Exhortation to the Greeks (Protrepticus) (chapters 4–9)
Exhortation to the Greeks (Protrepticus)
continued
Chapter 4
The Absurdity and Shamefulness of the Images by Which the Gods are Worshipped.
4a Suppose I now bring the images themselves and set them before you to look over. As you examine them, you will find that your custom is truly nonsense, since you turn in devotion to senseless “works of men’s hands.” In ancient times the Scythians worshipped the short sword, the Arabs a stone, and the Persians a river. Other peoples, still more ancient, set up conspicuous wooden posts and stood up pillars of stone. These were called xoana, because they had been scraped out of their material. For example, the image of Artemis on Icarus was an unworked piece of wood, and that of Cithaeronian Hera at Thespiae was a cut-down tree trunk. The image of Samian Hera, according to Aethlius, was at first a plank. Later, when Procles was ruler, it was given human shape. When the xoana began to be made in the likeness of men, they took the name brete from brotoi, “mortals.”[66] [Psalm 135:15]
4b At Rome, the writer Varro says, the ancient wooden image of Mars was just a spear. Craftsmen had not yet taken up this fine-looking but wicked craft. But once the craft flourished, the error grew. It is plain at once that men made human-shaped images out of stones and wood, in a word out of matter. You dress these up with a show of piety and slander the truth. Still, since the subject calls for some proof, I must not shrink from giving it. Everyone knows that Phidias made the Zeus at Olympia and the Athena Polias at Athens out of gold and ivory. Olympichus reports in his Samian History that the wooden image of Hera on Samos was made by Smilis, the son of Euclides. So do not doubt that, of the goddesses at Athens called the Venerable Ones, Scopas made two out of the stone called lychneus, and Calos made the one in the middle. I can show you Polemon as my witness, in the fourth book of his work against Timaeus. Do not doubt either that this same Phidias made the statues of Zeus and Apollo at Patara in Lycia, as well as the lions set up with them. If, as some say, the work is by Bryaxis, I will not quarrel. In him you have another maker of images. Put whichever of the two names you like on it.[67]
4c Again, as Philochorus says, the statues of Poseidon and Amphitrite on Tenos, nine cubits tall and worshiped there, are the work of Telesias the Athenian. Demetrius, in the second book of his Argolic History, records both the material of the wooden image of Hera at Tiryns, which was pear wood, and its maker, Argus. Many people may well be amazed to learn that the Palladium called “fallen from heaven” was made from the bones of Pelops. Diomedes and Odysseus are said to have stolen it from Troy and entrusted it to Demophon. In the same way, the Olympian Zeus was made from other bones, those of an Indian beast. I bring forward Dionysius as my witness for this, in the fifth part of his Cycle. Apellas, in his Delphic History, says there were two Palladia and that both were made by men. And so that no one supposes I passed over these things out of ignorance, I will add the case of Dionysus Morychus.[68]
4d His image at Athens was made from the stone called phellates, and it is the work of Sikon, son of Eupalamos, as Polemon says in one of his letters. There were also two other sculptors, Cretans I think, named Skyllis and Dipoinos. They made the statues of the Dioscuri in Argos, the statue of Herakles in Tiryns, and the wooden image of Artemis Munychia in Sicyon. But why do I linger over these? I can show you who the “great god” himself really was. We hear that all people honor him above all others, and they have dared to call him “not made by hands.” I mean the Egyptian Serapis. Some report that the people of Sinope sent him as a thank-offering to Ptolemy Philadelphus, king of the Egyptians. They had been wasting away with famine and had sent to Egypt for grain, and Ptolemy had relieved them. They say this wooden image was a statue of Pluto. Ptolemy received the statue and set it up on the height now called Rhakotis. There the temple of Serapis is honored, and the site borders on those places.
4e When Ptolemy’s concubine Blistiche died in Canopus, he brought her body over and buried her under the shrine just mentioned. Others say that Serapis is a wooden image from Pontus, brought to Alexandria with festival honors. Isidore alone says the image was brought from the Seleucians near Antioch, who had also been in a famine and were fed by Ptolemy. Athenodoros, son of Sandon, wanted to make Serapis ancient, but somehow he tripped himself up and proved that the image was man-made. He says that Sesostris, king of Egypt, had conquered most of the nations of the Greeks. When he came back to Egypt, he brought skilled craftsmen with him. He ordered them to fashion, at great expense, an image of Osiris, his forefather. The maker was Bryaxis, not the Athenian but another man with the same name. He used a mixture of various materials for the work. 4f He had filings of gold, silver, bronze, iron and lead, and also tin. Of Egyptian stones none was missing: there were fragments of sapphire, hematite, emerald and topaz. He ground all these down and mixed them together. He then colored the mixture dark blue, which is why the image is rather dark in color. He kneaded everything together with the embalming preparation left over from the funeral of Osiris and Apis, and so molded Serapis. Even his name hints at this shared funeral and at a creation that came out of burial, since it is put together from Osiris and Apis: Osirapis. The emperor of the Romans also solemnly made another new god, in Egypt and very nearly among the Greeks too. This was his beloved, a youth of great beauty, Antinous. He consecrated him as Zeus did Ganymede. For desire that has no fear is not easily held back. People now worship the “sacred nights” of Antinous, though the lover who kept vigil with him knew those nights were shameful.[69]
4g Why do you list for me a god who was honored for sexual immorality? Why did you command that he be mourned like a son? Why do you describe his beauty? Beauty withered by outrage is shameful. Do not play the tyrant over beauty, man, and do not abuse a young man in his bloom. Keep it pure, so that it may be beautiful. Be a king over beauty, not a tyrant. Let it stay free. Then I will acknowledge your beauty, when you have kept the image pure. Then I will worship beauty, when it is the true original of all that is beautiful. But as it is, there is already a tomb for the beloved boy, and a temple and a city of Antinous. Tombs, I think, are admired just as temples are: pyramids, mausoleums and labyrinths, which are other temples for the dead, just as those temples are tombs of the gods. As your teacher I will bring forward the prophetess Sibyl. She is the spokeswoman not of the false Phoebus, whom foolish men called a god and falsely made a prophet. She speaks for the great God, whom the hands of men did not shape, like dumb idols of hewn stone.[70]
4h The Sibyl also calls the temples ruins. She foretells that the temple of Ephesian Artemis will be swallowed up in “chasms and earthquakes,” in these words: “Ephesus will lie flat and wail, weeping by the banks, looking for a temple where no one lives any more.” She says too that the temple of Isis and Serapis in Egypt will be thrown down and burned: “Isis, thrice-wretched goddess, you remain alone by the waters of the Nile, a raving woman without a voice, on the sands of Acheron.” Then she goes on: “And you, Serapis, lying on many rough stones, you lie a huge ruin in thrice-wretched Egypt.” But if you will not listen to the prophetess, at least listen to your own philosopher, Heraclitus of Ephesus, who reproaches the statues for their lack of feeling: “They pray to these statues, as though someone were chatting with houses.” Are they not monstrous, those who turn to stones for help and then set them in front of their gates as if they were active? They worship Hermes as a god, and they set up Aguieus as a doorkeeper.[71]
4i If they abuse the statues as senseless, why do they worship them as gods? And if they think the statues share in sensation, why set them up as doorkeepers? The Romans credited their greatest successes to Fortune and thought her the greatest of gods. Yet they carried her off and set her up in the latrine, giving the goddess the toilet as a fitting temple. But senseless stone and wood and rich gold care nothing at all for the smell of burnt fat, for blood or for smoke. That smoke blackens them even as they are “honored” and fumigated. They care nothing for honor, and nothing for insult. Statues are worth less than any living creature. How senseless things came to be treated as gods baffles me, and I pity those who wander in such folly as wretched people. Some animals do not have all the senses: worms and caterpillars, for example, and creatures that seem crippled from birth, like moles and the shrew, which Nicander calls “blind and dreadful.” Yet even these are better than those wooden images and statues, which are completely deaf. For these creatures have at least one sense, say hearing or touch, or something corresponding to smell or taste. But statues share in not a single sense.
