He says, then, that sinners exercise activities appropriate to demons; but he does not say that the spirits themselves dwell in the soul of the unbeliever. Wherefore he also adds, "See that the temple of the Lord be gloriously built. Learn, having received remission of sins; and having set our hope on the Name, let us become new, created again from the beginning." For what he says is not that demons are driven out of us, but that the sins which like them we commit before believing are remitted. Rightly thus he puts in opposition what follows: "Wherefore God truly dwells in our home. He dwells in us. How? The word of His faith, the calling of His promise, the wisdom of His statutes, the commandments of His communication, [dwell in us]."
"I know that I have come upon a heresy; and its chief was wont to say that he fought with pleasure by pleasure, this worthy Gnostic advancing on pleasure in feigned combat, for he said he was a Gnostic; since he said it was no great thing for a man that had not tried pleasure to abstain from it, but for one who had mixed in it not to be overcome [was something]; and that therefore by means of it he trained himself in it. The wretched man knew not that he was deceiving himself by the artfulness of voluptuousness. To this opinion, then, manifestly Aristippus the Cyrenian adhered--that of the sophist who boasted of the truth. Accordingly, when reproached for continually cohabiting with the Corinthian courtezan, he said, "I possess Lais, and am not possessed by her."
Such also are those (who say that they follow Nicolaus, quoting an adage of the man, which they pervert, [2399] "that the flesh must be abused." But the worthy man showed that it was necessary to check pleasures and lusts, and by such training to waste away the impulses and propensities of the flesh. But they, abandoning themselves to pleasure like goats, as if insulting the body, lead a life of self-indulgence; not knowing that the body is wasted, being by nature subject to dissolution; while their soul is buried in the mire of vice; following as they do the teaching of pleasure itself, not of the apostolic man. For in what do they differ from Sardanapalus, whose life is shown in the epigram:--
"I have what I ate--what I enjoyed wantonly;
And the pleasures I felt in love. But those
Many objects of happiness are left,
For I too am dust, who ruled great Ninus."
For the feeling of pleasure is not at all a necessity, but the accompaniment of certain natural needs--hunger, thirst, cold, marriage. If, then, it were possible to drink without it, or take food, or beget children, no other need of it could be shown. For pleasure is neither a function, nor a state, nor any part of us; but has been introduced into life as an auxiliary, as they say salt was to season food. But when it casts off restraint and rules the house, it generates first concupiscence, which is an irrational propension and impulse towards that which gratifies it; and it induced Epicurus to lay down pleasure as the aim of the philosopher. Accordingly he deifies a sound condition of body, and the certain hope respecting it. For what else is luxury than the voluptuous gluttony and the superfluous abundance of those who are abandoned to self-indulgence? Diogenes writes significantly in a tragedy:--
"Who to the pleasures of effeminate
And filthy luxury attached in heart,
Wish not to undergo the slightest toil."
And what follows, expressed indeed in foul language, but in a manner worthy of the voluptuaries.
Wherefore the divine law appears to me necessarily to menace with fear, that, by caution and attention, the philosopher may acquire and retain absence of anxiety, continuing without fall and without sin in all things. For peace and freedom are not otherwise won, than by ceaseless and unyielding struggles with our lusts. For these stout and Olympic antagonists are keener than wasps, so to speak; and Pleasure especially, not by day only, but by night, is in dreams with witchcraft ensnaringly plotting and biting. How, then, can the Greeks any more be right in running down the law, when they themselves teach that Pleasure is the slave of fear? Socrates accordingly bids "people guard against enticements to eat when they are not hungry, and to drink when not thirsty, and the glances and kisses of the fair, as fitted to inject a deadlier poison than that of scorpions and spiders." And Antisthenes chose rather "to be demented than delighted." And the Theban Crates says:--
"Master these, exulting in the disposition of the soul,
Vanquished neither by gold nor by languishing love,
Nor are they any longer attendants to the wanton."
And at length infers:--
"Those, unenslaved and unbended by servile Pleasure,
Love the immortal kingdom and freedom."
He writes expressly, in other words, "that the stop [2400] to the unbridled propensity to amorousness is hunger or a halter."
And the comic poets attest, while they depreciate the teaching of Zeno the Stoic, to be to the following effect:--
"For he philosophizes a vain philosophy:
He teaches to want food, and gets pupils
One loaf, and for seasoning a dry fig, and to drink water."
All these, then, are not ashamed clearly to confess the advantage which accrues from caution. And the wisdom which is true and not contrary to reason, trusting not in mere words and oracular utterances, but in invulnerable armour of defence and energetic mysteries, and devoting itself to divine commands, and exercise, and practice, receives a divine power according to its inspiration from the Word.
