husbands or called adulteresses; for they have intercourse indiscriminately, and especially with strangers. They know nothing of ointments, are not dressed in dyed clothing or shoes. On the contrary, the men of the Geli are adorned and combed, dressed in soft and varied garments, decked with gold and smeared with ointments; and this not from any weakness of strength, for they are most warlike and keenest hunters. Yet not all the women of the Geli had, at their birth, the maleficent Venus in Capricorn or Aquarius, nor their men Venus placed with Mars in Aries, by which figure the Chaldean discipline asserts that men are born effeminate and dissolute.

“Further, in Susa the women use ointments, and the best ones, are adorned with ornaments of precious stones, and go out attended by maidservants with much greater display than the men; yet they do not cultivate chastity, but have indifferent intercourse with whomever they wish, both slaves and strangers, such license being allowed by their husbands; and not only are they not blamed for this, but they even rule over their husbands. Yet the birth-fate of all the women of Susa does not have Venus in the middle of heaven with Jupiter and Mars in the houses of Jupiter. In the farther parts of the East, if a boy submits himself to the womanly outrage, when it is known he is killed by his brothers or parents or any relatives, and is not given burial. And again, among the Gauls an ancient law established that boys are given in marriage publicly, and no reproach is held to come of it. Is it possible that all who so shamefully submit among the Gauls had Lucifer with Mercury in the houses of Saturn and the terms of Mars?

“In parts of Britain several men have one wife; in Parthia many women have one man; and each part of the world follows its own customs and institutions. The Amazons all have no husbands, but like animals, once a year about the spring equinox, going out beyond their own borders, they have intercourse with the men of a neighboring nation, observing a kind of festival by it; and when they have conceived by them they return, and if they bear a male they cast it away, while they rear the females. And since the birth of all of them falls at one time, it is absurd that among the males Mars should be thought to be with Saturn in equal portions at that time, but never in the birth of the females. Nor did they have Mercury placed with Venus in his own houses, so as to produce painters or sculptors or bankers there, or in the houses of Venus, so as to bring forth perfumers or singers or poets. Among the Saracens, the upper Libyans and the Moors, and those who live about the shore of the Ocean, and in the farthest parts of Germany, among the Sarmatians and Scythians and all the nations of the Pontic shore that lie under the northern pole, and in the island of Chryse, there is never found a banker or sculptor or painter or architect or geometer or tragic actor or poet. Therefore the constellation of Mercury and Venus is lacking among them!

“Of all the world, the Medes alone, with the greatest care, cast out men while still breathing to be devoured by dogs; and not for that reason do they have Mars with the Moon placed in Cancer in a daytime nativity. The Indians burn their dead, and with them the wives of the dead, offering themselves willingly, are burned. But not for that reason do all the women of the Indians who are burned alive have, in a night nativity, the Sun below the earth with Mars in the portions of Mars. Very many of the Germans end their life by the noose; yet not for that reason do they all have the Moon with the hour hemmed in by Saturn and Mars. Are not men born in every nation and on every day under every diversity of birth-fate? From all this it appears that the fear of the laws rules in each region, and the freedom of choice that is implanted in men by the spirit obeys the laws; and birth-fate cannot compel either the Seres to commit murder, or the Brahmans to eat flesh, or the Persians to avoid incest, or the Indians not to be burned, or the Medes not to be devoured by dogs, or the Parthians not to have several wives, or the women of Mesopotamia not to keep chastity, or the Greeks not to exercise in the wrestling schools, or the boys of the Gauls not to suffer womanly treatment, or the barbarian nations to be trained in the studies of the Greeks; but, as we said, each nation uses its own laws according to the freedom of choice, and drives away the decrees of birth-fate by the severity of the laws.

“But someone of those learned in the discipline of astrology will say that birth-fate is divided into seven parts, which they call climes, and that one of the seven stars rules each clime; and that these diverse laws we have set out were laid down not by men but by these rulers according to the will of each, and what the star decided became a law observed by men. To this, then, we shall answer: first, the world is not divided into seven parts; then, even if it were so, in one part and in one region we find many differences of laws. And so they are neither seven according to the number of the stars, nor twelve according to the number of the signs, nor thirty-six according to the number of the decans, but innumerable.

“We must remember what was listed above: that in one region of India there are both those who eat human flesh and those who abstain even from cattle and birds and all living things; and that the Magusaeans take mothers and daughters in marriage not only in Persia but in every nation wherever they live, keeping the incestuous institutions of their wickedness. Besides, we mentioned innumerable nations which know nothing at all of the study of letters. And some wise men have changed the laws themselves in some places, while other laws have been abandoned of their own accord because of their impracticability or dishonor. Certainly, as is easy to know, how many emperors have changed the laws and institutions of the nations they conquered and subjected them to their own laws! This is plainly shown to have been done by the Romans, who turned almost the whole world and all nations, which at first lived by their own and various laws and institutions, to Roman law and civil decrees. It remains, then, that the stars of the nations conquered by the Romans have lost their climes and parts!”