4j Many animals have no sight, no hearing and not even a voice, such as oysters. Yet they live and grow, and even respond to the moon. Statues, by contrast, are idle, inactive and senseless. They are tied up, nailed on, fastened together, melted down, filed, sawn, scraped and carved. The image-makers abuse the dumb earth. They drive it out of its own nature and, by their craft, persuade people to worship it. In my judgment, those who make gods are worshipping not gods or demons but earth and craftsmanship, which is all that statues are. For a statue truly is dead matter shaped by the hand of a craftsman. But for us the image is not something sensed, made of sensible matter. It is something grasped by the mind. God is grasped by the mind and not by the senses; he is the only one who is truly God.[72] 4k On the other hand, in the midst of actual troubles the superstitious, the worshippers of stones, have learned by experience not to revere senseless matter. Yet they are overcome by need itself and are ruined by their superstition. They despise the statues, but do not want to be seen despising them altogether, and so they are shown up by the very gods whose names the statues bear. Dionysius the Younger, the tyrant, took the golden cloak off the statue of Zeus in Sicily and ordered a woolen one put on him. He joked that this was better than the golden one, since it was lighter in summer and warmer in winter. Antiochus of Cyzicus, short of money, ordered the golden statue of Zeus, fifteen cubits tall, to be melted down. He had a similar statue made of cheaper material, covered with gold leaf, and set up in its place.[73]
4l Swallows and most other birds fly in and foul the statues themselves. They care nothing for Olympian Zeus, or Asclepius of Epidaurus, or Athena Polias, or Egyptian Serapis. Yet even from them you do not learn that the statues feel nothing. Some criminals or enemies have attacked these places. Out of shameful greed they have plundered temples, robbed the offerings, and even melted down the statues. And if a Cambyses or a Darius or some other madman attempted such things, and if someone killed the Egyptian Apis, I laugh that he killed their god, but I am angry if he did wrong for the sake of profit. So I will gladly overlook this crime. I count it the work of greed, not proof that the idols are powerless. But fire and earthquakes are not out for profit. Nor do they fear or respect demons or statues, any more than the waves respect the pebbles piled up on the beaches.[74]
4m I know a fire that exposes and cures superstition. If you want to stop your folly, this fire will light your way. This fire burned down the temple at Argos together with its priestess Chrysis. It burned the temple of Artemis at Ephesus, a second time after the Amazons. It has swept over the Capitol in Rome many times. It did not spare even the temple of Serapis in the city of the Alexandrians. At Athens it brought down the temple of Dionysus Eleuthereus. At Delphi a storm first snatched away the temple of Apollo, and then a sensible fire wiped it out. This is a foretaste for you of what the fire promises. Do the makers of the statues not shame the sensible among you into despising the material? The Athenian Phidias wrote on the finger of Olympian Zeus, “Pantarkes is beautiful.” For to him it was not Zeus who was beautiful, but the boy he loved. Praxiteles, as Posidippus explains in his book on Cnidus, made the statue of the Cnidian Aphrodite to look like his mistress Cratine, so that the poor wretches could worship Praxiteles’ mistress.[75]
4n When Phryne, the courtesan from Thespiae, was in her prime, all the painters modeled their pictures of Aphrodite on Phryne’s beauty. In the same way the sculptors at Athens modeled their Hermes statues on Alcibiades. It is left to your own judgment to decide whether you want to worship courtesans too. I think it was this that moved the ancient kings. They despised these myths. Since men posed no danger to them, they shamelessly proclaimed themselves gods. In this way they taught that those other gods too had been made immortal because of their fame. Ceyx, son of Aeolus, was called Zeus by his wife Alcyone, and Alcyone in turn was called Hera by her husband. Ptolemy the Fourth was called Dionysus, and Mithridates of Pontus was also a Dionysus. Alexander wanted to be thought the son of Ammon and to be portrayed with horns by the sculptors. He was eager to disfigure the beautiful face of a man with a horn.[76]
4o And it was not only kings. Private persons also puffed themselves up with divine titles. Menecrates the physician, for example, was called Zeus. Why should I list Alexarchus? He was a grammarian by profession, and, as Aristus of Salamis reports, he dressed himself up as the Sun. Why mention Nicagoras? He was from Zeleia and lived in the time of Alexander. He was called Hermes and wore the costume of Hermes, as he himself testifies. Indeed, whole nations and cities, with all their people, have given in to flattery and cheapened the myths about the gods. People dress themselves up as equals of the gods. They are puffed up with vanity and vote themselves excessive honors. At one time they decreed worship at Cynosarges for Philip, son of Amyntas, the Macedonian from Pella, “the man with the broken collarbone and the crippled leg,” who had an eye knocked out. At another time they proclaimed Demetrius a god as well. The place where he got off his horse as he entered Athens is a shrine of Demetrius the Descender, and there are altars to him everywhere. The Athenians even prepared a marriage for him with Athena. But he looked down on the goddess, since he could not marry a statue. He took his courtesan Lamia up to the Acropolis and lay with her in Athena’s bridal chamber. To the old virgin he displayed the postures of the young courtesan.[77]
4p So there is no reason to be angry with Hippo either, for making his own death immortal. This Hippo ordered the following elegy to be inscribed on his tomb: “This is the tomb of Hippo, whom Fate, when he died, made equal to the immortal gods.” Well done, Hippo! You show us the delusion of mankind. If people did not believe you while you were alive and speaking, let them become the disciples of a dead man. This is Hippo’s oracle; let us understand it. The gods you worship were once men, and then they died. Myth and time have given them honor. For it is the way of things that what is present is despised through familiarity. But what is past is cut off from immediate refutation by the obscurity of time, and it is honored through invention. So the one is disbelieved, while the other is even admired. In just this way the dead of long ago, exalted by the long duration of the delusion, are regarded as gods by those who come after.
