Inglés · Textos cristianos
Padres Ante-Nicenos, Vol. II: Los Padres Apostólicos, Hermas, Taciano, Atenágoras, Teófilo y Clemente de Alejandría
Parte 8
After I had fully written down this book, that messenger who had delivered me to the Shepherd came into the house in which I was, and sat down upon a couch, and the Shepherd stood on his right hand. He then called me, and spoke to me as follows: “I have delivered you and your house to the Shepherd, that you may be protected by him.” “Yes, sir,” I said. “If you wish, therefore, to be protected,” he said, “from all annoyance, and from all harsh treatment, and to have success in every good work and word, and to possess all the virtues of righteousness, walk in these commandments which he has given you, and you will be able to subdue all wickedness. For if you keep those commandments, every desire and pleasure of the world will be subject to you, and success will attend you in every good work. Take unto yourself his experience and moderation, and say to all that he is in great honour and dignity with God, and that he is a president with great power, and mighty in his office. To him alone throughout the whole world is the power of repentance assigned. Does he seem to you to be powerful? But you despise his experience, and the moderation which he exercises towards you.”
Chap. II.
I said to him, “Ask himself, sir, whether from the time that he has entered my house I have done anything improper, or have offended him in any respect.” He answered, “I also know that you neither have done nor will do anything improper, and therefore I speak these words to you, that you may persevere. For he had a good report of you to me, and you will say these words to others, that they also who have either repented or will still repent may entertain the same feelings with you, and he may report well of these to me, and I to the Lord.” And I p. 55 said, “Sir, I make known to every man the great works of God: and I hope that all those who love them, and have sinned before, on hearing these words, may repent, and receive life again.” “Continue, therefore, in this ministry, and finish it. And all who follow out his commands shall have life, and great honour with the Lord. 401 But those who do not keep his commandments, flee from his life, and despise him. But he has his own honour with the Lord. All, therefore, who shall despise him, 402 and not follow his commands, deliver themselves to death, and every one of them will be guilty of his own blood. But I enjoin you, that you obey his commands, and you will have a cure for your former sins.”
Chap. III.
“Moreover, I sent you these virgins, that they may dwell with you. 403 For I saw that they were courteous to you. You will therefore have them as assistants, that you may be the better able to keep his commands: for it is impossible that these commandments can be observed without these virgins. I see, moreover, that they abide with you willingly; but I will also instruct them not to depart at all from your house: do you only keep your house pure, as they will delight to dwell in a pure abode. For they are pure, and chaste, and industrious, and have all influence with the Lord. Therefore, if they find your house to be pure, they will remain with you; but if any defilement, even a little, befall it, they will immediately withdraw from your house. For these virgins do not at all like any defilement.” I said to him, “I hope, sir, that I will please them, so that they may always be willing to inhabit my house. And as he to whom you entrusted me has no complaint against me, so neither will they have.” He said to the Shepherd, “I see that the servant of God wishes to live, and to keep these commandments, and will place these virgins in a pure habitation.” 404 When he had spoken these words he again delivered me to the Shepherd, and called those virgins, and said to them, “Since I see that you are willing to dwell in his house, I commend him and his house to you, asking that you withdraw not at all from it.” And the virgins heard these words with pleasure.
Chap. IV.
The angel 405 then said to me, “Conduct yourself manfully in this service, and make known to every one the great things of God, 406 and you will have favour in this ministry. Whoever, therefore, shall walk in these commandments, shall have life, and will be happy in his life; but whosoever shall neglect them shall not have life, and will be unhappy in this life. Enjoin all, who are able to act rightly, not to cease well-doing; for, to practice good works is useful to them. 407 And I say that every man ought to be saved from inconveniences. For both he who is in want, and he who suffers inconveniences in his daily life, is in great torture and necessity. Whoever, therefore, rescues a soul of this kind from necessity, will gain for himself great joy. For he who is harassed by inconveniences of this kind, suffers equal torture with him who is in chains. Moreover many, on account of calamities of this sort, when they could not endure them, hasten their own deaths. Whoever, then, knows a calamity of this kind afflicting a man, and does not save him, commits a great sin, and becomes guilty of his blood. 408 Do good works, therefore, ye who have received good from the Lord; lest, while ye delay to do them, the building of the tower be finished, and you be rejected from the edifice: there is now no other tower a-building. For on your account was the work of building suspended. Unless, then, you make haste to do rightly, the tower will be completed, and you will be excluded.”
