Chap. XXII. - On the Greek Translation of the Old Testament.
So much for the details respecting dates, as stated variously by many, and as set down by us.
It is said that the Scriptures both of the law and of the prophets were translated from the dialect of the Hebrews into the Greek language in the reign of Ptolemy the son of Lagos, or, according to others, of Ptolemy surnamed Philadelphus; Demetrius Phalereus bringing to this task the greatest earnestness, and employing painstaking accuracy on the materials for the translation. For the Macedonians being still in possession of Asia, and the king being ambitious of adorning the library he had at Alexandria with all writings, desired the people of Jerusalem to translate the prophecies they possessed into the Greek dialect. And they being the subjects of the Macedonians, selected from those of highest character among them seventy elders, versed in the Scriptures, and skilled in the Greek dialect, and sent them to him with the divine books. And each having severally translated each prophetic book, and all the translations being compared together, they agreed both in meaning and expression. For it was the counsel of God carried out for the benefit of Grecian ears. It was not alien to the inspiration of God, who gave the prophecy, also to produce the translation, and make it as it were Greek prophecy. Since the Scriptures having perished in the captivity of Nabuchodonosor, Esdras161 the Levite, the priest, in the time of Artaxerxes king of the Persians, having become inspired in the exercise of prophecy restored again the whole of the ancient Scriptures. And Aristobulus, in his first book addressed to Philometor, writes in these words: “And Plato followed the laws given to us, and had manifestly studied all that is said in them.” And before Demetrius there had been translated by another, previous to the dominion of Alexander and of the Persians, the account of the departure of our countrymen the Hebrews from Egypt, and the fame of all that happened to them, and their taking possession of the land, and the account of the whole code of laws; so that it is perfectly clear that the above-mentioned philosopher derived a great deal from this source, for he was very learned, as also Pythagoras, who transferred many things from our books to his own system of doctrines. And Numenius, the Pythagorean philosopher, expressly writes: “For what is Plato, but Moses speaking 335 in Attic Greek?” This Moses was a theologian and prophet, and as some say, an interpreter of sacred laws. His family, his deeds, and life, are related by the Scriptures themselves, which are worthy of all credit; but have nevertheless to be stated by us also as well as we can.162
Chap. XXIII. - The Age, Birth, and Life of Moses.
Moses, originally of a Chaldean163 family, was born in Egypt, his ancestors having migrated from Babylon into Egypt on account of a protracted famine. Born in the seventh generation,164 and having received a royal education, the following are the circumstances of his history. The Hebrews having increased in Egypt to a great multitude, and the king of the country being afraid of insurrection in consequence of their numbers, he ordered all the female children born to the Hebrews to be reared (woman being unfit for war), but the male to be destroyed, being suspicious of stalwart youth. But the child being goodly, his parents nursed him secretly three months, natural affection being too strong for the monarch’s cruelty. But at last, dreading lest they should be destroyed along with the child, they made a basket of the papyrus that grew there, put the child in it, and laid it on the banks of the marshy river. The child’s sister stood at a distance, and watched what would happen. In this emergency, the king’s daughter, who for a long time had not been pregnant, and who longed for a child, came that day to the river to bathe and wash herself; and hearing the child cry, she ordered it to be brought to her; and touched with pity, sought a nurse. At that moment the child’s sister ran up, and said that, if she wished, she could procure for her as nurse one of the Hebrew women who had recently had a child. And on her consenting and desiring her to do so, she brought the child’s mother to be nurse for a stipulated fee, as if she had been some other person. Thereupon the queen gave the babe the name of Moses, with etymological propriety, from his being drawn out of “the water,” (See Exo_2:10) - for the Egyptians call water “mou,” - in which he had been exposed to die. For they call Moses one who “who breathed [on being taken] from the water.” It is clear that previously the parents gave a name to the child on his circumcision; and he was called Joachim. And he had a third name in heaven, after his ascension,165 as the mystics say - Melchi. Having reached the proper age, he was taught arithmetic, geometry, poetry, harmony, and besides, medicine and music, by those that excelled in these arts among the Egyptians; and besides, the philosophy which is conveyed by symbols, which they point out in the hieroglyphical inscriptions. The rest of the usual course of instruction, Greeks taught him in Egypt as a royal child, as Philo says in his life of Moses. He learned, besides, the literature of the Egyptians, and the knowledge of the heavenly bodies from the Chaldeans and the Egyptians; whence in the Acts (Act_7:22) he is said “to have been instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians.” And Eupolemus, in his book On the Kings in Judea, says that “Moses was the first wise man, and the first that imparted grammar to the Jews, that the Phoenicians received it from the Jews, and the Greeks from the Phoenicians.” And betaking himself to their philosophy,166 he increased his wisdom, being ardently attached to the training received from his kindred and ancestors, till he struck and slew the Egyptian who wrongfully attacked the Hebrew. And the mystics say that he slew the Egyptian by a word only; as, certainly, Peter in the Acts is related to have slain by speech those who appropriated part of the price of the field, and lied. (Act_5:1) And so Artapanus, in his work On the Jews, relates “that Moses, being shut up in custody by Chenephres, king of the Egyptians, on account of the people demanding to be let go from Egypt, the prison being opened by night, by the interposition of God, went forth, and reaching the palace, stood before the king as he slept, and aroused him; and that the latter, struck with what had taken place, bade Moses tell him the name of the God who had sent him; and that he, bending forward, told him in his ear; and that the king on hearing it fell speechless, but being supported by Moses, revived again.” And respecting the education of Moses, we shall find a harmonious account in Ezekiel,167 the composer of Jewish tragedies in the drama entitled The Exodus. He thus writes in the person of Moses: -
“For, seeing our race abundantly increase,
His treacherous snares King Pharaoh ’gainst us laid,
And cruelly in brick-kilns some of us,
And some, in toilsome works of building, plagued.
