ON THE SAYING OF THE SAVIOUR, “ALL THAT CAME BEFORE ME
WERE THIEVES AND ROBBERS.”[953]
But, say they, it is written, “All who were before the Lord’s advent
are thieves and robbers.” All, then, who are in the Word (for it is
these that were previous to the incarnation of the Word) are understood
generally. But the prophets, being sent and inspired by the Lord, were
not thieves, but servants. The Scripture accordingly says, “Wisdom sent
her servants, inviting with loud proclamation to a goblet of wine.”[954]
But philosophy, it is said, was not sent by the Lord, but came stolen,
or given by a thief. It was then some power or angel that had learned
something of the truth, but abode not in it, that inspired and taught
these things, not without the Lord’s knowledge, who knew before the
constitution of each essence the issues of futurity, but without His
prohibition.
For the theft which reached men then, had some advantage; not that
he who perpetrated the theft had utility in his eye, but Providence
directed the issue of the audacious deed to utility. I know that many
are perpetually assailing us with the allegation, that not to prevent
a thing happening, is to be the cause of it happening. For they say,
that the man who does not take precaution against a theft, or does not
prevent it, is the cause of it: as he is the cause of the conflagration
who has not quenched it at the beginning; and the master of the vessel
who does not reef the sail, is the cause of the shipwreck. Certainly
those who are the causes of such events are punished by the law. For
to him who had power to prevent, attaches the blame of what happens.
We say to them, that causation is seen in doing, working, acting; but
the not preventing is in this respect inoperative. Further, causation
attaches to activity; as in the case of the shipbuilder in relation
to the origin of the vessel, and the builder in relation to the
construction of the house. But that which does not prevent is separated
from what takes place. Wherefore the effect will be accomplished;
because that which could have prevented neither acts nor prevents. For
what activity does that which prevents not exert? Now their assertion
is reduced to absurdity, if they shall say that the cause of the wound
is not the dart, but the shield, which did not prevent the dart from
passing through; and if they blame not the thief, but the man who did
not prevent the theft. Let them then say, that it was not Hector that
burned the ships of the Greeks, but Achilles; because, having the power
to prevent Hector, he did not prevent him; but out of anger (and it
depended on himself to be angry or not) did not keep back the fire, and
was a concurring cause. Now the devil, being possessed of free-will,
was able both to repent and to steal; and it was he who was the author
of the theft, not the Lord, who did not prevent him. But neither was
the gift hurtful, so as to require that prevention should intervene.
But if strict accuracy must be employed in dealing with them, let them
know, that that which does not prevent what we assert to have taken
place in the theft, is not a cause at all; but that what prevents is
involved in the accusation of being a cause. For he that protects
with a shield is the cause of him whom he protects not being wounded;
preventing him, as he does, from being wounded. For the demon of
Socrates was a cause, not by not preventing, but by exhorting, even
if (strictly speaking) he did not exhort. And neither praises nor
censures, neither rewards nor punishments, are right, when the soul
has not the power of inclination and disinclination, but evil is
involuntary. Whence he who prevents is a cause; while he who prevents
not judges justly the soul’s choice. So in no respect is God the author
of evil. But since free choice and inclination originate sins, and a
mistaken judgment sometimes prevails, from which, since it is ignorance
and stupidity, we do not take pains to recede, punishments are rightly
inflicted. For to take fever is involuntary; but when one takes fever
through his own fault, from excess, we blame him. Inasmuch, then, as
evil is involuntary,--for no one prefers evil as evil; but induced
by the pleasure that is in it, and imagining it good, considers it
desirable;--such being the case, to free ourselves from ignorance,
and from evil and voluptuous choice, and above all, to withhold our
assent from those delusive phantasies, depends on ourselves. The
devil is called “thief and robber;” having mixed false prophets with
the prophets, as tares with the wheat. “All, then, that came before
the Lord, were thieves and robbers;” not absolutely all men, but all
the false prophets, and all who were not properly sent by Him. For
the false prophets possessed the prophetic name dishonestly, being
prophets, but prophets of the liar. For the Lord says, “Ye are of your
father the devil; and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a
murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there
is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own; for
he is a liar, and the father of it.”[955]
But among the lies, the false prophets also told some true things. And
in reality they prophesied “in an ecstasy,” as the servants of the
apostate. And the Shepherd, the angel of repentance, says to Hermas, of
the false prophet: “For he speaks some truths. For the devil fills him
with his own spirit, if perchance he may be able to cast down any one
from what is right.” All things, therefore, are dispensed from heaven
for good, “that by the church may be made known the manifold wisdom of
God, according to the eternal foreknowledge,[956] which He purposed in
Christ.”[957] Nothing withstands God: nothing opposes Him: seeing He
is Lord and omnipotent. Further, the counsels and activities of those
who have rebelled, being partial, proceed from a bad disposition, as
bodily diseases from a bad constitution, but are guided by universal
Providence to a salutary issue, even though the cause be productive
of disease. It is accordingly the greatest achievement of divine
Providence, not to allow the evil, which has sprung from voluntary
apostasy, to remain useless, and for no good, and not to become in
all respects injurious. For it is the work of the divine wisdom, and
excellence, and power, not alone to do good (for this is, so to speak,
the nature of God, as it is of fire to warm and of light to illumine),
but especially to ensure that what happens through the evils hatched by
any, may come to a good and useful issue, and to use to advantage those
things which appear to be evils, as also the testimony which accrues
from temptation.
There is then in philosophy, though stolen as the fire by Prometheus,
a slender spark, capable of being fanned into flame, a trace of wisdom
and an impulse from God. Well, be it so that “the thieves and robbers”
are the philosophers among the Greeks, who from the Hebrew prophets
before the coming of the Lord received fragments of the truth, not with
full knowledge, and claimed these as their own teachings, disguising
some points, treating others sophistically by their ingenuity, and
discovering other things, for perchance they had “the spirit of
perception.”[958] Aristotle, too, assented to Scripture, and declared
sophistry to have stolen wisdom, as we intimated before. And the
apostle says, “Which things we speak, not in the words which man’s
wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth.”[959] For of the
prophets it is said, “We have all received of His fulness,”[960] that
is, of Christ’s. So that the prophets are not thieves. “And my doctrine
is not mine,” saith the Lord, “but the Father’s which sent me.” And of
those who steal He says: “But he that speaketh of himself, seeketh his
own glory.”[961] Such are the Greeks, “lovers of their own selves, and
boasters.”[962] Scripture, when it speaks of these as wise, does not
brand those who are really wise, but those who are wise in appearance.