After he had spoken with me he rose up from the couch, and taking the Shepherd and the virgins, he departed. But he said to me that he would send back the Shepherd and the virgins to my dwelling. Amen. 409
Footnotes
55:401
Lord. God.—Pal.
55:402
But he has his own honour … despise him, omitted in Vat.
55:403
[Cap. xiii. p. 48, supra.]
55:404
[1 Pet. i. 22.]
55:405
Angel, Æth.; Pastor, Pal.; omitted in Vat.
55:406
God, common version; Lord, Æth., Pal.; Lord God, Vat.
55:407
[Here might follow that beautiful fragment of Irenæus, on God’s goodness accepting the feeblest efforts of the soul in drawing near to Him. Vol. i. Frag. lv. p. 577, this series.]
55:408
[Jas. 5:19, 20. As St. James concludes with this principle, so also Hermas, who evidently delights in this apostle’s teaching and has thrown it into this allegorical metaphrase.]
55:409
The Vatican has: “Here ends the Book of the Shepherd, the disciple of the blessed apostle Paul. Thanks be to God.” The Æthiopic has: “May the name of him who wrote this book be written on a pillar of gold. With thanksgiving to Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, this book of the prophet Hermas has been finished. Amen. Finished are the visions, and commandments, and similitudes of the prophet Hermas, who is Paul, in the year 191 of mercy, 23d night and 22d day of the month,” etc. The writer goes on [fruitlessly] to show that Hermas is Paul, appealing to Acts xiv. 12.
Elucidations.
p. 56
I.
The reader has now had an opportunity of judging for himself whether the internal evidence favours any other view of the authorship of The Shepherd, than that which I have adopted. Its apparent design is to meet the rising pestilence of Montanism, and the perils of a secondary stage of Christianity. This it attempts to do by an imaginary voice from the first period. Avoiding controversy, Hermas presents, in the name of his earlier synonyme, a portraiture of the morals and practical godliness which were recognised as “the way of holiness” in the apostolic days. In so doing, he falls into anachronisms, of course, as poets and romancers must. These are sufficiently numerous to reveal the nature of his production, and to prove that the author was not the Hermas of the story.
The authorship was a puzzle and a problem during the earlier discussions of the learned. An anonymous poem (falsely ascribed to Tertullian, but very ancient) did, indeed, give a clue to the solution:—
“—deinde Pius, Hermas cui germine frater,
Angelicus Pastor, quia tradita verba locutus.”
To say that there was no evidence to sustain this, is to grant that it doubles the evidence when sufficient support for it is discovered. This was supplied by the fragment found in Milan, by the erudite and indefatigable Muratori, about a hundred and fifty years ago. Its history, with very valuable notes on the fragment itself, which is given entire, may be found in Routh’s Reliquiæ. 410 Or the English reader may consult Westcott’s very luminous statement of the case. 411 I am sorry that Dr. Donaldson doubts and objects; but he would not deny that experts, at least his equals, 412 accept the Muratorian Canon, which carries with it the historic testimony needed in the case of Hermas. All difficulties disappear in the light of this evidence. Hermas was brother of Pius, ninth Bishop of Rome (after Hyginus, circ. a.d. 157), and wrote his prose idyl under the fiction of his Pauline predecessor’s name and age. This accounts (1) for the existence of the work, (2) for its form of allegory and prophesying, (3) for its anachronisms, (4) for its great currency, and (5) for its circulation among the Easterns, which was greater than it enjoyed in the West; and also (6) for their innocent mistake in ascribing it to the elder Hermas.
1. The Phrygian enthusiasm, like the convulsionism of Paris 413 in the last century, was a phenomenon not to be trifled with; especially when it began to threaten the West. This work was produced to meet so great an emergency.
2. “Fire fights fire,” and prophesyings are best met by prophesyings. These were rare among the Orthodox, but Hermas undertook to restore those of the apostolic age; and I think this is what is meant by the tradita verba of the old poem, i.e., words “transmitted or bequeathed traditionally” from the times of Clement. Irenæus, the contemporary of this Hermas, had received the traditions of the same age from Polycarp: hence the greater probability of my conjecture that the brother of Pius compiled many traditional prophesyings of the first age.