And towns and towers by toil of ill-starred men
He raised. Then to the Hebrew race proclaimed,
That each male child should in deep-flowing Nile
Be drowned. My mother bore and hid me then
Three months (so afterwards she told). Then took,
And me adorned with fair array, and placed
On the deep sedgy marsh by Nilus bank,
While Miriam, my sister, watched afar.
Then, with her maids, the daughter of the king,
To bathe her beauty in the cleansing stream, 336
Came near, straight saw, and took and raised me up;
And knew me for a Hebrew. Miriam
My sister to the princess ran, and said,
‘Is it thy pleasure, that I haste and find
A nurse for thee to rear this child
Among the Hebrew women?’ The princess
Gave assent. The maiden to her mother sped,
And told, who quick appeared. My own
Dear mother took me in her arms. Then said
The daughter of the king: ‘Nurse me this child,
And I will give thee wages.’ And my name
Moses she called, because she drew and saved
Me from the waters on the river’s bank.
And when the days of childhood had flown by,
My mother brought me to the palace where
The princess dwelt, after disclosing all
About my ancestry, and God’s great gifts.
In boyhood’s years I royal nurture had,
And in all princely exercise was trained,
As if the princess’s very son. But when
The circling days had run their course,
I left the royal palace.”
Then, after relating the combat between the Hebrew and the Egyptian, and the burying of the Egyptian in the sand, he says of the other contest: -
“Why strike one feebler than thyself?
And he rejoined: Who made thee judge o’er us,
Or ruler? Wilt thou slay me, as thou didst
Him yesterday? And I in terror said,
How is this known?”
Then he fled from Egypt and fed sheep, being thus trained beforehand for pastoral rule. For the shepherd’s life is a preparation for sovereignty in the case of him who is destined to rule over the peaceful flock of men, as the chase for those who are by nature warlike. Thence God brought him to lead the Hebrews. Then the Egyptians, oft admonished, continued unwise; and the Hebrews were spectators of the calamities that others suffered, learning in safety the power of God. And when the Egyptians gave no heed to the effects of that power, through their foolish infatuation disbelieving, then, as is said, “the children knew” what was done; and the Hebrews afterwards going forth, departed carrying much spoil from the Egyptians, not for avarice, as the cavillers say, for God did not persuade them to covet what belonged to others. But, in the first place, they took wages for the services they had rendered the Egyptians all the time; and then in a way recompensed the Egyptians, by afflicting them in requital as avaricious, by the abstraction of the booty, as they had done the Hebrews by enslaving them. Whether, then, as may be alleged is done in war, they thought it proper, in the exercise of the rights of conquerors, to take away the property of their enemies, as those who have gained the day do from those who are worsted (and there was just cause of hostilities. The Hebrews came as suppliants to the Egyptians on account of famine; and they, reducing their guests to slavery, compelled them to serve them after the manner of captives, giving them no recompense); or as in peace, took the spoil as wages against the will of those who for a long period had given them no recompense, but rather had robbed them, [it is all one.]
Chap. XXIV. - How Moses Discharged the Part of a Military Leader.
Our Moses then is a prophet, a legislator, skilled in military tactics and strategy, a politician, a philosopher. And in what sense he was a prophet, shall be by and by told, when we come to treat of prophecy. Tactics belong to military command, and the ability to command an army is among the attributes of kingly rule. Legislation, again, is also one of the functions of the kingly office, as also judicial authority.
Of the kingly office one kind is divine, - that which is according to God and His holy Son, by whom both the good things which are of the earth, and external and perfect felicity too, are supplied. “For,” it is said, “seek what is great, and the little things shall be added.”168 And there is a second kind of royalty, inferior to that administration which is purely rational and divine, which brings to the task of government merely the high mettle of the soul; after which fashion Hercules ruled the Argives, and Alexander the Macedonians. The third kind is what aims after one thing - merely to conquer and overturn; but to turn conquest either to a good or a bad purpose, belongs not to such rule. Such was the aim of the Persians in their campaign against Greece. For, on the one hand, fondness for strife is solely the result of passion, and acquires power solely for the sake of domination; while, on the other, the love of good is characteristic of a soul which uses its high spirit for noble ends. The fourth, the worst of all, is the sovereignty which acts according to the promptings of the passions, as that of Sardanapalus, and those who propose to themselves as their end the gratification of the passions to the utmost. But the instrument of regal sway - the instrument at once of that which overcomes by virtue, and that which does so by force - is the power of managing (or tact). And it, varies according to the nature and the material. In the case of arms and of fighting animals the ordering power is the soul and mind, by means animate and inanimate; and in the case of the passions of the soul, which we master by virtue, reason is the ordering power, by affixing the seal of continence and self-restraint, along with holiness, and sound knowledge with truth, making the result of the whole to terminate in piety towards God. For it is wisdom which regulates 337 in the case of those who so practise virtue; and divine things are ordered by wisdom, and human affairs by politics - all things by the kingly faculty. He is a king, then, who governs according to the laws, and possesses the skill to sway willing subjects. Such is the Lord, who receives all who believe on Him and by Him. For the Father has delivered and subjected all to Christ our King, “that at the name of Jesus every knee may bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Phi_2:10, Phi_2:11)
Now, generalship involves three ideas: caution, enterprise, and the union of the two. And each of these consists of three things, acting as they do either by word, or by deeds, or by both together. And all this can be accomplished either by persuasion, or by compulsion, or by inflicting harm in the way of taking vengeance on those who ought to be punished; and this either by doing what is right, or by telling what is untrue, or by telling what is true, or by adopting any of these means conjointly at the same time.