4q Your proof of all this is your own mysteries and festivals, with their chains and wounds and weeping gods: “Alas for me, that Sarpedon, dearest of men to me, is fated to be subdued by Patroclus, son of Menoetius.” The will of Zeus is overpowered, and your Zeus, defeated, wails over Sarpedon. So you yourselves have rightly called them idols and demons, since Homer too paid Athena herself and the other gods a backhanded honor and called them demons: “She went to Olympus, to the house of aegis-bearing Zeus, among the other demons.” How then can these idols and demons still be gods? They are truly foul and unclean spirits. Everyone agrees that they are earthy and filthy, weighed down toward the earth, “rolling about tombs and monuments,” around which they appear faintly as “shadowy phantoms.”[78] 4r These are your gods: idols and shadows. Besides them there are those “lame, wrinkled, squint-eyed” Prayers, who are more like daughters of Thersites than of Zeus. So I think Bion put it wittily: how could people rightly ask Zeus for fine children, when he could not provide them even for himself? Alas for such godlessness! As far as it depends on you, you bury the incorruptible Being in the ground. You have heaped the earth of tombs over that pure and holy being, stripping the one who truly exists of his divinity. Why have you given the honors that belong to God to those who are not gods? Why have you left heaven and honored the earth? For what else are gold, silver, adamant, iron, bronze, ivory and precious stones?[79]
4s Are they not earth, and from the earth? Are not all these things you see the offspring of one mother, the earth? Why then, you vain and empty-headed people (I will say it again), have you blasphemed the place above the heavens and dragged religion down to the ground? You fashion earthly gods for yourselves, and you chase after these created things instead of the uncreated God, and so you have fallen into a deeper darkness. Parian marble is beautiful, but it is not yet Poseidon. Ivory is beautiful, but it is not yet the Olympian. Matter always needs craftsmanship, but God needs nothing. Craftsmanship has stepped forward, and the matter has been clothed with a shape. The costly material is valuable for profit, but it becomes an object of reverence only because of its shape. Your statue is gold, or wood, or stone, or earth, if you think it through from the beginning. It has received its form from the craftsman.[80]
4t But I have trained myself to walk on the earth, not to worship it. It is not right for me ever to entrust the hopes of my soul to lifeless things. So we must go as close as we can to the statues, so that even their appearance may prove that error is at home in them. The very shapes of the statues bear a clear imprint of the character of the demons. If someone goes around looking at the paintings and statues, he will recognize your gods at once from their shameful shapes. He knows Dionysus by his robe, Hephaestus by his craft, Deo by her misfortune, Ino by her veil, Poseidon by his trident, and Zeus by the swan. The pyre shows him Heracles, and if he sees a naked woman portrayed, he understands her to be “golden” Aphrodite.[81] 4u So that famous Cypriot, Pygmalion, fell in love with an ivory statue. The statue was of Aphrodite, and she was naked. The Cypriot was overcome by her shape and had intercourse with the statue. Philostephanus tells this story. There was another Aphrodite, at Cnidus, made of stone and beautiful. Another man fell in love with her and had intercourse with the stone. Posidippus tells this one. The first wrote in his work On Cyprus, the second in his work On Cnidus. That is how strongly art could deceive, acting as a procurer that led men in love into the pit. The craftsman’s skill is powerful, but it cannot deceive a reasoning being, or those who have lived by reason. In paintings, it is true, pigeons have flown up to painted doves because of the likeness, and horses have neighed at well-painted mares. They say a girl fell in love with a portrait, and a handsome young man with the statue at Cnidus. But it was the eyes of the onlookers that art had deceived.[82]
4v For no one in his right mind would have embraced a goddess, or been buried with a corpse, or fallen in love with a demon and a stone. But art deceives you with a different kind of sorcery. It may not lead you to love the statues and paintings, but it leads you to honor and worship them. The painting is a good likeness; let the art be praised, but let it not deceive a person into taking it for the truth. The horse stands quietly; the dove is motionless, its wing idle. Yet Daedalus’ cow, made of wood, caught a wild bull, and art, by deceiving the beast, forced it to mount a woman in the grip of desire. Such madness do these wicked arts put into foolish people. The keepers and caretakers of apes, however, marvel at them, because none of the likenesses made of wax or clay, none of the dolls, deceives them. You, then, will turn out worse than apes, if you devote yourselves to little statues of stone, wood, gold and ivory, and to paintings.[83]
4w These are the deadly toys that your craftsmen make for you: the stonecutters, the sculptors, the painters, the carpenters, and the poets. Together they bring in a whole crowd of such beings. In the fields they put Satyrs and Pans. In the woods they put mountain Nymphs and Hamadryads. By the waters, rivers and springs they put Naiads, and around the sea, Nereids. Now magicians, too, boast that demons serve their impiety. They have enrolled them as their household servants and, by their incantations, have made them slaves under compulsion. Then there are the marriages of the gods, their fathering of children and their childbirths, which are recalled; their adulteries, which are sung; their feasts, which are made fun of in comedies; and the laughter they are shown enjoying over the wine. All this drives me to cry out, even if I would rather keep silent.[84] 4x Alas for the godlessness! You have turned heaven into a stage. The divine has become a play for you. You have made a comedy of what is holy by dressing it in the masks of demons. By your superstition you have turned true reverence for God into a satyr-play. “But he, striking the lyre, began to sing beautifully.” Sing for us, Homer, in that beautiful voice, “about the love of Ares and fair-crowned Aphrodite, how they first lay together secretly in the house of Hephaestus. He gave many gifts, and dishonored the bed and couch of lord Hephaestus.” Stop the song, Homer. It is not beautiful. It teaches adultery. We have renounced fornication, even with our ears. For we, we are the ones who carry the image of God in this living, moving statue, the human being. This image lives in the house with us, advises us, talks with us, eats at our table, shares our feelings, and feels for us. We have become an offering to God for Christ. “We are the chosen race, the royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, who once were not a people but now are the people of God.” As John puts it, we are not “from below” but have learned everything from the one who came from above. We have understood God’s plan of salvation, and we have trained ourselves to “walk in newness of life.”[85] [1 Peter 2:9-10; John 8:23; Romans 6:4]
4y But most people do not think this way. They throw off shame and fear, and they have the unnatural lusts of the demons painted in their own homes. They devote themselves to painted tablets hung up high, and they decorate their bedrooms with indecency, thinking lewdness to be piety. Lying on the couch, in the very midst of their embraces, they look at that naked Aphrodite, bound fast in her embrace. And the amorous bird fluttering around Leda they engrave on the bezels of their rings. They welcome this picture of effeminacy, using a seal that suits the lust of Zeus. These are the models of your self-indulgence. These are the theologies of outrage. These are the teachings of the gods who commit fornication along with you. As the Athenian orator says, “What each man wants, that he also believes.” And what other images you have! Little Pans, naked girls, drunken satyrs, and erect male parts, all stripped bare in paintings and condemned by their lack of self-control.[86]
4z Now you look openly, with the whole crowd, at pictures of every posture of lewdness, and you are not ashamed. Worse still, you keep them on display as if they really were images of your gods. You have consecrated pillars of shamelessness in your homes, and you have the postures of Philaenis painted just as readily as the labors of Heracles. We declare that not only the use of these things but even the sight and the hearing of them should be forgotten. Your ears have turned prostitute, your eyes have committed fornication, and strangest of all, your looks have committed adultery before any embrace. O you who have done violence to man, and have struck off in disgrace the divine element in God’s creature! You disbelieve everything so that you can be driven wild by passion. You believe in the idols, because you are eager to copy their lack of self-control. You disbelieve God, because you cannot bear self-control. You have hated the better things and honored the worse. You have become spectators of virtue but contestants in vice.[87] [Matthew 5:28]
4aa So happy, one might say, are those alone, all of them with one mind, who, as the Sibyl says, “will renounce all temples when they see them, and altars, useless foundations of dumb stones, and stone carvings and hand-made statues, defiled with the blood of living things, with sacrifices of four-footed and two-footed creatures and birds, and with the slaughter of wild beasts.” For we are plainly forbidden to practice a deceptive art. “You shall not make,” says the prophet, “a likeness of anything that is in heaven above or on the earth beneath.” Could we possibly still take the Demeter, the Kore and the mystic Iacchus of Praxiteles to be gods? Or the works of Lysippus, or the hands of Apelles, which have put the shape of divine glory on mere material? You work hard to have the statue made as beautiful as possible, but you take no care that you yourselves do not become like the statues through your lack of feeling. The prophetic word exposes this habit very plainly and briefly: “All the gods of the nations are idols of demons, but God made the heavens,” and what is in heaven.[88] [Exodus 20:4]
4ab Some people are led astray here, I do not know how. They worship a divine piece of craftsmanship, but not God. They worship the sun, the moon and the rest of the chorus of stars, absurdly taking them for gods, though they are only instruments for measuring time. “For by his word they were made firm, and by the breath of his mouth all their power.” Human skill makes houses, ships, cities and paintings. But how could I tell all that God makes? Look at the whole world: it is his work. Heaven, sun, angels and men are “works of his fingers.” How great is God’s power! His will alone is the making of the world. For God alone made it, since he alone is truly God. He creates by simply willing it, and as soon as he wishes it, it comes to be.[89] [Psalm 8:3] 4ac Here the chorus of philosophers goes astray. They agree that man was made wonderfully well for looking at the heavens, yet they worship the things that appear in the heavens and are grasped by sight. For even if the works in heaven are not human works, they were at least made for human beings. Let none of you worship the sun, but long for the maker of the sun. Do not make the world divine, but seek the Creator of the world. So it seems that the only refuge left for anyone who means to reach the doors of salvation is divine wisdom. From there, as from some sacred sanctuary that cannot be violated, the man who hurries toward salvation can no longer be dragged away by any demon.[90]
Chapter 5
The Opinions of the Philosophers Respecting God.