3. Supposing the work to be in fact what it is represented to be in fiction, we have seen that it abounds with anachronisms. As now explained, we can account for them: the second Hermas forgets himself, like other poets, and mixes up his own period with that which he endeavours to portray.
p. 57
4 and 5. Written in Greek, its circulation in the West was necessarily limited; but, as the plague of Montanism was raging in the East, its Greek was a godsend, and enabled the Easterns to introduce it everywhere as a useful book. Origen values it as such; and, taking it without thought to be the work of the Pauline Hermas, attributes to it, as a fancy of his own, 414 that kind of inspiration which pertained to early “prophesyings.” This conjecture once started, “it satisfied curiosity,” says Westcott, “and supplied the place of more certain information; but, though it found acceptance, it acquired no new strength.” 415
6. Eusebius and Jerome 416 merely repeat the report as an on dit, and on this slender authority it travelled down. The Pauline Hermas was credited with it; and the critics, in their researches, find multiplied traces of the one mistake, as did the traveller whose circuits became a beaten road under the hoofs of his own horse.
If the reader will now turn back to the Introductory Note of the Edinburgh editors, he will find that the three views of which they take any serious notice are harmonized by that we have reached. (1) The work is unquestionably, on its face, the work of the Pauline Hermas. (2) But this is attributable to the fact that it is a fiction, or prose poem. (3) And hence it must be credited to the later Hermas, whose name and authorship are alone supported by external testimony, as well as internal evidence.
II.
(Similitude Ninth, cap. xi. p. 47, note 1.)
Westcott is undoubtedly correct in connecting this strange passage with one of the least defensible experiments of early Christian living. Gibbon finds in this experiment nothing but an opportunity for his scurrility. 417 A true philosopher will regard it very differently; and here, once and for all, we may speak of it somewhat at length. The young believer, a member, perhaps, of a heathen family, daily mixed up with abominable manners, forced to meet everywhere, by day, the lascivious hetæræ of the Greeks or those who are painted by Martial among the Latins, had no refuge but in flying to the desert, or practising the most heroic self-restraint if he remained with the relations and companions of his youth. If he went to the bath, it was to see naked women wallowing with vile men: if he slept upon the housetop, it was to throw down his mat or rug in a promiscuous stye of men and women. 418 This alike with rich and poor; but the latter were those among whom the Gospel found its more numerous recruits, and it was just these who were least able to protect themselves from pollutions. Their only resource was in that self-mastery, out of which sprung the Encraty of Tatian and the Montanism of Tertullian. Angelic purity was supposed to be attainable in this life; and the experiment was doubtless attended with some success, among the more resolute in fastings and prayer. Inevitably, however, what was “begun in the spirit,” ended “in the flesh,” in many instances. To live as brothers and sisters in the family of Christ, was a daring experiment; especially in such a social atmosphere, and amid the domestic habits of the heathen. Scandals ensued. Canonical censures were made stringent by p. 58 the Church; and, while the vices of men and the peril of persecution multiplied the anchorites of the desert, this mischief was crushed out, and made impossible for Christians. “The sun-clad power of chastity,” which Hermas means to depict, was no doubt gloriously exemplified among holy men and women, in those heroic ages. The power of the Holy Ghost demonstrated, in many instances, how true it is, that, “to the pure, all things are pure.” But the Gospel proscribes everything like presumption and “leading into temptation.” The Church, in dealing with social evils, often encouraged a recourse to monasticism, in its pure form; but this also tended to corruption. To charge Christianity, however, with rash experiments of living which it never tolerated, is neither just nor philosophical. We have in it an example of the struggles of individuals out of heathenism,—by no means an institution of Christianity itself. It was a struggle, which, in its spirit, demands sympathy and respect. The Gospel has taught us to nauseate what even a regenerated heathen conceived to be praiseworthy, until the Christian family had become a developed product of the Church. 419
The Gospel arms its enemies against itself, by elevating them infinitely above what they would have been without its influences. Refined by its social atmosphere, but refusing its sanctifying power, they gloat over the failures and falls of those with whom their own emancipation was begun. Let us rather admire those whom she lifted out of an abyss of moral degradation, but whose struggles to reach the high levels of her precepts were not always successful. Yet these very struggles were heroic; for all their original habits, and all their surroundings, were of the sort “which hardens all within, and petrifies the feeling.”