Now, the Greeks had the advantage of receiving from Moses all these, and the knowledge of how to make use of each of them. And, for the sake of example, I shall cite one or two instances of leadership. Moses, on leading the people forth, suspecting that the Egyptians would pursue, left the short and direct route, and turned to the desert, and marched mostly by night. For it was another kind of arrangement by which the Hebrews were trained in the great wilderness, and for a protracted time, to belief in the existence of one God alone, being inured by the wise discipline of endurance to which they were subjected. The strategy of Moses, therefore, shows the necessity of discerning what will be of service before the approach of dangers, and so to encounter them. It turned out precisely as he suspected, for the Egyptians pursued with horses and chariots, but were quickly destroyed by the sea breaking on them and overwhelming them with their horses and chariots, so that not a remnant of them was left. Afterwards the pillar of fire, which accompanied them (for it went before them as a guide), conducted the Hebrews by night through an untrodden region, training and bracing them, by toils and hardships, to manliness and endurance, that after their experience of what appeared formidable difficulties, the benefits of the land, to which from the trackless desert he was conducting them, might become apparent. Furthermore, he put to flight and slew the hostile occupants of the land, falling upon them from a desert and rugged line of march (such was the excellence of his generalship). For the taking of the land of those hostile tribes was a work of skill and strategy.
Perceiving this, Miltiades, the Athenian general, who conquered the Persians in battle at Marathon, imitated it in the following fashion. Marching over a trackless desert, he led on the Athenians by night, and eluded the barbarians that were set to watch him. For Hippias, who had deserted from the Athenians, conducted the barbarians into Attica, and seized and held the points of vantage, in consequence of having a knowledge of the ground. The task was then to elude Hippias. Whence rightly Miltiades, traversing the desert and attacking by night the Persians commanded by Dates, led his soldiers to victory.
But further, when Thrasybulus was bringing back the exiles from Phyla, and wished to elude observation, a pillar became his guide as he marched over a trackless region. To Thrasybulus by night, the sky being moonless and stormy, a fire appeared leading the way, which, having conducted them safely, left them near Munychia, where is now the altar of the light-bringer (Phosphorus).
From such an instance, therefore, let our accounts become credible to the Greeks, namely, that it was possible for the omnipotent God to make the pillar of fire, which was their guide on their march, go before the Hebrews by night. It is said also in a certain oracle, -
“A pillar to the Thebans is joy-inspiring Bacchus,”
from the history of the Hebrews. Also Euripides says, in Antiope, -
“In the chambers within, the herdsman,
With chaplet of ivy, pillar of the Evoean god.”
The pillar indicates that God cannot be portrayed. The pillar of light, too, in addition to its pointing out that God cannot be represented, shows also the stability and the permanent duration of the Deity, and His unchangeable and inexpressible light. Before, then, the invention of the forms of images, the ancients erected pillars, and reverenced them as statues of the Deity. Accordingly, he who composed the Pharonis writes, -
“Callithoe, key-bearer of the Olympian queen:
Argive Hera, who first with fillets and with fringes
The queen’s tall column all around adorned.”
Further, the author of Europia relates that the statue of Apollo at Delphi was a pillar in these words: -
“That to the god first-fruits and tithes we may
On sacred pillars and on lofty column hang.”
Apollo, interpreted mystically by “privation of 338 many,”169 means the one God. Well, then, that fire like a pillar, and the fire in the desert, is the symbol of the holy light which passed through from earth and returned again to heaven, by the wood [of the cross], by which also the gift of intellectual vision was bestowed on us.
Chap. XXV. - Plato an Imitator of Moses in Framing Laws.
Plato the philosopher, aided in legislation by the books of Moses, censured the polity of Minos, and that of Lycurgus, as having bravery alone as their aim; while he praised as more seemly the polity which expresses some one thing, and directs according to one precept. For he says that it becomes us to philosophize with strength, and dignity, and wisdom, - holding unalterably the same opinions about the same things, with reference to the dignity of heaven. Accordingly, therefore, he interprets what is in the law, enjoining us to look to one God and to do justly. Of politics, he says there are two kinds, - the department of law, and that of politics, strictly so called.