5a Let us also run through, if you like, the opinions the philosophers boast about concerning the gods. Perhaps we will find that philosophy itself, out of vanity, turns matter into idols. Or perhaps we can show, in passing, that while it deifies certain demons, it only dreams of the truth. Some of them praised the elements and left them as first principles. Thales of Miletus praised water. Anaximenes, also of Miletus, praised air, and Diogenes of Apollonia later followed him. Parmenides of Elea introduced fire and earth as gods. Of these two, Hippasus of Metapontum and Heraclitus of Ephesus took only fire to be a god. Empedocles of Acragas fell into plurality: besides these four elements he counts Strife and Love. These men too are godless. By a kind of unwise wisdom they worshipped matter. They did not honor stones or wood, but they deified earth, the mother of these. They did not fashion a Poseidon, but they turned in devotion to water itself.
5b For what is Poseidon but a watery substance, a name made from “posis,” drinking? So too the warlike Ares is named from “arsis” and “anairesis,” that is, lifting up and killing. That is why, I think, many simply fix a sword in the ground and sacrifice to it as to Ares. This is a Scythian custom, as Eudoxus says in the second book of his *Circuit of the Earth*. Among the Scythians, the Sauromatians worship a short sword, as Hicesius says in his work *On Mysteries*. The followers of Heraclitus do the same thing when they revere fire as the original source of things, for others have named this same fire Hephaestus. The Persian Magi honor fire, and so do many who live in Asia, and also the Macedonians, as Diogenes says in the first book of his *Persian History*. Why should I list the Sauromatians, whom Nymphodorus in his *Barbarian Customs* reports to worship fire? Or the Persians, the Medes and the Magi?[91]
5c Dinon says these peoples sacrifice in the open air, and that they regard fire and water as the only images of the gods. I have not hidden their ignorance either. However much they think they have escaped error, they slip into another deception. They have not taken wood and stones to be images of gods, as the Greeks do. They have not taken ibises and ichneumons, as the Egyptians do. They have taken fire and water, as the philosophers do. Yet Berosus, in the third book of his *Chaldean History*, shows that many cycles of years later they came to worship images in human form. Artaxerxes, son of Darius Ochus, introduced this. He was the first to set up the statue of Aphrodite Anaitis in Babylon, Susa and Ecbatana, and he showed the Persians, the Bactrians, Damascus and Sardis how to worship it. So let the philosophers admit that their teachers are Persians, Sauromatians or Magi. From these they learned the godlessness of revering first principles. They are ignorant of the Ruler, the Maker of all things and Creator of those very principles, the God who has no beginning. Instead they turn in devotion to those “poor” and “weak” “elements,” as the apostle calls them, which were made to serve human beings.[92] [Galatians 4:9]
5d Other philosophers went beyond the elements and busied themselves with something higher and more out of the ordinary. Some of them praised the Unlimited. These were Anaximander (he was from Miletus), Anaxagoras of Clazomenae, and Archelaus of Athens. These last two set Mind over the Unlimited. Leucippus of Miletus and Metrodorus of Chios, it seems, left two first principles, the full and the empty. Democritus of Abdera took these two and added to them the “images.” Alcmaeon of Croton thought the stars were gods, and living ones. I will not keep silent about their shamelessness. Xenocrates (he was from Chalcedon) hints that there are seven gods, the planets, and an eighth, the heavens made up of all the fixed stars. Nor will I pass over the Stoics. They say that the divine pervades all matter, even the most dishonorable, and they simply bring shame on philosophy.[93] 5e I think it is no trouble, now that we are here, to mention the Peripatetics too. The father of that school did not understand the Father of all things. He thinks the one called “the Highest” is the soul of the universe. That is, he takes the soul of the world to be God, and so he runs himself through with his own sword. He limits providence to the region reaching only as far as the moon, and then he regards the world as God. So he contradicts himself, teaching that something with no share in God is God. Then there is Theophrastus of Eresus, Aristotle’s pupil, who guesses at one moment that God is heaven and at another that he is spirit. Epicurus alone I will gladly leave out. He thinks God cares about nothing, and he is impious in everything. And what of Heraclides of Pontus? Is there any point at which he too is not dragged down to the images of Democritus?[94]
Chapter 6
By Divine Inspiration Philosophers Sometimes Hit on the Truth.
6a A great crowd of such men presses in on me. They are like a bogeyman, bringing in an absurd sketch of strange demons and telling myths in old wives’ drivel. We are far from letting grown men listen to such talk. We do not even soothe our own crying children with tales, as the saying goes. We are afraid of raising them alongside the godlessness that these would-be sages proclaim, men who know the truth no better than babies. In the name of truth, why do you show those who trust you to be given over to flux and drift and disorderly whirlpools? Why do you fill my life with idols, fashioning winds, air, fire, earth, stones, wood, iron, and this world itself into gods? You even make gods of the wandering stars. Through this much-talked-of astrology (which is not astronomy) you talk about the heavens and babble to people who have truly wandered astray.[95]
6b It is the Lord of the winds I long for, the Lord of fire, the Maker of the world, the one who gives light to the sun. I am seeking God, not the works of God. Whom then shall I take from you as a fellow worker in the search? We have not given up on you altogether. If you like, let it be Plato. How then must God be tracked down, Plato? “To find the Father and Maker of this universe is hard work, and having found him, it is impossible to declare him to everyone.” Why so, in God’s own name? “Because he cannot be spoken of at all.” Well done, Plato; you have touched on the truth. But do not grow weary. Join me in the search for the Good. For a kind of divine outflow has been dropped into all people without exception, and especially into those who devote themselves to learning. That is why, even against their will, they confess that God is one, indestructible and unbegotten. They confess that he exists truly and always, somewhere high up on the back of heaven, in his own proper place of vantage.[96]
6c What kind of God, tell me, are we to think of? “One who sees all things and is himself not seen,” says Euripides. Menander, I think, was mistaken when he said: “O Sun, you must be worshipped first of the gods, for through you we are able to see the other gods.” The sun could never show us the true God. It is the sound Word who does that, who is the sun of the soul. Only when he rises within, in the depth of the mind, is the eye of the soul lit up. So Democritus has good reason to say that “a few learned men stretched out their hands toward what we Greeks now call the air and called it Zeus. For he knows all things, he gives and takes away all things, and he is king of all.” Plato is thinking along the same lines when he hints at God: “All things are around the king of all, and he is the cause of all that is good.” Who then is the king of all?[97]
6d He is God, the measure of the truth of all that exists. Things that are measured are grasped by the measure. In the same way, truth is measured and grasped by understanding God. The truly holy Moses says: “There shall not be in your bag a weight and a weight, one great and one small. Nor shall there be in your house a measure great or small. You shall have only a true and just weight.” He understands God to be the weight, the measure and the number of the whole. For unjust and unequal idols are hidden at home in the bag, and, so to speak, in the filthy soul. But the only just measure, the only one who is truly God, is always equal, always the same and unchanging. He measures and weighs all things. As with a balance, he embraces and holds up the nature of the whole by his justice, without tipping either way.[98] [Deuteronomy 25:13-15]