The American editor has devoted more than his usual amount of annotation to Hermas, and he affectionately asks the student not to overlook the notes, in which he has condensed rather than amplified exposition. It has been a labour of love to contribute something to a just conception of The Shepherd, because the Primitive Age has often been reproached with its good repute in the early churches. So little does one generation comprehend another! When Christians conscientiously rejected the books of the heathen, and had as yet none of their own, save the Sacred Scriptures, or such scanty portions of the New Testament as were the treasures of the churches, is it wonderful that the first effort at Christian allegory was welcomed, especially in a time of need and perilous temptation?
Footnotes
56:410
Tom. i. pp. 393–434.
56:411
On the Canon, p. 235. Ed. 1855.
56:412
Such as Lightfoot, Westcott, Canon Cook, and others.
56:413
Candidly treated by Guettée, L’Eglise de France, vol. xii. p. 15. See also Parton’s Voltaire, vol. i. pp. 260–270.
57:414
Comment., book x. sec. 31, as quoted in Westcott, p. 219.
57:415
I subjoin Westcott’s references: Clem. Alex., Stromata, i. 17, sec. 85; Ibid., i. 29, sec. 29; Ibid., ii. 1, sec. 3. Also Ibid., ii. 12, sec. 55; iv. 9. sec. 76; vi. 6, sec. 46. Also Tertull., Pudicitia, capp. 10 and 20. These I have verified in Ed. Oehler, pp. 468, 488. I add De Oratione, capp. xvi. p. 311. Let me also add Athanasius, De Incarnatione, p. 38; Contra Hæresim Arian., p. 369; Ibid., 380. To the testimony of this great Father and defender of the faith I attach the greatest importance; because his approval shows that there was nothing in the book, as he had it in its pure text, to justify the attempts of moderns to disprove its orthodoxy. Athanasius calls is “a most useful book,” and quotes it again (“although that book is not in the Canon”) with great respect. Ed. Paris, 1572.
Modern theories of inspiration appear to me untenable, with reference to canonical Scripture; but they precisely illustrate the sort of inspiration with which these prophesyings were probably first credited. The human element is largely intermixed with divine suggestions; or you may state the proposition conversely.
57:416
Eusebius, iii. 3, and Hieronym., catal. x. See Westcott, p. 220.
57:417
Milman’s Gibbon, vol. i. p. 550. The editor’s notes are not over severe, and might be greatly strengthened as refutations.
57:418
Van Lennep, Bible-lands, p. 440.
58:419
See Vision iii. cap. 8, for the relation of encraty to faith, in the view of Hermas; also (cap. 7 and passim) note his uncompromising reproofs of lust, and his beautiful delineations of chastity. The third canon of the Nicene Synod proscribed the syneisactæ, and also the nineteenth of Ancyra, adopted at Chalcedon into the Catholic discipline.
Tatian’s Address to the Greeks
p. 59
[Translated by J. E. Ryland]
p. 60
Introductory Note
p. 61
to
Taitian the Assyrian
[Translated by J. E. Ryland.]
[a.d. 110–172.] It was my first intention to make this author a mere appendix to his master, Justin Martyr; for he stands in an equivocal position, as half Father and half heretic. His good seems to have been largely due to Justin’s teaching and influence. One may trust that his falling away, in the decline of life, is attributable to infirmity of mind and body; his severe asceticism countenancing this charitable thought. Many instances of human frailty, which the experience of ages has taught Christians to view with compassion rather than censure, are doubtless to be ascribed to mental aberration and decay. Early Christians had not yet been taught this lesson; for, socially, neither Judaism nor Paganism had wholly surrendered their unloving influences upon their minds. Moreover, their high valuation of discipline, as an essential condition of self-preservation amid the fires of surrounding scorn and hatred, led them to practice, perhaps too sternly, upon offenders, what they often heroically performed upon themselves,—the amputation of the scandalous hand, or the plucking out of the evil eye.
In Tatian, another Assyrian follows the Star of Bethlehem, from Euphrates and the Tigris. The scanty facts of his personal history are sufficiently detailed by the translator, in his Introductory Note. We owe to himself the pleasing story of his conversion from heathenism. But I think it important to qualify the impressions the translation may otherwise leave upon the student’s mind, by a little more sympathy with the better side of his character, and a more just statement of his great services to the infant Church.