And he refers to the Creator, as the Statesman (ὁ πολιτικός) by way of eminence, in his book of this name (ὁ πολιτικός); and those who lead an active and just life, combined with contemplation, he calls statesmen (πολιτικοί). That department of politics which is called “Law,” he divides into administrative magnanimity and private good order, which he calls orderliness; and harmony, and sobriety, which are seen when rulers suit their subjects, and subjects are obedient to their rulers; a result which the system of Moses sedulously aims at effecting. Further, that the department of law is founded on generation, that of politics on friendship and consent, Plato, with the aid he received, affirms; and so, coupled with the laws the philosopher in the Epinomis, who knew the course of all generation, which takes place by the instrumentality of the planets; and the other philosopher, Timaeus, who was an astronomer and student of the motions of the stars, and of their sympathy and association with one another, he consequently joined to the “polity” (or “republic”). Then, in my opinion, the end both of the statesman, and of him who lives according to the law, is contemplation. It is necessary, therefore, that public affairs should be rightly managed. But to philosophize is best. For he who is wise will live concentrating all his energies on knowledge, directing his life by good deeds, despising the opposite, and following the pursuits which contribute to truth. And the law is not what is decided by law (for what is seen is not vision), nor every opinion (not certainly what is evil). But law is the opinion which is good, and what is good is that which is true, and what is true is that which finds “true being,” and attains to it. “He who is,”170 says Moses, “sent me.” In accordance with which, namely, good opinion, some have called law, right reason, which enjoins what is to be done and forbids what is not to be done.
Chap. XXVI. - Moses Rightly Called a Divine Legislator, and, Though Inferior to Christ, Far Superior to the Great Legislators of the Greeks, Minos and Lycurgus.
Whence the law was rightly said to have been given by Moses, being a rule of right and wrong; and we may call it with accuracy the divine ordinance (θεσμός171), inasmuch as it was given by God through Moses. It accordingly conducts to the divine. Paul says: “The law was instituted because of transgressions, till the seed should come, to whom the promise was made.” Then, as if in explanation of his meaning, he adds: “But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up,” manifestly through fear, in consequence of sins, “unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed; so that the law was a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, that we should be justified by faith.” (Gal_3:19, Gal_3:23, Gal_3:24) The true legislator is he who assigns to each department of the soul what is suitable to it and to its operations. Now Moses, to speak comprehensively, was a living law, governed by the benign Word. Accordingly, he furnished a good polity, which is the right discipline of men in social life. He also handled the administration of justice, which is that branch of knowledge which deals with the correction of transgressors in the interests of justice. Co-ordinate with it is the faculty of dealing with punishments, which is a knowledge of the due measure to be observed in punishments. And punishment, in virtue of its being so, is the correction of the soul. In a word, the whole system of Moses is suited for the training of such as are capable of becoming good and noble men, and for hunting out men like them; and this is the art of command. And that wisdom, which is capable of treating rightly those who have been caught by the Word, is legislative wisdom. For it is the property of this wisdom, being most kingly, to possess and use.
It is the wise man, therefore, alone whom the philosophers proclaim king, legislator, general, just, holy, God-beloved. And if we discover these qualities in Moses, as shown from the Scriptures themselves, we may, with the most assured persuasion, pronounce Moses to be truly wise. As then we say that it belongs to the 339 shepherd’s art to care for the sheep; for so “the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep;” (Joh_10:11) so also we shall say that legislation, inasmuch as it presides over and cares for the flock of men, establishes the virtue of men, by fanning into flame, as far as it can, what good there is in humanity.
And if the flock figuratively spoken of as belonging to the Lord is nothing but a flock of men, then He Himself is the good Shepherd and Lawgiver of the one flock, “of the sheep who hear Him,” the one who cares for them, “seeking,” and finding by the law and the word, “that which was lost;” since, in truth, the law is spiritual and leads to felicity. For that which has arisen through the Holy Spirit is spiritual. And he is truly a legislator, who not only announces what is good and noble, but understands it. The law of this man who possesses knowledge is the saving precept; or rather, the law is the precept of knowledge. For the Word is “the power and the wisdom of God.” (1Co_1:24) Again, the expounder of the laws is the same one by whom the law was given; the first expounder of the divine commands, who unveiled the bosom of the Father, the only-begotten Son.
Then those who obey the law, since they have some knowledge of Him, cannot disbelieve or be ignorant of the truth. But those who disbelieve, and have shown a repugnance to engage in the works of the law, whoever else may, certainly confess their ignorance of the truth.
What, then, is the unbelief of the Greeks? Is it not their unwillingness to believe the truth which declares that the law was divinely given by Moses, whilst they honour Moses in their own writers? They relate that Minos received the laws from Zeus in nine years, by frequenting the cave of Zeus; and Plato, and Aristotle, and Ephorus write that Lycurgus was trained in legislation by going constantly to Apollo at Delphi. Chamaeleo of Heraclea, in his book On Drunkenness, and Aristotle in The Polity of Locrians, mention that Zaleucus the Locrian received the laws from Athene.
But those who exalt the credit of Greek legislation as far as in them lies, by referring it to a divine source, after the model of Mosaic prophecy, are senseless in not owning the truth, and the archetype of what is related among them.
Chap. XXVII. - The Law, Even in Correcting and Punishing, Aims at the Good of Men.
Let no one then, run down law, as if, on account of the penalty, it were not beautiful and good. For shall he who drives away bodily disease appear a benefactor; and shall not he who attempts to deliver the soul from iniquity, as much more appear a friend, as the soul is a more precious thing than the body? Besides, for the sake of bodily health we submit to incisions, and cauterizations, and medicinal draughts; and he who administers them is called saviour and healer172 even though amputating parts, not from grudge or ill-will towards the patient, but as the principles of the art prescribe, so that the sound parts may not perish along with them, and no one accuses the physician’s art of wickedness; and shall we not similarly submit, for the soul’s sake, to either banishment, or punishment, or bonds, provided only from unrighteousness we shall attain to righteousness?
For the law, in its solicitude for those who obey, trains up to piety, and prescribes what is to be done, and restrains each one from sins, imposing penalties even on lesser sins.
