DESCRIPTION OF THE PERFECT MAN, OR GNOSTIC.
Here I find perfection apprehended variously in relation to Him who
excels in every virtue. Accordingly one is perfected as pious, and as
patient, and as continent, and as a worker, and as a martyr, and as
a Gnostic. But I know no one of men perfect in all things at once,
while still human, though according to the mere letter of the law,
except Him alone who for us clothed Himself with humanity. Who then
is perfect? He who professes abstinence from what is bad. Well, this
is the way to the gospel and to well-doing. But gnostic perfection in
the case of the legal man is the acceptance of the gospel, that he
that is after the law may be perfect. For so he, who was after the
law, Moses, foretold that it was necessary to hear in order that we
might, according to the apostle, receive Christ, the fulness of the
law.[633] But now in the gospel the Gnostic attains proficiency not
only by making use of the law as a step, but by understanding and
comprehending it, as the Lord who gave the Covenants delivered it to
the apostles. And if he conduct himself rightly (as assuredly it is
impossible to attain knowledge (_gnosis_) by bad conduct); and
if, further, having made an eminently right confession, he become a
martyr out of love, obtaining considerable renown as among men; not
even thus will he be called perfect in the flesh beforehand; since it
is the close of life which claims this appellation, when the gnostic
martyr has first shown the perfect work, and rightly exhibited it, and
having thankfully shed his blood, has yielded up the ghost: blessed
then will he be, and truly proclaimed perfect, “that the excellency
of the power may be of God, and not of us,” as the apostle says. Only
let us preserve free-will and love: “troubled on every side, yet
not distressed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not
forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed.”[634] For those who strive
after perfection, according to the same apostle, must “give no offence
in anything, but in everything approve themselves not to men, but to
God.” And, as a consequence, also they ought to yield to men; for it is
reasonable, on account of abusive calumnies. Here is the specification:
“in much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses, in
stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labours, in watchings, in
fastings, in pureness, in knowledge, in long-suffering, in kindness,
in the Holy Ghost, in love unfeigned, in the word of truth, in the
power of God,”[635] that we may be the temples of God, purified “from
all filthiness of the flesh and of the spirit.” “And I,” He says,
“will receive you; and I will be to you for a Father, and ye shall be
to me for sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.”[636] “Let us
then,” he says, “perfect holiness in the fear of God.” For though fear
beget pain, “I rejoice,” he says, “not that ye were made sorry, but
that ye showed susceptibility to repentance. For ye sorrowed after a
godly sort, that ye might receive damage by us in nothing. For godly
sorrow worketh repentance unto salvation not to be regretted; but
the sorrow of the world worketh death. For this same thing that ye
sorrowed after a godly sort, what earnestness it wrought in you; yea,
what clearing of yourselves; yea, what compunction; yea, what fear;
yea, what desire; yea, what zeal; yea, revenge! In all things ye have
showed yourselves clear in the matter.”[637] Such are the preparatory
exercises of gnostic discipline. And since the omnipotent God Himself
“gave some apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists, and some
pastors and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work
of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all
attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of
God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fulness
of Christ;”[638] we are then to strive to reach manhood as befits the
Gnostic, and to be as perfect as we can while still abiding in the
flesh, making it our study with perfect concord here to concur with the
will of God, to the restoration of what is the truly perfect nobleness
and relationship, to the fulness of Christ, that which perfectly
depends on our perfection.
And now we perceive where, and how, and when the divine apostle
mentions the perfect man, and how he shows the differences of the
perfect. And again, on the other hand: “The manifestation of the Spirit
is given for our profit. For to one is given the word of wisdom by the
Spirit; to another the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit;
to another faith through the same Spirit; to another the gifts of
healing through the same Spirit; to another the working of miracles;
to another prophecy; to another discernment of spirits; to another
diversities of tongues; to another the interpretation of tongues: and
all these worketh the one and the same Spirit, distributing to each
one according as He wills.”[639] Such being the case, the prophets are
perfect in prophecy, the righteous in righteousness, and the martyrs
in confession, and others in preaching, not that they are not sharers
in the common virtues, but are proficient in those to which they are
appointed. For what man in his senses would say that a prophet was not
righteous? For what? did not righteous men like Abraham prophesy?
“For to one God has given warlike deeds,
To another the accomplishment of the dance,
To another the lyre and song,”[640]
says Homer. “But each has his own proper gift of God,”[641]--one
in one way, another in another. But the apostles were perfected in
all. You will find, then, if you choose, in their acts and writings,
knowledge, life, preaching, righteousness, purity, prophecy. We must
know, then, that if Paul is young in respect to time--having flourished
immediately after the Lord’s ascension--yet his writings depend on the
Old Testament, breathing and speaking of them. For faith in Christ and
the knowledge of the gospel are the explanation and fulfilment of the
law; and therefore it was said to the Hebrews, “If ye believe not,
neither shall you understand;”[642] that is, unless you believe what is
prophesied in the law, and oracularly delivered by the law, you will
not understand the Old Testament, which He by His coming expounded.