His works, which were very numerous, have perished, in consequence of his lapse from orthodoxy. Give him due credit for his Diatessaron, of which the very name is a valuable testimony to the Four Gospels as recognised by the primitive churches. It is lost, with the “infinite number” of other books which St. Jerome attributes to him. All honour to this earliest harmonist for such a work; and let us believe, with Mill and other learned authorities, that, if Eusebius had seen the work he censures, he might have expressed himself more charitably concerning it.
We know something of Tatian, already, from the melancholy pages of Irenæus. Theodoret finds no other fault with his Diatessaron than its omission of the genealogies, which he, probably, could not harmonize on any theory of his own. The errors into which he fell in his old age 420 were so absurd, and so contrary to the Church’s doctrine and discipline, that he could not be tolerated as one of the faithful, without giving to the heathen new grounds for the malignant slanders with which they were ever assailing the Christians. At the same time, let us reflect, p. 62 that his fall is to be attributed to extravagant ideas of that encraty which is a precept of the Gospel, and which a pure abhorrence of pagan abominations led many of the orthodox to practice with extreme rigidity. And this is the place to say, once for all, that the figures of Elijah upon Mt. Carmel and of John Baptist in the wilderness, approved by our Lord’s teachings, but moderated, as a lesson to others, by his own holy but less austere example, justify the early Church in making room for the two classes of Christians which must always be found in earnest religion, and which seem to have their warrant in the fundamental constitution of human nature. There must be men like St. Paul, living in the world, though not of it; and there must be men like the Baptist, of whom the world will say, “he hath a devil.” Marvellously the early Catholics were piloted between the rocks and the whirlpools, in the narrow drift of the Gospel; and always the Holy Spirit of counsel and might was their guardian, amid their terrible trials and temptations. This must suggest, to every reflecting mind, a gratitude the most profound. To preserve evangelical encraty, and to restrain fanatical asceticism, was the spirit of early Christianity, as one sees in the ethics of Hermas. But the awful malaria of Montanism was even now rising like a fog of the marshes, and was destined to leave its lasting impress upon Western Christianity; “forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats.” Our author, alas, laid the egg which Tertullian hatched, and invented terms which that great author raised to their highest power; for he was rather the disciple of Tatian than of the Phrygians, though they kindled his strange fire. After Tertullian, the whole subject of marriage became entangled with sophistries, which have ever since adhered to the Latin churches, and introduced the most corrosive results into the vitals of individuals and of nations. Southey suggests, that, in the Roman Communion, John Wesley would have been accommodated with full scope for his genius, and canonized as a saint, while his Anglican mother had no place for him. 421 But, on the other hand, let us reflect that while Rome had no place for Wiclif and Hus, or Jerome of Prague, she has used and glorified and canonized many fanatics whose errors were far more disgraceful than those of Tatian and Tertullian. In fact, she would have utilized and beatified these very enthusiasts, had they risen in the Middle Ages, to combine their follies with equal extravagance in persecuting the Albigenses, while aggrandizing the papal ascendency.
I have enlarged upon the equivocal character of Tatian with melancholy interest, because I shall make sparing use of notes, in editing his sole surviving work, pronounced by Eusebius his masterpiece. I read it with sympathy, admiration, and instruction. I enjoy his biting satire of heathenism, his Pauline contempt for all philosophy save that of the Gospel, his touching reference to his own experiences, and his brilliant delineation of Christian innocence and of his own emancipation from the seductions of a deceitful and transient world. In short, I feel that Tatian deserves critical editing, in the original, at the hand and heart of some expert who can thoroughly appreciate his merits, and his relations to primitive Christianity.