But when it sees any one in such a condition as to appear incurable, posting to the last stage of wickedness, then in its solicitude for the rest, that they may not be destroyed by it (just as if amputating a part from the whole body), it condemns such an one to death, as the course most conducive to health. “Being judged by the Lord,” says the apostle, “we are chastened, that we may not be condemned with the world.” (1Co_11:32) For the prophet had said before, “Chastening, the Lord hath chastised me, but hath not given me over unto death.” (Psa_118:18) “For in order to teach thee His righteousness,” it is said, “He chastised thee and tried thee, and made thee to hunger and thirst in the desert land; that all His statutes and His judgments may be known in thy heart, as I command thee this day; and that thou mayest know in thine heart, that just as if a man were chastising his son, so the Lord our God shall chastise thee.” (Deu_8:2, Deu_8:3, Deu_8:5)
And to prove that example corrects, he says directly to the purpose: “A clever man, when he seeth the wicked punished, will himself be severely chastised, for the fear of the Lord is the source of wisdom.” (Pro_22:3, Pro_22:4)
But it is the highest and most perfect good, when one is able to lead back any one from the practice of evil to virtue and well-doing, which is the very function of the law. So that, when one fails into any incurable evil, - when taken possession of, for example, by wrong or covetousness, - it will be for his good if he is put to death. For the law is beneficent, being able to make some righteous from unrighteous, if they will only give ear to it, and by releasing others from present evils; for those who have chosen 340 to live temperately and justly, it conducts to immortality. To know the law is characteristic of a good disposition. And again: “Wicked men do not understand the law; but they who seek the Lord shall have understanding in all that is good.” (Pro_28:5)
It is essential, certainly, that the providence which manages all, be both supreme and good. For it is the power of both that dispenses salvation - the one correcting by punishment, as supreme, the other showing kindness in the exercise of beneficence, as a benefactor. It is in your power not to be a son of disobedience, but to pass from darkness to life, and lending your ear to wisdom, to be the legal slave of God, in the first instance, and then to become a faithful servant, fearing the Lord God. And if one ascend higher, he is enrolled among the sons.
But when “charity covers the multitude of sins,” (1Pe_4:8) by the consummation of the blessed hope, then may we welcome him as one who has been enriched in love, and received into the elect adoption, which is called the beloved of God, while he chants the prayer, saying, “Let the Lord be my God.”
The beneficent action of the law, the apostle showed in the passage relating to the Jews, writing thus: “Behold, thou art called a Jew and restest in the law, and makest thy boast in God, and knowest the will of God, and approvest the things that are more excellent, being instructed out of the law, and art confident that thou thyself art a guide of the blind, a light of them who are in darkness, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of babes, who hast the form of knowledge and of truth in the law.” (Rom_2:17-20) For it is admitted that such is the power of the law, although those whose conduct is not according to the law, make a false pretence, as if they lived in the law. “Blessed is the man that hath found wisdom, and the mortal who has seen understanding; for out of its mouth,” manifestly Wisdom’s, “proceeds righteousness, and it bears law and mercy on its tongue.” (Pro_3:13, Pro_3:16) For both the law and the Gospel are the energy of one Lord, who is “the power and wisdom of God;” and the terror which the law begets is merciful and in order to salvation. “Let not alms, and faith, and truth fail thee, but hang them around thy neck.” (Pro_3:3) In the same way as Paul, prophecy upbraids the people with not understanding the law. “Destruction and misery are in their ways, and the way of peace have they not known.” (Isa_59:7, Isa_59:8; Rom_3:16, Rom_3:17) “There is no fear of God before their eyes.” (Psa_36:1; Rom_3:18) “Professing themselves wise, they became fools.” (Rom_1:22) “And we know that the law is good, if a man use it lawfully.” (1Ti_1:8) “Desiring to be teachers of the law, they understand,” says the apostle, “neither what they say, nor whereof they affirm.” (1Ti_1:7) “Now the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, and a good conscience, and faith unfeigned.” (1Ti_1:5)
Chap. XXVIII. - The Fourfold Division of the Mosaic Law.
The Mosaic philosophy is accordingly divided into four parts, - into the historic, and that which is specially called the legislative, which two properly belong to an ethical treatise; and the third, that which, relates to sacrifice, which belongs to physical science; and the fourth, above all, the department of theology, “vision,”173 which Plato predicates of the truly great mysteries. And this species Aristotle calls metaphysics. Dialectics, according to Plato, is, as he says in The Statesman, a science devoted to the discovery of the explanation of things. And it is to be acquired by the wise man, not for the sake of saying or doing aught of what we find among men (as the dialecticians, who occupy themselves in sophistry, do), but to be able to say and do, as far as possible, what is pleasing to God. But the true dialectic, being philosophy mixed with truth, by examining things, and testing forces and powers, gradually ascends in relation to the most excellent essence of all, and essays to go beyond to the God of the universe, professing not the knowledge of mortal affairs, but the science of things divine and heavenly; in accordance with which follows a suitable course of practice with respect to words and deeds, even in human affairs. Rightly, therefore, the Scripture, in its desire to make us such dialecticians, exhorts us: “Be ye skilful money-changers”174 rejecting some things, but retaining what is good. For this true dialectic is the science which analyses the objects of thought, and shows abstractly and by itself the individual substratum of existences, or the power of dividing things into genera, which descends to their most special properties, and presents each individual object to be contemplated simply such as it is.