6e “God, as the old saying goes, holds the beginning, the end and the middle of all things. He goes straight on his course, moving around them according to nature. Justice always follows him, avenging those who fall away from the divine law.” Where, Plato, do you get your hints of the truth? Where does your rich supply of words get its prophetic sense of true worship? “The barbarian peoples,” he says, “are wiser than these.” I know your teachers, even if you want to hide them. You learn geometry from the Egyptians and astronomy from the Babylonians. You take your healing charms from the Thracians, and the Assyrians have taught you many things. But for the laws that are true and for your thoughts about God, you are indebted to the Hebrews themselves, who “do not honor with empty deceits the works of men, in gold and bronze, in silver and ivory, or the images of dead mortals, in wood and stone, such as mortals honor in their empty-minded counsel. Instead they lift pure arms to heaven, rising early from their beds, always cleansing their skin with water, and they honor only the Immortal One who rules forever.”[99]
6f And, philosophy, hurry to bring before me not just this one man, Plato, but many others too. Bring those who, by God’s inspiration, proclaim the one God who truly is the only God, if they have laid hold of the truth anywhere. Antisthenes did not think this up as a Cynic. It was as a follower of Socrates that he said, “God is like no one; therefore no one can learn to know him from an image.” Xenophon the Athenian would also have written openly about the truth, bearing witness as Socrates did, if he had not feared the poison that Socrates drank. Even so, he hints at it. He says: “The one who shakes all things and stills them is clearly great and powerful, but what he is like in form is unseen. Even the sun, which appears so bright, does not seem to allow itself to be seen. If anyone stares at it shamelessly, it takes away his sight.” Where, then, does the son of Gryllus get his wisdom, if not plainly from the Hebrew prophetess, who prophesies something like this?[100]
6g “What flesh can see with its eyes the heavenly and true God, the immortal, who dwells in the vault of heaven? Men cannot even stand in front of the rays of the sun, since they are born mortal.” Cleanthes of Pedasa, the philosopher of the Stoa, shows not a poet’s account of the gods’ origins but a true account of God. He did not hide what he thought about God: “You ask me what the good is like? Listen: ordered, just, holy, pious, self-controlled, useful, noble, fitting, austere, frank, always beneficial, fearless, free from grief, profitable, painless, helpful, pleasing, safe, dear, honored, consistent * * * * * glorious, free from conceit, careful, gentle, vigorous, enduring, blameless, lasting always. Slavish is everyone who looks to reputation, as if he would get something good from it.” Here, I think, he clearly teaches what God is like. He also teaches that popular opinion and custom make slaves of those who follow them instead of seeking God.[101]
6h We must not leave out the followers of Pythagoras either. They say: “God is one. He is not, as some suppose, outside the ordered world, but in it, whole in the whole circle. He oversees all coming-to-be. He is the blending of all the ages, and the worker of his own powers and of all his works. He is the light-giver in heaven and the Father of all, the mind and the animating soul of the whole circle, and the mover of all things.” These words too are enough for knowing God, for anyone who can examine the truth even a little. They were written by these men through God’s inspiration, and we have selected them.
Chapter 7
The Poets Also Bear Testimony to the Truth.
7a Let poetry also come forward for us, since philosophy alone is not enough. Poetry is wholly taken up with falsehood. Yet now at last, with difficulty, it will bear witness to the truth, or rather, it will confess to God how it strayed into myth. Let whichever poet likes come forward first. Aratus thinks that God’s power runs through all things: “so that all things may grow firmly established; therefore they appease him always, first and last. Hail, Father, great wonder, great benefit to men.” In the same way Hesiod of Ascra hints at God: “For he himself is king and lord of all, and no other among the immortals has contended with him in strength.” On the stage too they uncover the truth. One of them looks up to the upper air and the heaven and says, “Take this to be God.” This is Euripides. Then Sophocles, son of Sophillus, says: “In truth there is one God, only one, who made heaven and the wide earth, the bright swell of the sea and the force of the winds. But many of us mortals, wandering in heart, have set up images of the gods, made of stone, or of bronze, or of gold, or of ivory, as a comfort in our troubles. We give them sacrifices and empty festivals, and so we think we are worshipping rightly.”[102]
7b This poet, then, even at some risk, brought the truth before the audience on the stage. But the Thracian Orpheus, son of Oeagrus, was both priest of the mysteries and poet. After teaching the secret rites and the theology of idols, he brings in a retraction of his own, a “palinode” of the truth. Late though it was, he still sang a truly sacred word: “I will speak to those for whom it is right. Shut the doors, all you uninitiated alike. But you, Musaeus, offspring of the light-bringing Moon, listen, for I will tell what is true. Do not let what appeared to you before in your heart rob you of the life you love. Look to the divine Word and keep close to it, keeping your heart, the vessel of understanding, on a straight course. Walk well on the path, and look only to the immortal Lord of the world.” Then he goes on and says plainly: “He is one, self-begotten, and all things are made as the offspring of the One. Among them he himself moves, and no mortal sees him, but he himself sees all.”[103]
7c So spoke Orpheus. In time, after wandering, he came to understand. But you, mortal of many devices, do not delay. Turn back from your wandering and seek God’s favor. For even if the Greeks did catch some sparks of the divine Word and spoke a few things of the truth, this only shows two things. It bears witness that the power of the truth is not hidden. It also proves their own weakness, because they did not reach the goal. For I think it is now clear to everyone that those who act or speak apart from the Word of truth are like people trying to walk without feet. Let the exposures of your gods also shame you into salvation. The poets, forced by the truth, put these exposures into their comedies. The comic poet Menander, for example, says in his play The Charioteer (some editors read The Changeling): “No god pleases me who walks about outdoors with an old woman, nor one who slips into houses on a little board, a begging priest of the Mother.” For that is what the begging priests of the Mother are like.[104]
7d So Antisthenes rightly said to them when they begged: “I do not feed the Mother of the gods; the gods feed her.” Again, the same comic writer, in his play The Priestess, is angry at the common practice. He tries to expose the godless pride of this error and wisely says: “If a man drags the god wherever he wants with cymbals, then the man who does this is greater than the god. But these are tools of audacity and force, invented by men.” Menander is not the only one. Homer and Euripides and many other poets also expose your gods, and they are not afraid to abuse them as freely as they like. For example, they call Athena “dog-fly” and Hephaestus “lame in both legs.” And Helen says to Aphrodite: “May your feet never carry you back to Olympus.”[105] 7e Of Dionysus, Homer writes openly: “He [Lycurgus] once chased the nurses of raving Dionysus over holy Nysa. All of them together threw their sacred implements on the ground, under the attack of man-slaying Lycurgus.” Euripides is truly worthy of the Socratic school. He keeps his eye on the truth and takes no notice of his audience. At one point he exposes Apollo, “who dwells on his seat at the earth’s center, giving mortals his most certain oracles.” Orestes says: “I obeyed him and killed my mother. Think of him as the unholy one and put him to death. He sinned, not I.” For Apollo is the one more ignorant of what is good and just. At another point Euripides brings on Heracles raving mad, and elsewhere drunk and greedy. And why not? This was the Heracles who, when feasted on meat, ate green figs on top of it, howling so tunelessly that even a barbarian would notice. Then in his play Ion he brazenly wheels the gods out onto the stage: “How is it just that you, who wrote the laws for mortals, are yourselves guilty of wrongdoing? Suppose (though it never will happen, I will make the argument) you pay men the penalty for the women you took by force, you, Poseidon, and Zeus, who rules the sky. Then in paying for your wrongs you will empty your temples.”[106]
Chapter 8
The True Doctrine is to Be Sought in the Prophets.