Already, then, the ægis of the poetic Jove is described as
"Dreadful, crowned all around by Terror,
And on it Strife and Prowess, and chilling Rout;
On it, too, the Gorgon's head, dread monster,
Terrible, dire, the sign of Ægis-bearing Jove." [2401]
But to those, who are able rightly to understand salvation, I know not what will appear dearer than the gravity of the Law, and Reverence, which is its daughter. For when one is said to pitch too high, as also the Lord says, with reference to certain; so that some of those whose desires are towards Him may not sing out of pitch and tune, I do not understand it as pitching too high in reality, but only as spoken with reference to such as will not take up the divine yoke. For to those, who are unstrung and feeble, what is medium seems too high; and to those, who are unrighteous, what befalls them seems severe justice. For those, who, on account of the favour they entertain for sins, are prone to pardon, suppose truth to be harshness, and severity to be savageness, and him who does not sin with them, and is not dragged with them, to be pitiless. Tragedy writes therefore well of Pluto:--
"And to what sort of a deity wilt thou come, [2402] dost thou ask,
Who knows neither clemency nor favour,
But loves bare justice alone."
For although you are not yet able to do the things enjoined by the Law, yet, considering that the noblest examples are set before us in it, we are able to nourish and increase the love of liberty; and so we shall profit more eagerly as far as we can, inviting some things, imitating some things, and fearing others. For thus the righteous of the olden time, who lived according to the law, "were not from a storied oak, or from a rock;" because they wish to philosophize truly, took and devoted themselves entirely to God, and were classified under faith. Zeno said well of the Indians, that he would rather have seen one Indian roasted, than have learned the whole of the arguments about bearing pain. But we have exhibited before our eyes every day abundant sources of martyrs that are burnt, impaled, beheaded. All these the fear inspired by the law,--leading as a pædagogue to Christ, trained so as to manifest their piety by their blood. "God stood in the congregation of the gods; He judgeth in the midst of the gods." [2403] Who are they? Those that are superior to Pleasure, who rise above the passions, who know what they do--the Gnostics, who are greater than the world. "I said, Ye are Gods; and all sons of the Highest." [2404] To whom speaks the Lord? To those who reject as far as possible all that is of man. And the apostle says, "For ye are not any longer in the flesh, but in the Spirit." [2405] And again he says, "Though in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh." [2406] "For flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, neither doth corruption inherit incorruption." [2407] "Lo, ye shall die like men," the Spirit has said, confuting us.
We must then exercise ourselves in taking care about those things which fall under the power of the passions, fleeing like those who are truly philosophers such articles of food as excite lust, and dissolute licentiousness in chambering and luxury; and the sensations that tend to luxury, which are a solid reward to others, must no longer be so to us. For God's greatest gift is self-restraint. For He Himself has said, "I will neyer leave thee, nor forsake thee," [2408] as having judged thee worthy according to the true election. Thus, then, while we attempt piously to advance, we shall have put on us the mild yoke of the Lord from faith to faith, one charioteer driving each of us onward to salvation, that the meet fruit of beatitude may be won. "Exercise is" according to Hippocrates of Cos, "not only the health of the body, but of the soul--fearlessness of labours--a ravenous appetite for food."
[2385] Substituting on for en to Kurio after sunoikos.
[2386] [Gal vi. 14. S.]
[2387] kuna, Eurip., Andromache, 629.
[2388] Eros, Cupid.
[2389] Or, "carpets." Xenoph., Memorabilia, II. i. 30; The Words of Virtue to Vice.
[2390] Eph. vi. 11.
[2391] i.e., Permanent state and nature.
[2392] [See Epiphan., Opp., ii. 391, ed. Oehler.]
[2393] Or, vie with.
[2394] parousia substituted by Grabe for parrhesia.
[2395] Matt. v. 8. [On the Beatitudes, see book iv. cap. 6, infra.]
[2396] Matt. vii. 7.
[2397] [See note, book ii. cap. 7, p. 352, supra.]
[2398] Barnabas, Epist., cap. xvi. vol. i. p. 147.
[2399] [Clement does not credit the apostasy of the deacon Nicolas (Acts vi. 5), though others of the Fathers surrender him to the Nicolaitans. See book iii. cap. iv. infra.]
[2400] katapausma (in Theodoret), for which the text reads kataplasma.
[2401] Iliad, v. 739.
[2402] After this comes os erota, which yields no meaning, and has been variously amended, but not satisfactorily. Most likely some words have dropped out of the text. [The note in ed. Migne, nevertheless, is worth consultation.]
[2403] Ps. lxxxii. 1.
[2404] Ps. lxxxii. 6.
[2405] Rom. viii. 9.
[2406] 2 Cor. x. 3.
[2407] 1 Cor. xv. 50.
[2408] Heb. xiii. 5.