Wherefore it alone conducts to the true wisdom, which is the divine power which deals with the knowledge of entities as entities, which grasps what is perfect, and is freed from all passion; not without the Saviour, who withdraws, by the divine word, the gloom of ignorance 341 arising from evil training, which had overspread the eye of the soul, and bestows the best of gifts, -
“That we might well know or God or man.”175
It is He who truly shows how we are to know ourselves. It is He who reveals the Father of the universe to whom He wills, and as far as human nature can comprehend. “For no man knoweth the Son but the Father, nor the Father but the Son, and he to whom the Son shall reveal Him.” (Mat_11:27) Rightly, then, the apostle says that it was by revelation that he knew the mystery: “As I wrote afore in few words, according as ye are able to understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ.” (Eph_3:3, Eph_3:4) “According as ye are able,” he said, since he knew that some had received milk only, and had not yet received meat, nor even milk simply. The sense of the law is to be taken in three ways,176 - either as exhibiting a symbol, or laying down a precept for right conduct, or as uttering a prophecy. But I well know that it belongs to men [of full age] to distinguish and declare these things. For the whole Scripture is not in its meaning a single Myconos, as the proverbial expression has it; but those who hunt after the connection of the divine teaching, must approach it with the utmost perfection of the logical faculty.
Chap. XXIX. - The Greeks but Children Compared with the Hebrews.
Whence most beautifully the Egyptian priest in Plato said, “O Solon, Solon, you Greeks are always children, not having in your souls a single ancient opinion received through tradition from antiquity. And not one of the Greeks is an old man;”177 meaning by old, I suppose, those who know what belongs to the more remote antiquity, that is, our literature; and by young, those who treat of what is more recent and made the subject of study by the Greeks, - things of yesterday and of recent date as if they were old and ancient. Wherefore he added, “and no study hoary with time;” for we, in a kind of barbarous way, deal in homely and rugged metaphor. Those, therefore, whose minds are rightly constituted approach the interpretation utterly destitute of artifice. And of the Greeks, he says that their opinions “differ but little from myths.” For neither puerile fables nor stories current among children are fit for listening to. And he called the myths themselves “children,” as if the progeny of those, wise in their own conceits among the Greeks, who had but little insight meaning by the “hoary studies” the truth which was possessed by the barbarians, dating from the highest antiquity. To which expression he opposed the phrase “child fable,” censuring the mythical character of the attempts of the moderns, as, like children, having nothing of age in them, and affirming both in common - their fables and their speeches - to be puerile.
Divinely, therefore, the power which spoke to Hermas by revelation said, “The visions and revelations are for those who are of double mind, who doubt in their hearts if these things are or are not.”178
Similarly, also, demonstrations from the resources of erudition, strengthen, confirm, and establish demonstrative reasonings, in so far as men’s minds are in a wavering state like young people’s. “The good commandment,” then, according to the Scripture, “is a lamp, and the law is a light to the path; for instruction corrects the ways of life.” (Pro_6:23) “Law is monarch of all, both of mortals and of immortals,” says Pindar. I understand, however, by these words, Him who enacted law. And I regard, as spoken of the God of all, the following utterance of Hesiod, though spoken by the poet at random and not with comprehension: -
“For the Saturnian framed for men this law:
Fishes, and beasts, and winged birds may eat
Each other, since no rule of right is theirs;
But Right (by far the best) to men he gave.”
Whether, then, it be the law which is connate and natural, or that given afterwards, which is meant, it is certainly of God; and both the law of nature and that of instruction are one. Thus also Plato, in The Statesman, says that the lawgiver is one; and in The Laws, that he who shall understand music is one; teaching by these words that the Word is one, and God is one. And Moses manifestly calls the Lord a covenant: “Behold I am my Covenant with thee,”179 having previously told him not to seek the covenant in writing.180 For it is a covenant which God, the Author of all, makes. For God is called Θεός, from θέσις (placing), and order or arrangement. And in the Preaching181 of Peter you will find the Lord called Law and Word. But at this point, let our first Miscellany182 of gnostic notes, according to the true philosophy, come to a close.
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Elucidations.
I.
(Purpose of the Stromata.183)
The Alexandrian Gnostics were the pestilent outgrowth of pseudo-Platonism; and nobody could comprehend their root-errors, and their branching thorns and thistles, better than Clement. His superiority in philosophy and classical culture was exhibited, therefore, in his writings, as a necessary preliminary. Like a good nautical combatant, his effort was to “get to windward,” and so bear down upon the enemy (to use an anachronism) with heavy-shotted broadsides. And we must not blame Clement for his plan of “taking the wind out of their sails,” by showing that an eclectic philosophy might be made to harmonize with the Gospel. His plan was that of melting the gold out of divers ores, and throwing the dross away. Pure gold, he argues, is gold wherever it may be found, and even in the purse of “thieves and robbers.” So, then, he “takes from them the armour in which they trusted, and divides the spoils.” He will not concede to them the name of “Gnostics,” but wrests it from them, just as we reclaim the name of “Catholics” from the Tridentine innovators, who have imposed a modern creed (and are constantly adding to it) upon the Latin churches. Here, then, let me quote the Account of Bishop Kaye. He says, “The object of Clement, in composing the Stromata, was to describe the true ‘Gnostic,’ or perfect Christian, in order to furnish the believer with a model for his imitation, and to prevent him from being led astray by the representations of the Valentinians and other gnostic sects.” . . . “Before we proceed to consider his description of the Gnostic, however, it will be necessary briefly to review his opinions respecting the nature and condition of man.”