8a Now that we have finished the other matters in order, it is time to turn to the writings of the prophets. Their oracles set out most clearly the starting points for true devotion to God, and so they lay the foundation of the truth. The divine Scriptures, together with a disciplined way of life, are short roads to salvation. They have no cosmetics, no outward fine speech, no glibness, no flattery. They raise up a person who is being strangled by evil, and they look down on the slippery footing of this life. With one and the same voice they heal many ills. They turn us away from ruinous deceit, and they plainly urge us toward a salvation that lies open before us. So let the prophetess, the Sibyl, be the first to sing us the song of salvation: “Look, he is plain to all and free from error. Come, do not keep chasing darkness and gloom. See, the sweet-shining light of the sun gleams brilliantly.”[107]
8b “But know it, and store up wisdom in your hearts. There is one God, who sends rains, winds, earthquakes, lightnings, famines, plagues, grievous sorrows, snows and ice. But why do I list them one by one? He rules heaven, he governs the earth, he himself truly exists.” In this she speaks with real inspiration. She likens deceit to darkness and the knowledge of God to the sun and its light. By setting the two side by side she teaches us to choose. For falsehood is not scattered by merely placing the truth next to it. It is driven out and put to flight when the truth is put to use. The prophet Jeremiah is full of wisdom, or rather the Holy Spirit in Jeremiah shows us God. He says: “I am a God who is near, and not a God far off. If a man does something in secret, will I not see him?[108] [Jeremiah 23:23-24]
8c Do I not fill the heavens and the earth? says the Lord.” Again, through Isaiah, he says: “Who will measure the heaven with a span and the whole earth with a handful?” See God’s greatness and be amazed. Let us worship him of whom the prophet says: “Before your face mountains will melt, as wax melts before the face of fire.” This, he says, is the God “whose throne is heaven and whose footstool is the earth,” and “if he opens the heaven, trembling will seize you.” Do you want to hear what this prophet says about idols too? “They will be made an example before the sun. Their dead bodies will be food for the birds of heaven and the wild animals of the earth. They will rot under the sun and the moon, which they loved and served, and their city will be burned.” He says that the elements and the world will be destroyed along with them: “The earth will grow old and the heaven will pass away, but the word of the Lord remains forever.” And what of the time when God again wants to show himself through Moses?[109] [Isaiah 40:12; Isaiah 64:1-2; Isaiah 66:1; Isaiah 40:8]
8d “Look, look! I am, and there is no other god besides me. I will kill and I will make alive; I will strike and I will heal, and there is no one who can rescue from my hands.” But do you want to hear another prophet speaking God’s oracles? You have the whole prophetic chorus, the companions of Moses. What does the Holy Spirit say to them through Hosea? I will not hesitate to say it: “Look, I am the one who makes the thunder strong and creates the wind (spirit).” His hands laid the foundations of the host of heaven. Again, through Isaiah (I will recall this saying for you as well): “I am, I am the Lord, who speaks righteousness and announces truth. Gather together and come. Take counsel together, you who have escaped from the nations. They did not know, those who carry their wooden carved image and pray to gods who will not save them.” Then, going on, he says: “I am God, and there is no righteous one except me, and there is no savior besides me. Turn to me and you will be saved, you from the ends of the earth.[110] [Deuteronomy 32:39; Amos 4:13; Isaiah 45:19-20; Isaiah 45:21-22]
8e I am God, and there is no other. I swear by myself.” He is angry with idol worshippers and says: “To whom have you likened the Lord? Or what likeness have you compared him to? Did a craftsman make an image, or did a goldsmith melt gold and plate him with gold?” And so on. Surely you are not still idol worshippers? At least now beware of the threats. The carved and handmade things will wail, or rather those who trust in them will, for matter has no feeling. He says further: “The Lord will shake inhabited cities and will seize the whole inhabited world in his hand like a nest.” Why should I tell you the mysteries of wisdom and the sayings of a Hebrew child who was made wise? “The Lord created me as the beginning of his ways, for his works.” And: “The Lord gives wisdom, and from his face come knowledge and understanding.” “How long, lazy one, will you lie there?[111] [Isaiah 45:22-23; Isaiah 40:18-19; Proverbs 8:22; Proverbs 2:6]
8f When will you rise from sleep? But if you are not lazy, your harvest will come to you like a spring.” This harvest is the Father’s Word, the good lamp, the Lord who brings light, faith and salvation to all. For as Jeremiah says, “The Lord who made the earth by his strength set the world upright by his wisdom.” We had fallen down to idols, and wisdom, which is his Word, sets us upright again toward the truth. This is the first resurrection from our fall. So the divinely inspired Moses, turning us away from all idolatry, cried out most beautifully: “Hear, Israel: the Lord your God, the Lord, is one,” and “You shall worship the Lord your God and serve him alone.” So now, understand, you people, as that blessed psalmist David says: “Take hold of instruction, or the Lord may become angry, and you will perish from the righteous way, when his anger is quickly kindled.[112] [Jeremiah 10:12; Deuteronomy 6:4; Deuteronomy 6:13]
8g Blessed are all who trust in him.” Already the Lord, in his great pity for us, is giving the song of salvation, like a marching rhythm: “Sons of men, how long will you be heavy of heart? Why do you love emptiness and seek after falsehood?” What, then, is the emptiness, and what is the falsehood? The holy apostle of the Lord, accusing the Greeks, will explain it to you: “Because they knew God but did not glorify him as God or give thanks. Instead they became empty in their reasonings, and they exchanged the glory of God for the likeness of an image of corruptible man, and they worshipped the creation instead of the Creator.” Yet this is the God who “in the beginning made heaven and earth.” You do not understand God, but you worship the heaven. How are you not guilty of impiety?[113] [Romans 1:21-23; Romans 1:25; Genesis 1:1] 8h Listen again to a prophet who says: “The sun will fail and the heaven will be darkened, but the Almighty will shine forever. The powers of the heavens will be shaken, and the heavens, stretched out and drawn together, will be rolled up like a hide.” (These are the words of the prophets.) “And the earth will flee from the face of the Lord.”[114] [Isaiah 13:10; Isaiah 34:4]
Chapter 9
"That Those Grievously Sin Who Despise or Neglect God's Gracious Calling."