The following is the original Introductory Notice:—
We learn from several sources that Tatian was an Assyrian, but know nothing very definite either as to the time or place of his birth. Epiphanius (Hær., xlvi.) declares that he was a native of Mesopotamia; and we infer from other ascertained facts regarding him, that he flourished about the middle of the second century. He was at first an eager student of heathen literature, and seems to have been especially devoted to researches in philosophy. But he found no satisfaction in the bewildering mazes of Greek speculation, while he became utterly disgusted with what heathenism presented to him under the name of religion. In these circumstances, he happily met with the sacred books of the Christians, and was powerfully attracted by the purity of morals which these inculcated, and by the means of deliverance from the bondage of sin which p. 63 they revealed. He seems to have embraced Christianity at Rome, where he became acquainted with Justin Martyr, and enjoyed the instructions of that eminent teacher of the Gospel. After the death of Justin, Tatian unfortunately fell under the influence of the Gnostic heresy, and founded an ascetic sect, which, from the rigid principles it professed, was called that of the Encratites, that is, “The self-controlled,” or, “The masters of themselves.” Tatian latterly established himself at Antioch, and acquired a considerable number of disciples, who continued after his death to be distinguished by the practice of those austerities which he had enjoined. The sect of the Encratites is supposed to have been established about a.d. 166, and Tatian appears to have died some few years afterwards.
The only extant work of Tatian is his “Address to the Greeks.” It is a most unsparing and direct exposure of the enormities of heathenism. Several other works are said to have been composed by Tatian; and of these, a Diatessaron, or Harmony of the Four Gospels, is specially mentioned. His Gnostic views led him to exclude from the continuous narrative of our Lord’s life, given in this work, all those passages which bear upon the incarnation and true humanity of Christ. Not withstanding this defect, we cannot but regret the loss of this earliest Gospel harmony; but the very title it bore is important, as showing that the Four Gospels, and these only, were deemed authoritative about the middle of the second century.
p. 64
Footnotes
61:420
“Paul the aged” was only sixty when he gives himself this title. (Philem. 9). See the additional note, Speaker’s Commentary, vol. iii. 843.
62:421
See (vol. ii. p. 331.) Southey’s Life of Wesley; an invaluable work, and one which presents this eminent saint in a most interesting light, even to worldly men. Ed. New York, Harpers, 1853.
Address of Tatian to the Greeks.
p. 65
Chapter I.—The Greeks Claim, Without Reason, the Invention of the Arts.
Be not, O Greeks, so very hostilely disposed towards the Barbarians, nor look with ill will on their opinions. For which of your institutions has not been derived from the Barbarians? The most eminent of the Telmessians invented the art of divining by dreams; the Carians, that of prognosticating by the stars; the Phrygians and the most ancient Isaurians, augury by the flight of birds; the Cyprians, the art of inspecting victims. To the Babylonians you owe astronomy; to the Persians, magic; to the Egyptians, geometry; to the Phœnicians, instruction by alphabetic writing. Cease, then, to miscall these imitations inventions of your own. Orpheus, again, taught you poetry and song; from him, too, you learned the mysteries. The Tuscans taught you the plastic art; from the annals of the Egyptians you learned to write history; you acquired the art of playing the flute from Marsyas and Olympus,—these two rustic Phrygians constructed the harmony of the shepherd’s pipe. The Tyrrhenians invented the trumpet; the Cyclopes, the smith’s art; and a woman who was formerly a queen of the Persians, as Hellanicus tells us, the method of joining together epistolary tablets: 422 her name was Atossa. Wherefore lay aside this conceit, and be not ever boasting of your elegance of diction; for, while you applaud yourselves, your own people will of course side with you. But it becomes a man of sense to wait for the testimony of others, and it becomes men to be of one accord also in the pronunciation of their language. But, as matters stand, to you alone it has happened not to speak alike even in common intercourse; for the way of speaking among the Dorians is not the same as that of the inhabitants of Attica, nor do the Æolians speak like the Ionians. And, since such a discrepancy exists where it ought not to be, I am at a loss whom to call a Greek. And, what is strangest of all, you hold in honour expressions not of native growth, and by the intermixture of barbaric words have made your language a medley. On this account we have renounced your wisdom, though I was once a great proficient in it; for, as the comic poet 423 says,—
These are gleaners’ grapes and small talk,—
Twittering places of swallows, corrupters of art.
Yet those who eagerly pursue it shout lustily, and croak like so many ravens. You have, too, contrived the art of rhetoric to serve injustice and slander, selling the free power of your speech for hire, and often representing the same thing at one time as right, at another time as not good. The poetic art, again, you employ to describe battles, and the amours of the gods, and the corruption of the soul.
Footnotes
65:422
ἐπιστολας συντάττειν , i.e., for transmission by letter-carriers.—Otto.