Here follows a luminous analysis (occupying pp. 229-238 of Kaye’s work), after which he says, -
“The foregoing brief notice of Clement’s opinions respecting man, his soul, and his fallen state, appeared necessary as an introduction to the description of the true Gnostic. By γνῶσις, Clement understood the perfect knowledge of all that relates to God, His nature, and dispensations. He speaks of a twofold knowledge, - one, common to all men, and born of sense; the other, the genuine γνῶσις, bred from the intellect, the mind, and its reason. This latter is not born with men, but must be gained and by practice formed into a habit. The initiated find its perfection in a loving mysticism, which this never-failing love makes lasting.”
So, further, this learned analyst, not blindly, but always with scientific conscience and judicial impartiality, expounds his author; and, without some such guide, I despair of securing the real interest of the youthful student. Butler’s Analogy and Aristotle’s Ethics are always analyzed for learners, by editors of their works; and hence I have ventured to direct attention to this “guide, philosopher, and friend” of my own inquiries. 184
II.
(Pantaenus and His School.185)
The catechetical school at Alexandria was already ancient; for Eusebius describes it as ἐξ ἀρκαίου ἔθους and St. Jerome dates its origin from the first planting of Christianity. Many things conspired to make this city the very head of Catholic Christendom, at this time; for the whole 343 East centred here, and the East was Christendom while the West was yet a missionary field almost entirely. Demetrius, then bishop, at the times with which we are now concerned, sent Pantaenus to convert the Hindoos, and, whatever his success or failure there, he brought back reports that Christians were there before him, the offspring of St. Bartholomew’s preaching; and, in proof thereof, he brought with him a copy of St. Matthew’s Gospel in the Hebrew tongue,186 which became one of the treasures of the church on the Nile.
But it deserves note, that, because of the learning concentrated in this place, the bishops of Alexandria were, from the beginning, the great authorities as to the Easter cycle and the annual computation of Easter, which new created the science of astronomy as one result. The Council of Nice, in settling the laws for the observance of the Feast of the Resurrection, extended the function of the Alexandrian See in this respect; for it was charged with the duty of giving notice of the day when Easter should fall every year, to all the churches. And easily might an ambitious primate of Egypt have imagined himself superior to all other bishops at that time; for, as Bingham observes,187 he was the greatest in the world, “for the absoluteness of his power, and the extent of his jurisdiction.” And this greatness of Alexandria was ancient, we must remember, at the Nicene epoch; for their celebrated canon (VI.) reads, “Let ancient customs prevail; so that in Egypt, Lybia, and Pentapolis, the Bishop of Alexandria shall have power over all these.” Similar powers and privileges, over their own regions, were recognised in Rome and Antioch.
III.
(Tradition.188)
The apostles distinguish between vain traditions of the Jews, and their own Christian παραδόσεις the tradita apostolica (2Ti_1:13, 2Ti_1:14; 2Ti_2:2; 1Co_11:2; 2Th_2:15; Thess. 2Th_3:6; 1Co_5:8; 1Co_16:2). Among these were (1) the authentication of their own Scriptures; (2) certain “forms of sound words,” afterwards digested into liturgies; (3) the rules for celebrating the Lord’s Supper, and of administering baptism; (4) the Christian Passover and the weekly Lord’s Day; (5) the Jewish Sabbath and ordinances, how far to be respected while the temple yet stood; (6) the kiss of charity, and other observances of public worship; (7) the agapae, the rules about widows, etc.
In some degree these were the secret of the Church, with which “strangers intermeddled not” lawfully. The Lord’s Supper was celebrated after the catechumens and mere hearers had withdrawn, and nobody was suffered to be present without receiving the sacrament. But, after the conversion of the empire, the canons and constitutions universally dispersed made public all these tradita; and the liturgies also were everywhere made known. It is idle, therefore, to shelter under theories of the Disciplina Arcani, those Middle-Age inventions, of which antiquity shows no trace but in many ways contradicts emphatically; e.g., the Eucharist, celebrated after the withdrawal of the non-communicants, and received, in both kinds, by all present, cannot be pleaded as the “secret” which justifies a ceremony in an unknown tongue and otherwise utterly different; in which the priest alone partakes, in which the cup is denied to the laity and which is exhibited with great pomp before all comers with no general participation.
IV.
(Esoteric Doctrine.189)
Early Christians, according to Clement, taught to all alike, (1) all things necessary to salvation, (2) all the whole Scriptures, and (3) all the apostolic traditions. This is evident from passages 344 noted here and hereafter. But, in the presence of the heathen, they remembered our Lord’s words, and were careful not “to cast pearls before swine.” Like St. Paul before Felix, they “reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come,” when dealing with men who knew not God, preaching Christ to them in a practical way. In their instructions to the churches, they were able to say with the same apostle, “I am pure from the blood of all men, for I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God.” Yet, even in the Church, they fed babes with milk, and the more intelligent with the meat of God’s word. What that meat was, we discover in the Stromata, when our author defines the true Gnostic, who follows whithersoever God leads him in the divinely inspired Scriptures. He recognises many who merely taste the Scriptures as believers; but the true Gnostic is a gnomon of truth, an index to others of the whole knowledge of Christ.
What we teach children in the Sunday school, and what we teach young men in the theological seminary, must illustrate the two ideas; the same truths to babes in element, but to men in all their bearings and relations.