9a I could bring you countless passages of Scripture, of which not one “stroke of a letter” will pass away without being fulfilled. For the mouth of the Lord, the Holy Spirit, spoke these things. “So then, my son,” he says, “no longer make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you.” What overflowing kindness! He does not warn us as a teacher warns pupils, or a master warns servants, or God warns men. He warns us as “a gentle father” warns his sons. Moses admits that he was “afraid and trembling” when he heard about the Word. Do you hear the divine Word and feel no fear? Do you feel no anguish? Are you not both reverent and eager to learn, that is, eager for salvation? Do you not fear the wrath, love the grace, and long for the hope, so that you may escape the judgment?[115] [Matthew 5:18; Proverbs 3:11; Hebrews 12:5; Hebrews 12:21]
9b Come, come, my young people! “Unless you become like little children again and are born again,” as the Scripture says, you will not receive the Father who truly is, “and you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” How could a foreigner be allowed to enter? But when he is enrolled, made a citizen, and receives the Father, then, I think, he will be “among the things of the Father.” Then he will be counted worthy to inherit. Then he will share the Father’s kingdom with the true Son, the “Beloved.” For this is the firstborn church, made up of many good children. These are the “firstborn enrolled in heaven,” who keep festival together with so many “myriads of angels.” We are the firstborn children, the ones God nurtures, the true friends of the “Firstborn.” We were the first of all people to understand God, the first to be torn away from our sins, and the first to be separated from the devil.[116] [Matthew 18:3; John 3:3; Luke 2:49; Hebrews 12:22-23]
9c But now, the kinder God is, the more godless some people become. He wants us to become sons instead of slaves, and they have been too proud even to become sons. What great folly! You are ashamed of the Lord. He promises freedom, and you run off to slavery. He gives salvation as a gift, and you let yourselves be carried down to death. He offers eternal life, and you wait for punishment. You look toward “the fire that the Lord prepared for the devil and his angels.” That is why the blessed apostle says, “I testify in the Lord that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles walk, in the emptiness of their minds. Their understanding is darkened, and they are cut off from the life of God because of the ignorance in them and the hardness of their hearts. Having lost all feeling, they have given themselves over to indecency, to practice every kind of uncleanness and greed.” Such a witness exposes human folly and calls on God. What is left for the unbelieving but judgment and condemnation?[117] [Matthew 25:41; Ephesians 4:17-19]
9d The Lord never tires of advising, frightening, urging, rousing and warning. He wakes people from sleep, and he raises out of the darkness those who have gone astray. “Wake up, sleeper,” he says, “and rise from the dead, and Christ the Lord will shine on you.” He is the sun of the resurrection, “begotten before the morning star,” who gave life by his own rays. So let no one look down on the Word, or he may unknowingly be despising himself. For the Scripture says somewhere, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts, as in the rebellion, on the day of testing in the wilderness, where your fathers tested me by putting me on trial.” If you want to learn what that trial was, the Holy Spirit will explain it to you: “And they saw my works for forty years. So I was angry with that generation and said, ‘They are always going astray in their hearts. They did not know my ways.’ So I swore in my anger, ‘They shall never enter into my rest.’” See the threat. See the encouragement. See the honor. Why, then, do we still turn grace into wrath? Why do we not take in the Word with open ears and welcome God as a guest in pure souls?[118] [Ephesians 5:14; Hebrews 3:7-11]
9e For great is the grace of his promise, if today we hear his voice. This “today” grows with each day, as long as it is still called “today.” Until the end of the age, both the “today” and the learning continue. Then the true “today,” God’s unending day, stretches out together with the ages. So let us always obey the voice of the divine Word. For “today” is an image of eternal time, and day is a symbol of light. The Word is light for human beings, and through him we are lit up to see God. It is fitting, then, that grace should overflow to those who believe and obey. But God is angry with those who disobey, who go astray in heart, and who have not known the Lord’s paths, which John commanded people to make straight and ready, and he threatens them. The ancient wanderers of the Hebrews received the outcome of that threat in a figure. They are said not to have entered the rest because of their unbelief, until at last, by following Moses’ successor, they learned by actual experience that they could be saved in no other way than by believing as Joshua (in Greek, “Jesus”) believed.[119] [Hebrews 3:13; Hebrews 3:19; Matthew 3:3]
9f The Lord, in his love for humanity, calls all people “to the knowledge of the truth.” He is the one who sends the Paraclete. What, then, is this knowledge? Godliness. For according to Paul, “godliness is profitable for everything, holding a promise for the present life and for the life to come.” How much would you have agreed to pay, my friends, if eternal salvation were for sale? Even if someone measured out the whole of the Pactolus, that legendary stream of gold, he would not count out a price equal to salvation. So do not lose heart. You may, if you wish, buy this priceless salvation with a treasure of your own: love and the faith that belongs to life. That is a worthy price. God gladly accepts this payment. “For we have set our hope on the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of believers.” But the rest cling to the world like seaweed to rocks in the sea, and they think little of immortality. Like the old man of Ithaca, they long not for the truth, nor for the homeland in heaven, nor for the light that truly is, but for smoke.[120] [1 Timothy 2:4; 1 Timothy 4:8; 1 Timothy 4:10]
9g Godliness makes a person like God as far as that is possible. It names as its fitting teacher God, who alone is able to make a human being truly like himself. The apostle knew this teaching to be truly divine, and he says: “But you, Timothy, have known the sacred writings from infancy, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ.” Truly sacred are those writings that make people holy and make them divine. The same apostle then calls the Scriptures that are put together from these sacred letters and syllables “God-breathed,” “useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” No one could be so struck by the exhortations of any other saints as by the Lord himself, the lover of humanity. For this is his one and only work: that human beings be saved.[121] [2 Timothy 3:15; 2 Timothy 3:16-17]
9h So he himself cries out, urging people on to salvation: “The kingdom of heaven has come near.” He turns people around by fear as they draw near. In the same way the Lord’s apostle, appealing to the Macedonians, becomes the interpreter of the divine voice, saying, “The Lord is near; take care that we are not found empty.” But you are so fearless, or rather so unbelieving, that you obey neither the Lord himself nor Paul, even though Paul was in chains for Christ. “Taste and see that God is good.” Faith will lead you in, experience will teach you, and Scripture will train you, saying, “Come, children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the Lord.” Then, as though to people who already believe, it briefly adds, “Who is the person who wants life and loves to see good days?” We are, we shall answer, we who worship the Good and are zealous for good things.[122] [Matthew 4:17; Philippians 4:5]
9i So hear, “you who are far away,” and hear, “you who are near.” The Word has been hidden from no one. He is a common light and shines on all people. No one is a Cimmerian as far as the Word is concerned. Let us hurry to salvation, to the new birth. Let us, the many, hurry to be gathered into one love, in keeping with the union of the single, undivided being. As we are made good, let us likewise pursue unity, seeking the good Unity. The union of the many, receiving a divine harmony out of a medley of voices and scattered parts, becomes one symphony. It follows one choir-leader and teacher, the Word, and rests on the truth itself, saying “Abba, Father.” God welcomes this true voice from his children and gathers it as the first fruit.[123] [Isaiah 57:19; Ephesians 2:17; Romans 8:15; Galatians 4:6]
Notes
[66] Clement explains two Greek words for cult images by wordplay: xoana from xeō, “to scrape or carve,” and brete from brotoi, “mortals.”
[67] The “Venerable Ones” (Semnai) were the goddesses worshiped at Athens and usually identified with the Furies (Erinyes or Eumenides).
[68] The “Indian beast” is presumably the elephant, whose ivory Phidias used for the statue. Clement does not name it.
[69] The older translation leaves out both “bronze” and “iron” from the list of metals.
[70] The older translation reads “Remain free” as if spoken to the man. The Greek says that beauty is to remain free.
[71] Aguieus is Apollo as guardian of the streets. He was represented by a pillar set up at the door.
[72] Some editors bracket “the image” in the last sentence as a later addition. If the words are kept, the sense is that God himself is the Christian’s image, one grasped by the mind and not by the senses.
[73] “Antiochus of Cyzicus” is Antiochus IX, a Seleucid king of Syria (late 2nd century BC). He was nicknamed Cyzicenus because he was brought up at Cyzicus.
[74] Herodotus (Histories 3.27–29) tells how the Persian king Cambyses stabbed the Apis bull, which the Egyptians worshipped as a god.
[75] Other ancient writers, such as Athenaeus, say Phryne (mentioned in the next section) was the model for the Cnidian Aphrodite. Clement follows Posidippus in naming Cratine.
[76] In the myth as told by Apollodorus (Library 1.7.4), Zeus punished Ceyx and Alcyone for calling themselves Zeus and Hera by turning them into birds. There, Alcyone is the daughter of Aeolus and Ceyx is the son of the Morning Star, whereas Clement calls Ceyx the son of Aeolus.
[77] The Greek calls Nicagoras a man of Zeleia, a town in the Troad near the Hellespont, not Zela in Pontus.
