THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.
For it is not suitable to the nature of the thing itself, that they
should apprehend in the truly gnostic manner the truth, that all things
which were created for our use are good; as, for example, marriage and
procreation, when used in moderation; and that it is better than good
to become free of passion, and virtuous by assimilation to the divine.
But in the case of external things, agreeable or disagreeable, from
some they abstain, from others not. But in those things from which they
abstain from disgust, they plainly find fault with the creature and the
Creator; and though in appearance they walk faithfully, the opinion
they maintain is impious. That command, “Thou shalt not lust,” needs
neither the necessity arising from fear, which compels to keep from
things that are pleasant; nor the reward, which by promise persuades to
restrain the impulses of passion.
And those who obey God through the promise, caught by the bait of
pleasure, choose obedience not for the sake of the commandment, but
for the sake of the promise. Nor will turning away from objects of
sense, as a matter of necessary consequence, produce attachment to
intellectual objects. On the contrary, the attachment to intellectual
objects naturally becomes to the Gnostic an influence which draws away
from the objects of sense; inasmuch as he, in virtue of the selection
of what is good, has chosen what is good according to knowledge
(γνωστικῶς), admiring generation, and by sanctifying the Creator
sanctifying assimilation to the divine. But I shall free myself from
lust, let him say, O Lord, for the sake of alliance with Thee. For the
economy of creation is good, and all things are well administered:
nothing happens without a cause. I must be in what is Thine, O
Omnipotent One. And if I am there, I am near Thee. And I would be free
of fear that I may be able to draw near to Thee, and to be satisfied
with little, practising Thy just choice between things good and things
like.
Right mystically and sacredly the apostle, teaching us the choice
which is truly gracious, not in the way of rejection of other things
as bad, but so as to do things better than what is good, has spoken,
saying, “So he that giveth his virgin in marriage doeth well; and he
that giveth her not doeth better; as far as respects seemliness and
undistracted attendance on the Lord.”[657]
Now we know that things which are difficult are not essential; but
that things which are essential have been graciously made easy of
attainment by God. Wherefore Democritus well says, that “nature and
instruction” are like each other. And we have briefly assigned the
cause. For instruction harmonizes man, and by harmonizing makes him
natural; and it is no matter whether one was made such as he is by
nature, or transformed by time and education. The Lord has furnished
both; that which is by creation, and that which is by creating again
and renewal through the covenant. And that is preferable which is
advantageous to what is superior; but what is superior to everything is
mind. So, then, what is really good is seen to be most pleasant, and
of itself produces the fruit which is desired--tranquillity of soul.
“And he who hears me,” it is said, “shall rest in peace, confident, and
shall be calm without fear of any evil.”[658] “Rely with all thy heart
and thy mind on God.”[659]
On this wise it is possible for the Gnostic already to have become God.
“I said, Ye are gods, and sons of the Highest.”[660] And Empedocles
says that the souls of the wise become gods, writing as follows:
“At last prophets, minstrels, and physicians,
And the foremost among mortal men, approach;
Whence spring gods supreme in honours.”
Man, then, generically considered, is formed in accordance with
the idea of the connate spirit. For he is not created formless and
shapeless in the workshop of nature, where mystically the production
of man is accomplished, both art and essence being common. But the
individual man is stamped according to the impression produced in
the soul by the objects of his choice. Thus we say that Adam was
perfect, as far as respects his formation; for none of the distinctive
characteristics of the idea and form of man were wanting to him; but
in the act of coming into being he received perfection. And he was
justified by obedience; this was reaching manhood, as far as depended
on him. And the cause lay in his choosing, and especially in his
choosing what was forbidden. God was not the cause.
For production is twofold--of things procreated, and of things that
grow. And manliness in man, who is subject to perturbation, as they
say, makes him who partakes of it essentially fearless and invincible;
and anger is the mind’s satellite in patience, and endurance, and the
like; and self-constraint and salutary sense are set over desire. But
God is impassible, free of anger, destitute of desire. And He is not
free of fear, in the sense of avoiding what is terrible; or temperate,
in the sense of having command of desires. For neither can the nature
of God fall in with anything terrible, nor does God flee fear; just as
He will not feel desire, so as to rule over desires. Accordingly that
Pythagorean saying was mystically uttered respecting us, “that man
ought to become one;” for the high priest himself is one, God being one
in the immutable state of the perpetual flow[661] of good things. Now
the Saviour has taken away wrath in and with lust, wrath being lust
of vengeance. For universally liability to feeling belongs to every
kind of desire; and man, when deified purely into a passionless state,
becomes a unit. As, then, those, who at sea are held by an anchor, pull
at the anchor, but do not drag it to them, but drag themselves to the
anchor; so those who, according to the gnostic life, draw God towards
them, imperceptibly bring themselves to God: for he who reverences God,
reverences himself. In the contemplative life, then, one in worshipping
God attends to himself, and through his own spotless purification
beholds the holy God holily; for self-control, being present, surveying
and contemplating itself uninterruptedly, is as far as possible
assimilated to God.