The defenders of the modern creed of Pius the Fourth (a.d. 1564), finding no authority in Holy Scripture for most of its peculiarities, which are all imposed as requisite to salvation as if it were the Apostles’ Creed itself, endeavour to support them, by asserting that they belonged to the secret teaching of the early Church, of which they claim Clement as a witness. But the fallacy is obvious. Either they were thus secreted, or they were not. If not, as is most evident (because they contradict what was openly professed), then no ground for the pretence. But suppose they were, what follows? Such secrets were no part of the faith, and could not become so at a later period. If they were kept secret by the new theologians, and taught to “Gnostics” only, they would still be without primitive example, but might be less objectionable. But, no! they are imposed upon all, as if part of the ancient creeds; imposed, as if articles of the Catholic faith, on the most illiterate peasant, whose mere doubt as to any of them excludes him from the Church here, and from salvation hereafter. Such, then, is a fatal departure from Catholic orthodoxy and the traditions of the ancients. The whole system is a novelty, and the product of the most barren and corrupt period of Occidental history.
The Church, as Clement shows, never made any secret of any article of the Christian faith; and, as soon as she was free from persecution, the whole testimony of the Ante-Nicene Fathers was summed up in the Nicaeno-Constantinopolitan Confession. This only is the Catholic faith, and the council forbade any additions thereto, in the way of a symbol. See Professor Shedd’s Christian Doctrine, vol. ii. p. 438. Ed. 1864, New York.
V.
(Chap. I., note 9, Elucidation III., continued.)
This is a valuable passage for the illustration of our author’s views of the nature of tradition, (κατὰ τὸν σεμνὸν τῆς παραδόσεως κανόνα as a canon “from the creation of the world;” a tradition preluding the tradition of true knowledge; a divine mystery preparing for the knowledge of mysteries, - clearing the ground from thorns and weeds, beforehand, so that the seed of the Word may not be choked. Now, in this tradition, he includes a true idea of Gentilism as well as of the Hebrew Church and its covenant relations; in short, whatever a Christian scholar is obliged to learn from “Antiquities” and “Introductions” and “Bible Dictionaries,” authenticated by universal and orthodox approbation. These are the providential provisions of the Divine Oeconomy, for the communication of truth. Dr. Watts has a sermon on the Inward Witness to Christianity, which I find quoted by Vicesimus Knox (Works, vol. vii. p. 73, et seqq.) in a choice passage that forcibly expands and expounds some of Clement’s suggestions, though without referring to our author.
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VI.
(Justification, note 7.)
Without reference to my own views on this great subject, and desiring merely to illustrate our author, it shall suffice to remark, here, that to suppose that Clement uses the word technically, as we now use the language of the schools and of post-Reformation theologians, would hopelessly confuse the argument of our author. It is clear that he has no idea of any justification apart from the merits of Christ: but he uses the term loosely to express his idea, that as the Law led the Hebrews to the great Healer, who rose from the dead for our justification, in that sense, and in no other, the truth that was to be found in Greek Philosophy, although a minimum, did the same for heathen who loved truth, and followed it so far as they knew. Whether his views even in this were correct, it would not become me, here, to express any opinion.(See below Elucidation XIV.)
VII.
(Philosophy, note 8.)
It is so important to grasp just what our author understands by this “philosophy,” that I had designed to introduce, here, a long passage from Bishop Kaye’s lucid exposition. Finding, however, that these elucidations are already, perhaps, over multiplied, I content myself with a reference to his Account, etc. (pp. 118-121).
VIII.
(Overflow of the Spirit, note 1.)
Here, again, I wished to introduce textual citations from several eminent authors: I content myself with a very short one from Kaye, to illustrate the intricacy, not to say the contradictory character, of some of Clement’s positions as to the extent of grace bestowed on the heathen. “Clement says that an act, to be right, must be done through the love of God. He says that every action of the heathen is sinful, since it is not sufficient that an action is right: its object or aim must also be right” (Account, etc., p. 426). For a most interesting, but I venture to think overdrawn, statement of St. Paul’s position as to heathen “wisdom,” etc., see Farrar’s Life of St. Paul (p. 20, et seqq., ed. New York). Without relying on this popular author, I cannot but refer the reader to his Hulsean Lecture (1870, p. 135, et seqq.).
IX.
(Faith without Learning, note 5.)
The compassion of Christ for poverty, misery, for childhood, and for ignorance, is everywhere illustrated in Holy Scripture; and faith, even “as a grain of mustard seed,” is magnified, accordingly, in the infinite love of his teaching. Again I am willing to refer to Farrar (though I read him always with something between the lines, before I can adopt his sweeping generalizations) for a fine passage, I should quote entire, did space permit (The Witness of History to Christ, p. 172, ed. London, 1872). See also the noble sermon of Jeremy Taylor on John vii. 17 (Works, vol. ii. p. 53, ed. Bohn, 1844).
X.
(The Open Secret, note 3.)
The esoteric system of Clement is here expounded in few words: there is nothing in it which may not be proclaimed from the house-tops, for all who have ears to hear. It is the mere swine (with seed-pickers and jack-daws, the σπερμολόγοι of the Athenians) who must be denied the pearls of gnostic truth. And this, on the same merciful principle on which the Master was silent before Pilate, and turned away from cities where they were not prepared to receive his message.
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XI.
(Bodily Purity, note 1.)
From a familiar quotation, I have often argued that the fine in