[78] Clement says literally that Homer “honored them with badness.” The exact sense is uncertain; the older translation has “sinister honour.” The word rendered “filthy” (δεισαλέα) seems to be related to a word for slime or mire, which probably explains the older translation’s “watery.” The older translation also renders εἴδωλα (“idols”) as “shades.”
[79] Adamant (ἀδάμας) was a word for an extremely hard metal or stone; the older translation renders it “steel.”
[80] “The place above the heavens” echoes Plato, Phaedrus 247c. “The Olympian” means Zeus of Olympia, whose famous statue by Phidias was made of gold and ivory.
[81] “Golden” is a standard epithet of Aphrodite in Homer.
[82] The Aphrodite of Cnidus was a famous nude statue by the sculptor Praxiteles.
[83] The woman is Pasiphae in the Greek myth. Daedalus built a wooden cow so that she could mate with a bull.
[84] The Greek word rendered “carpenters” (tektones) usually means woodworkers or builders.
[85] The Greek word for “plan” is oikonomia, often rendered “dispensation” or “economy.”
[86] The Athenian orator is Demosthenes (Third Olynthiac 19).
[87] Philaenis was a woman to whom a manual of sexual positions was attributed.
[88] The quotation is Psalm 96:5 (95:5 in the Greek Old Testament), which in the Greek reads “all the gods of the nations are demons, but the Lord made the heavens” (the Hebrew has “idols”). Clement’s wording differs (“idols of demons,” “God”), and “and what is in heaven” appears to be his own addition.
[89] The quotation adapts Psalm 33:6 (32:6 in the Greek Old Testament), where the subject is “the heavens” and “the word of the Lord.” “Works of his fingers” comes from Psalm 8:3.
[90] The adverb rendered “wonderfully well” (pankalōs) most naturally goes with “was made,” but the word order also allows it to go with “agree” (“quite rightly agree”).
[91] Clement’s derivations of “Poseidon” from “posis” (drink) and “Ares” from “arsis”/”anairesis” are ancient word-plays, not reliable etymologies.
[92] The Greek reads literally “Artaxerxes of Darius of Ochus.” This most likely means Artaxerxes II, son of Darius II, whose personal name was Ochus.
[93] “Fixed stars” translates “aplaneis,” the “non-wandering” stars, as opposed to the planets (“wanderers”). Xenocrates’ eighth god is the heaven made up of these fixed stars.
[94] Ancient summaries of Aristotle’s teaching credited him with the view that providence reaches only as far as the moon. It is not stated in this form in his surviving works.
[95] The “wandering stars” are the planets. The Greek word for “wander” is the root of “planet”, and Clement plays on it: those who worship the wanderers have themselves wandered astray.
[96] “The back of heaven” echoes Plato’s Phaedrus (247b-c), where the souls stand on the back of heaven and gaze at true being.
[97] The Plato quotation is from his Second Letter (312e).
[98] Deuteronomy 25:13-15, quoted closely from the Greek Old Testament, with some shortening.
[99] The closing verses come from the Sibylline Oracles (Book 3), Greek verses written in the style of a pagan prophetess. Clement does not name the source here.
[100] “The son of Gryllus” is Xenophon. The saying about the sun closely matches Xenophon’s Memorabilia (4.3.14). The “Hebrew prophetess” is the Sibyl, whose verses follow. Clement treats her as a prophetess of the Hebrews.
[101] The same Greek word, doxa, means “reputation” in Cleanthes’ line and “opinion” in Clement’s comment, so Clement’s comment picks up the word from the quotation.
[102] Most scholars think these “Sophocles” lines are not genuine, and that a later writer, probably a Jewish one, composed them.
[103] These verses come from a poem known as the “Testament of Orpheus.” Most scholars think a Jewish author wrote it, not the legendary Orpheus.
[104] Menander is mocking the wandering begging priests of Cybele, the “Mother of the gods”; the exact sense of “on a little board” is uncertain.
[105] The phrase “as freely as they like” renders a short and obscure Greek expression.
[106] “Brazenly” renders a Greek idiom that literally means “with bare head,” that is, openly and without shame. The Greek speaks literally of “violent marriages,” unions forced on women.
[107] Clement quotes from the Sibylline Oracles. These Greek verses were written in the name of the ancient pagan prophetess, the Sibyl, but much of the collection was produced by Jews and Christians. Clement treats them as genuine prophecy. They are not part of Scripture.
[108] Clement quotes Jeremiah 23:23–24 as a statement, following the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint); the Hebrew text, followed by most English Bibles, has a question: “Am I a God at hand, and not a God afar off?”
[109] The quotations are from Jeremiah 23:24, Isaiah 40:12, Isaiah 64:1–2 (Greek Old Testament; the source of both the melting mountains and the opened heaven), and Isaiah 66:1. The passage on idols loosely combines Jeremiah 7:33 and 8:2. The last quotations are from Isaiah 51:6 and 40:8.
[110] The first quotation is Deuteronomy 32:39. The “thunder” quotation matches Amos 4:13 in the Greek Old Testament, though Clement names Hosea. The Isaiah quotations are from Isaiah 45:19–22.
[111] The quotations are from Isaiah 45:22–23, Isaiah 40:18–19, Isaiah 10:10 and 10:13–14, Proverbs 8:22, Proverbs 2:6 and Proverbs 6:9. The “Hebrew child” is apparently Solomon, since the sayings come from Proverbs, but Clement does not name him here.
[112] The quotations are from Proverbs 6:11 (Greek Old Testament), Jeremiah 10:12, Deuteronomy 6:4 and 6:13, and Psalm 2:10–12. Clement’s wording of Deuteronomy 6:13 (“worship... him alone”) matches Jesus’ quotation in Matthew 4:10, whereas most manuscripts of the Greek Old Testament read “fear.”
[113] The quotations are from Psalm 2:12, Psalm 4:2 (Psalm 4:3 in the Greek numbering), Romans 1:21–25 and Genesis 1:1. Clement shortens the Romans passage, joining parts of verses 21, 23 and 25.
[114] Clement’s remark “these are the words of the prophets” shows that this is a string of prophetic phrases, not one passage. Compare Isaiah 13:10 and 34:4, Matthew 24:29, and Revelation 6:14 and 20:11.
[115] Moses’ words “afraid and trembling” closely follow Hebrews 12:21, about Mount Sinai. Clement applies them to Moses hearing about the Word (περὶ τοῦ λόγου).
[116] “Among the things of the Father” is the same Greek phrase as in Luke 2:49, usually rendered “in my Father’s house” or “about my Father’s business”. The Greek wording of the “firstborn enrolled in heaven” and the “myriads of angels” echoes Hebrews 12:22-23.
[117] The Greek verb (προσκοπεῖτε) means to look ahead to or watch for the fire, that is, they are heading toward it.
[118] “They shall never enter” renders a Hebrew-style oath formula, literally “if they shall enter.”
[119] Moses’ successor is Joshua, whose Greek name, Iēsous, is the same as “Jesus.” Hebrews 4:8 also calls Joshua by that name, and Clement likely intends a play on the name.
[120] The Pactolus was a river in Lydia famous in legend for its gold. The “old man of Ithaca” is Odysseus, who in the Odyssey (book 1) longs to see even the smoke rising from his homeland. He also turned down the nymph Calypso’s offer to make him immortal so that he could go home.
[121] The quotations are from 2 Timothy 3:15–17. The Greek word for “writings” (grammata) also means “letters” of the alphabet, which is why Clement goes on to speak of “letters and syllables.”
[122] The psalm quotations are from Psalm 34:8, 11–12 (33:9, 12–13 in the Greek Old Testament). The Greek Psalm has “the Lord is good,” and Clement has “God.”
[123] The Cimmerians were a legendary people in Homer’s Odyssey (book 11) who lived in mist and darkness, never seeing the sun.