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| Chapter VII.—The Blessedness of the Martyr.
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Chapter VII.—The Blessedness of the Martyr.
Then he who has lied and shown himself unfaithful,
and revolted to the devil’s army, in what evil do we think him
to be? He belies, therefore, the Lord, or rather he is cheated of his
own hope who believes not God; and he believes not who does not what He
has commanded.
And what? Does not he, who denies the Lord, deny
himself? For does he not rob his Master of His authority, who deprives
himself of his relation to Him? He, then, who denies the Saviour, denies
life; for “the light was life.”2738
He does not term those men of
little faith, but faithless and hypocrites,2739
who have the name inscribed
on them, but deny that they are really believers. But the faithful is
called both servant and friend. So that if one loves himself, he loves the
Lord, and confesses to salvation that he may save his soul. Though you die
for your neighbour out of love, and regard the Saviour as our neighbour
(for God who saves is said to be nigh in respect to what is saved); you
do so, choosing death on account of life, and suffering for your own sake
rather than his. And is it not for this that he is called brother? he who,
suffering out of love to God, suffered for his own salvation; while he,
on the other hand, who dies for his own salvation, endures for love to
the Lord. For he being life, in what he suffered wished to suffer that
we might live by his suffering.
“Why call ye me Lord, Lord,”
He says, “and do not the things which I say?”2740
For
“the people that loveth with their lips, but have their heart far
away from the Lord,”2741
is another people, and trust in another,
and have willingly sold themselves to another; but those who perform
the commandments of the Lord, in every action “testify,”
by doing what He wishes, and consistently naming the Lord’s name;
and “testifying” by deed to Him in whom they trust, that they
are those “who have crucified the flesh, with the affections and
lusts.” “If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the
Spirit.”2742
“He that soweth to his flesh, shall of the flesh reap
corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit, shall of the Spirit reap
life everlasting.”2743
But to those miserable men, witness to the Lord by
blood seems a most violent death, not knowing that such a gate of death
is the beginning of the true life; and they will understand neither the
honours after death, which belong to those who have lived holily, nor
the punishments of those who have lived unrighteously and impurely.2744
| 2744 [This is important testimony as
to the primitive understanding of the awards of a future life.] |
I do not say only from our Scriptures (for almost all the commandments
indicate them); but they will not even hear their own discourses. For
the Pythagorean Theano writes, “Life were indeed a feast to the
wicked, who, having done evil, then die; were not the soul immortal,
death would be a godsend.” And Plato in the Phædo,
“For if death were release from everything,” and so
forth. We are not then to think according to the Telephus
of Æschylus, “that a single path leads to Hades.”
The ways are many, and the sins that lead thither. Such deeply erring
ones as the unfaithful are, Aristophanes properly makes the subjects of
comedy. “Come,” he says, “ye men of obscure life, ye
that are like the race of leaves, feeble, wax figures, shadowy tribes,
evanescent, fleeting, ephemeral.” And Epicharmus, “This
nature of men is inflated skins.” And the Saviour has said to
us, “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”2745
“Because the carnal mind is enmity against God,” explains the
apostle: “for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed,
can be. And they that are in the flesh cannot please God.” And
in further explanation continues, that no one may, like Marcion2746
| 2746 [See book iii., cap iii.,
supra.] | regard the creature as evil. “But if
Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life
because of righteousness.” And again: “For if ye live after
the flesh, ye shall die. For I reckon that the sufferings of this present
time are not worthy to be compared to the glory which shall be revealed
in us. If we suffer with Him, that we also may be glorified together
as joint-heirs of Christ. And we know that all things work together
for good to them that love God, to them that are called according to
the purpose. For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to
be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the first-born
among many brethren. And whom He did predestinate, them He also called;
and whom He called, them He also justified; and whom He justified, them
He also glorified.”2747
| 2747
Bible:Rom.8.18 Bible:Rom.8.28 Bible:Rom.8.29 Bible:Rom.8.30">Rom. viii. 7, 8, 10, 13, 17, 18, 28, 29, 30. |
You see that martyrdom for love’s sake
is taught. And should you wish to be a martyr for the recompense of
advantages, you shall hear again. “For we are saved by hope: but
hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope
for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for
it.”2748
“But if we also suffer for righteousness’
sake,” says Peter, “blessed are we. Be not afraid of their
fear, neither be troubled. But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and
be ready always to give an answer to him that asks a reason of the hope
that is in you, but with meekness and fear, having a good conscience; so
that in reference to that for which you are spoken against, they may be
ashamed who calumniate your good conversation in Christ. For it is better
to suffer for well-doing, if the will of God, than for evil-doing.”
But if one should captiously
say, And how is it possible for
feeble flesh to resist the energies and spirits of the Powers?2749
well, let him know this, that, confiding in the
Almighty and the Lord, we war against the principalities of darkness,
and against death. “Whilst thou art yet speaking,” He says,
“Lo, here am I.” See the invincible Helper who shields
us. “Think it not strange, therefore, concerning the burning
sent for your trial, as though some strange thing happened to you; But,
as you are partaken in the sufferings of Christ, rejoice; that at the
revelation of His glory ye may rejoice exultant. If ye be reproached
in the name of Christ, happy are ye; for the Spirit of glory and of God
resteth on you.”2750
As it is written, “Because for
Thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the
slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors, through
Him that loved us.”2751
“What you wish to ascertain from my mind,
You shall not ascertain, not were you to apply
Horrid saws from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet,
Not were you to load me with chains,”
says a woman acting manfully
in the tragedy. And Antigone, contemning the proclamation of Creon,
says boldly:—
“It was not Zeus who uttered this proclamation.”