65:423
Aristoph., Ranæ, 92, 93.
Chapter II.—The Vices and Errors of the Philosophers.
What noble thing have you produced by your pursuit of philosophy? Who of your most eminent men has been free from vain boasting? Diogenes, who made such a parade of his independence with his tub, was seized with a bowel complaint through eating a raw polypus, and so lost his life by gluttony. Aristippus, walking about in a purple robe, led a profligate life, in accordance with his professed opinions. Plato, a philosopher, was sold by Dionysius for his gormandizing propensities. And Aristotle, who absurdly placed a limit to Providence and made happiness to consist in the things which give pleasure, quite contrary to his duty as a preceptor flattered Alexander, forgetful that he was but a youth; and he, showing how well he had learned the lessons of his master, because his friend would not worship him shut him up and and carried him about like a bear or a leopard. He in fact obeyed strictly the precepts of his p. 66 teacher in displaying manliness and courage by feasting, and transfixing with his spear his intimate and most beloved friend, and then, under a semblance of grief, weeping and starving himself, that he might not incur the hatred of his friends. I could laugh at those also who in the present day adhere to his tenets,—people who say that sublunary things are not under the care of Providence; and so, being nearer the earth than the moon, and below its orbit, they themselves look after what is thus left uncared for; and as for those who have neither beauty, nor wealth, nor bodily strength, nor high birth, they have no happiness, according to Aristotle. Let such men philosophize, for me!
Chapter III.—Ridicule of the Philosophers.
I cannot approve of Heraclitus, who, being self-taught and arrogant, said, “I have explored myself.” Nor can I praise him for hiding his poem 424 in the temple of Artemis, in order that it might be published afterwards as a mystery; and those who take an interest in such things say that Euripides the tragic poet came there and read it, and, gradually learning it by heart, carefully handed down to posterity this darkness 425 of Heraclitus. Death, however, demonstrated the stupidity of this man; for, being attacked by dropsy, as he had studied the art of medicine as well as philosophy, he plastered himself with cow-dung, which, as it hardened, contracted the flesh of his whole body, so that he was pulled in pieces, and thus died. Then, one cannot listen to Zeno, who declares that at the conflagration the same man will rise again to perform the same actions as before; for instance, Anytus and Miletus to accuse, Busiris to murder his guests, and Hercules to repeat his labours; and in this doctrine of the conflagration he introduces more wicked than just persons—one Socrates and a Hercules, and a few more of the same class, but not many, for the bad will be found far more numerous than the good. And according to him the Deity will manifestly be the author of evil, dwelling in sewers and worms, and in the perpetrators of impiety. The eruptions of fire in Sicily, moreover, confute the empty boasting of Empedocles, in that, though he was no god, he falsely almost gave himself out for one. I laugh, too, at the old wife’s talk of Pherecydes, and the doctrine inherited from him by Pythagoras, and that of Plato, an imitation of his, though some think otherwise. And who would give his approval to the cynogamy of Crates, and not rather, repudiating the wild and tumid speech of those who resemble him, turn to the investigation of what truly deserves attention? Wherefore be not led away by the solemn assemblies of philosophers who are no philosophers, who dogmatize one against the other, though each one vents but the crude fancies of the moment. They have, moreover, many collisions among themselves; each one hates the other; they indulge in conflicting opinions, and their arrogance makes them eager for the highest places. It would better become them, moreover, not to pay court to kings unbidden, nor to flatter men at the head of affairs, but to wait till the great ones come to them.
Footnotes
66:424
περὶ φύσεως
66:425
He was called δ σκοτεινός for his obscurity.
Chapter IV.—The Christians Worship God Alone.