“I will add yet another matter that can satisfy even the very incredulous. All the Jews who live under the law of Moses circumcise their sons on the eighth day without any delay and shed the blood of the tender infant; but from the beginning of the age none of the Gentiles has undergone this on the eighth day, and on the other hand none of the Jews has omitted it. How, then, will the theory of birth-fate stand in this, when the Jews live mixed among the Gentiles throughout all parts of the world, and endure the knife on the eighth day in the place of one member, and none of the Gentiles but they alone, as I said, do this, not compelled by a star nor driven by the shedding of blood, but led by the law of religion; and in whatever place in the world they are, this is their native mark. And that they all have one name wherever they are—has this too come by birth-fate? And that among them an infant once born is never exposed, and that every seventh day all, wherever they are, keep rest, neither go on a journey nor use fire? Why is it, then, that birth-fate compels none of the Jews on that day either to make a journey, or to build, or to sell or buy anything?

“Indeed, I will give still greater proof from present things. For see, since the coming of the just and true Prophet scarcely seven years have passed, in which men from all nations coming to Judea, moved by the signs and mighty works they had seen and by the majesty of his teaching, when they received faith in him, went back to their own regions and despised the unlawful rites of the Gentiles and incestuous marriages. Indeed among the Parthians, as Thomas, who preaches the gospel among them, has written to us, not many any longer spread themselves among many marriages; nor do many among the Medes cast their dead to the dogs; nor do the Persians delight in marriages with their mothers or incestuous marriages with their daughters; nor do the women of Susa practice the adulteries once lawful; nor could birth-fate compel to crimes those whom the teaching of religion forbade.

“See, from this very thing make a guess, and take a conjecture from these places where we are, how, when only report brought to men's ears that a Prophet had appeared in Judea who by signs and mighty works taught men to worship one God, all were waiting with ready and attentive minds, even before the coming of my lord Peter, for someone to announce to them what he who appeared had taught. But not to seem to list many things, I will say how all should be concluded. Since God is just and himself made the nature of men, how could it be that he himself should set a birth-fate contrary to us, which would compel us to sin, and then himself punish sinners? Hence it is certain that God punishes the sinner, whether in the present or in the future age, for no other reason than that he knows he could have conquered but neglected the victory. For he inflicts vengeance on men in the present age too, as he did on those who perished in the flood, who were all destroyed in one day, indeed in one hour, though it is certain that they were not all born in one hour according to the order of birth-fate. And it is most absurd to say that we suffer evils by nature, if sins have not gone before.

“And therefore, if we care for salvation, we must above all devote ourselves to knowledge, sure that if our mind remains in ignorance, we shall endure not only the evils of birth-fate but also whatever else from outside seems good to the demons—unless fear of the laws and of the coming judgment resists all desires and curbs the impulse to sin. For human fear too does many good things and also many evil things, which birth-fate does not know, as we showed above. Our mind, then, is subject to errors in a threefold way: from things that come through evil habit, or from those that the body naturally suggests by desires, or from those that the hostile powers urge. But the mind has it in its nature to resist and fight against each of these, when the knowledge of truth has shone on it; through this knowledge the fear of the coming judgment is given, which is a fit pilot of the soul and can call it back from the precipices of desires. That these things are in our power, then, has been sufficiently said.

“Now you too, old man, if you have anything to answer to this, begin.” The old man said to this: “You have shown it most fully, my son. But I, as I said from the beginning, am prevented by my own knowledge from giving assent to this whole incomparable argument of yours. For I know my own birth-fate and my wife's, and I know that what birth-fate dictated for each of us has happened; and from what I have found out by facts and deeds I cannot now be moved by words. Indeed, since I see you thoroughly trained in disciplines of this kind, hear my wife's horoscope, and you will find the figure whose outcome took place. She had Mars with Venus above the cardinal point, and the Moon setting in the houses of Mars and the terms of Saturn—a figure that makes women adulteresses and lovers of their own slaves, and makes them die abroad and in the waters. And so it happened. For she fell in love with a slave, and fearing danger and disgrace alike, fled with him; and having gone abroad, where she satisfied her love, she perished in the sea.”

I answered: “How do you know that she was joined to her slave abroad and died in his company?” The old man said: “I know it most certainly—not indeed that she married the slave, for I did not even know that she loved him; but after she had gone, my brother told me, saying that first she had fallen in love with him; but he, being honorable, as a brother, would not pollute his brother's bed with the stain of incest. But she, unhappy woman, fearing both me and the disgrace that she could not bear (for it is not to be imputed to her, since birth-fate compelled her to do it), invented a dream and said to me: ‘Someone stood by me in a vision and ordered me to leave the city without delay with my two twins.’ When I heard this, anxious for her safety and the children's, I at once had her and the children leave; one, who was the younger, I kept with me, for she said that he who had given the answers in dreams had permitted this.”

Then I, Clement, understanding that he was perhaps my father, was filled with tears. My brothers also wanted to leap up and reveal the matter, but Peter prevented them, saying: “Be quiet until I see fit.” Then Peter answered and said to the old man: “What was the name of your younger son?” He said: “Clement.” Peter said: “If today I hand over to you your most chaste wife with your three sons, do you believe that a chaste mind can overcome irrational impulses, and that all we have said is true and birth-fate is nothing?” The old man said: “As it is impossible for you to produce what you have promised, so it is impossible for anything to happen outside birth-fate.” Then Peter said: “I want to have as witnesses all these who are present, that today I will deliver to you your wife, who has lived most chastely, with your three children. And now take proof of the matter from this, that I know the whole affair much more accurately than you, and I will tell you in order everything that happened, so that you may know and those present may learn.”