But it is God that makes
proclamation to us, and He must be believed. “For with the heart
man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made
unto salvation. Wherefore the Scripture saith, “Whosoever believeth
on Him shall not be put to shame.”2752
Accordingly Simonides
justly writes, “It is said that virtue dwells among all but
inaccessible rocks, but that she speedily traverses a pure place. Nor
is she visible to the eyes of all mortals. He who is not penetrated
by heart-vexing sweat will not scale the summit of manliness.”
And Pindar says:—
“But the anxious thoughts of youths, revolving with toils,
Will find glory: and in time their deeds
Will in resplendent ether splendid shine.”
Æschylus, too, having grasped
this thought, says:—
“To him who toils is due,
As product of his toil, glory from the gods.”
“For great Fates attain
great destinies,” according to Heraclitus:—
“And what slave is there, who is careless of death?”
“For God hath not given us
the spirit of bondage again to fear; but of power, and love, and of a
sound mind. Be not therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, or of
me his prisoner,” he writes to Timothy.2753
Such
shall he be “who cleaves to that which is good,” according
to the apostle,2754
“who hates evil, having love
unfeigned; for he that loveth another fulfilleth the law.”2755
If,
then, this God, to whom we bear witness, be as He is, the God of hope,
we acknowledge our hope, speeding on to hope, “saturated with
goodness, filled with all knowledge.”2756
The Indian sages say to Alexander of Macedon:
“You transport men’s bodies from place to place. But you
shall not force our souls to do what we do not wish. Fire is to men the
greatest torture, this we despise.” Hence Heraclitus preferred
one thing, glory, to all else; and professes “that he allows the
crowd to stuff themselves to satiety like cattle.”
“For on account of the body are many toils,
For it we have invented a roofed house,
And discovered how to dig up silver, and sow the land,
And all the rest which we know by names.”
To the multitude, then, this
vain labour is desirable. But to us the apostle says, “Now we
know this, that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin
might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.”2757
Does
not the apostle then plainly add the following, to show the contempt
for faith in the case of the multitude? “For I think that God
hath set forth us the apostles last, as appointed to death: we are made
a spectacle to the world, and to angels, and to men. Up to this present
hour we both hunger, and thirst, and are naked, and are beaten, and are
feeble, and labour, working with our hands. Being reviled, we bless;
being persecuted, we endure; being defamed, we entreat; we are become as
it were the offscourings of the world.”2758
| 2758 1 Cor. iv. 9, 11, 12, 13. | Such also are
the words of Plato in the Republic:2759
| 2759 [ii. 5. Compare Cicero’s Rep.,
iii. 17.] | “The just man, though stretched on the rack,
though his eyes are dug out, will be happy.” The Gnostic will
never then have the chief end placed in life, but in being always
happy and blessed, and a kingly friend of God. Although visited with
ignominy and exile, and confiscation, and above all, death, he will
never be wrenched from his freedom, and signal love to God. “The
charity which bears all things, endures all things,”2760
is assured that Divine Providence orders all things well. “I
exhort you,” therefore it is said, “Be followers of
me.” The first step to salvation2761
| 2761 For σώματος read
ωτηρίας. | is the
instruction accompanied with fear, in consequence of which we abstain
from what is wrong; and the second is
hope, by reason of which
we desire the best things; but love, as is fitting, perfects, by
training now according to knowledge. For the Greeks, I know not how,
attributing events to unreasoning necessity, own that they yield to them
unwillingly. Accordingly Euripides says:—
“What I declare, receive from me, madam:
No mortal exists who has not toil;
He buries children, and begets others,
And he himself dies. And thus mortals are afflicted.”
Then he adds:—
“We must bear those things which are inevitable
according to nature, and go through them:
Not one of the things which are necessary is formidable
for mortals.”
And for those who are aiming
at perfection there is proposed the rational gnosis, the foundation
of which is “the sacred Triad.” “Faith, hope, love;
but the greatest of these is love.”2762
| 2762 1 Cor. xiii. 13. [Not without allusion to the grand
Triad, however. p. 101, this volume.] | Truly, “all things
are lawful, but all things are not expedient,” says the apostle:
“all things are lawful for me, but all things edify not.”2763
And, “Let no one seek his own advantage, but also that of his
neighbour,”2764
so as to be able at once to do and to teach,
building and building up. For that “the earth is the Lord’s,
and the fulness thereof,” is admitted; but the conscience of the
weak is supported. “Conscience, I say, not his own, but that of
the other; for why is my liberty judged of by another conscience? For
if I by grace am partaker, why am I evil spoken of for that for which
I give thanks? Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye
do, do all to the glory of God.”2765
| 2765 Bible:1Cor.10.31">1 Cor. x. 26, 28, 29, 30, 31. | “For
though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh; for the
weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the
demolition of fortifications, demolishing thoughts, and every high
thing which exalteth itself against the knowledge of Christ.”2766
Equipped with these weapons, the Gnostic says: O Lord, give opportunity,
and receive demonstration; let this dread event pass; I contemn dangers
for the love I bear to Thee.
“Because alone of human things
Virtue receives not a recompense from without,
But has itself as the reward of its toils.”
“Put on therefore, as
the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness,
humbleness, meekness, long-suffering. And above all these, love,
which is the bond of perfection. And let the peace of God reign
in your hearts, to which also ye are called in one body; and be
thankful,”2767
| 2767
Col. iii. 12, 14, 15. | ye who, while still in the body, like
the just men of old, enjoy impassibility and tranquillity of soul.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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