For what reason, men of Greece, do you wish to bring the civil powers, as in a pugilistic encounter, into collision with us? And, if I am not disposed to comply with the usages of some of them, why am I to be abhorred as a vile miscreant? 426 Does the sovereign order the payment of tribute, I am ready to render it. Does my master command me to act as a bondsman and to serve, I acknowledge the serfdom. Man is to be honoured as a fellow-man; 427 God alone is to be feared,—He who is not visible to human eyes, nor comes within the compass of human art. Only when I am commanded to deny Him, will I not obey, but will rather die than show myself false and ungrateful. Our God did not begin to be in time: 428 He alone is without beginning, and He Himself is the beginning of all things. God is a Spirit, 429 not pervading matter, but the Maker of material spirits, 430 and of the forms that are in matter; He is invisible, impalpable, being Himself the Father of both sensible and invisible things. Him we know from His creation, and apprehend His invisible power by His works. 431 I refuse to adore that workmanship which He has made for our sakes. The sun and moon were made for us: how, then, can I adore my own servants? How can I speak of stocks and stones as gods? For the Spirit that pervades matter 432 is inferior to the more divine spirit; and this, even when assimilated to the soul, is not to be honoured equally with the perfect God. Nor even ought the ineffable God to be presented with gifts; for He who is in want of nothing is not to be misrepresented by us as though He were indigent. But I will set forth our views more distinctly.
p. 67
Footnotes
66:426
[Dear Christians of those times; so Justin and all the rest appeal against this odium. Their name an offence, “cast out as evil,” but fragrant with unrequited love. Matt. x. 22-39.]
66:427
[1 Pet. ii. 17. This claim for man as man is the inspiration of Christianity. Terence breathes it from his wounded soul in slavery; and his immortal line, “Homo sum: humani nihil a me alienum puto” (Hæuntontimor., act. i. sc. 1, verse 25), looks as if it had been written in the second century of illumination.]
66:428
[Kaye’s Justin, pp. 56, 158.]
66:429
John iv. 24.
66:430
[Over again Tatian asserts spirits to be material, though not fleshly; and I think with reference to 1 Cor. xv. 44.]
66:431
Rom. i. 20.
66:432
[Over again Tatian asserts spirits to be material, though not fleshly; and I think with reference to 1 Cor. xv. 44.]
Chapter V.—The Doctrine of the Christians as to the Creation of the World.
God was in the beginning; but the beginning, we have been taught, is the power of the Logos. For the Lord of the universe, who is Himself the necessary ground (ὑπόστασις) of all being, inasmuch as no creature was yet in existence, was alone; but inasmuch as He was all power, Himself the necessary ground of things visible and invisible, with Him were all things; with Him, by Logos-power (διὰ λογικῆς δυνάμεως), the Logos Himself also, who was in Him, subsists. 433 And by His simple will the Logos springs forth; and the Logos, not coming forth in vain, becomes the first-begotten work of the Father. Him (the Logos) we know to be the beginning of the world. But He came into being by participation, 434 not by abscission; for what is cut off is separated from the original substance, but that which comes by participation, making its choice of function, 435 does not render him deficient from whom it is taken. For just as from one torch many fires are lighted, but the light of the first torch is not lessened by the kindling of many torches, so the Logos, coming forth from the Logos-power of the Father, has not divested of the Logos-power Him who begat Him. I myself, for instance, talk, and you hear; yet, certainly, I who converse do not become destitute of speech (λόγος) by the transmission of speech, but by the utterance of my voice I endeavour to reduce to order the unarranged matter in your minds. And as the Logos, 436 begotten in the beginning, begat in turn our world, having first created for Himself the necessary matter, so also I, in imitation of the Logos, being begotten again, 437 and having become possessed of the truth, am trying to reduce to order the confused matter which is kindred with myself. For matter is not, like God, without beginning, nor, as having no beginning, is of equal power with God; it is begotten, and not produced by any other being, but brought into existence by the Framer of all things alone.
Footnotes
67:433
[See Kaye’s Justin Martyr, p. 161, note; and observe his stricture on Bull and Waterland.]
67:434
κατὰ μερισμόν. Some translate, “by division,” but the above is preferable. The sense, according to Otto, is that the Logos, having received a peculiar nature, shares in the rational power of the Father as a lighted torch partakes of the light of the torch from which it is kindled. Comp. Just. Mar., Dial. c. T., chap. lxi.
67:435
οἰκονομίας τὴν αἲρεσιν προσλαβόν. The above seems the simplest rendering of this difficult passage, but several others have been proposed. [See note 4, cap. ix., infra, p. 69.]
67:436
[Matter not eternal. He seems to have understood Gen. i. 1, of the creation of matter; and verse 2, as beginning the history of our planet and the visible universe.]
67:437
[Supposed to be a personal reference to his conversion and baptism. As to “confused matter,” it should be kindred matter, and must be set over “kindred spirit.” See p. 71, cap. xiii., infra.]