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| Chapter VIII.—Women as Well as Men, Slaves as Well as Freemen, Candidates for the Martyr’s Crown.
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Chapter VIII.—Women as Well as Men, Slaves as Well as Freemen, Candidates for the Martyr’s Crown.
Since, then, not only the Æsopians, and
Macedonians, and the Lacedæmonians endured when subjected to torture,
as Eratosthenes says in his work, On Things Good and Evil; but
also Zeno of Elea, when subjected to compulsion to divulge a secret,
held out against the tortures, and confessed nothing; who, when expiring,
bit out his tongue and spat it at the tyrant, whom some term Nearchus,
and some Demulus. Theodotus the Pythagorean acted also similarly,
and Paulus the friend of Lacydes, as Timotheus of Pergamus says in his
work on The Fortitude of Philosophers, and Achaicus in The
Ethics. Posthumus also, the Roman, when captured by Peucetion,
did not divulge a single secret; but putting his hand on the fire,
held it to it as if to a piece of brass, without moving a muscle of his
face. I omit the case of Anaxarchus, who exclaimed, “Pound away
at the sack which holds Anaxarchus, for it is not Anaxarchus you are
pounding,” when by the tyrant’s orders he was being pounded
with iron pestles. Neither, then, the hope of happiness nor the love
of God takes what befalls ill, but remains free, although thrown among
the wildest beasts or into the all-devouring fire; though racked with a
tyrant’s tortures. Depending as it does on the divine favour, it
ascends aloft unenslaved, surrendering the body to those who can touch
it alone. A barbarous nation, not cumbered with philosophy, select,
it is said, annually an ambassador to the hero Zamolxis. Zamolxis was
one of the disciples of Pythagoras. The one, then, who is judged of the
most sterling worth is put to death, to the distress of those who have
practiced philosophy, but have not been selected, at being reckoned
unworthy of a happy service.
So the Church is full of those, as well
chaste women as men, who all their life have contemplated the
death which rouses up to Christ.2768
| 2768 [The Edin. Translator says “courted
the death;” but surely (μελετησάντων)
the original merely states the condition of Christians in the
second century, “dying daily,” and accepting in daily
contemplation the very probable death “by which they should
glorify God.”] | For the individual whose life
is framed as ours is, may philosophize without Learning, whether
barbarian, whether Greek, whether slave—whether an old man, or
a boy, or a woman.2769
| 2769
[Note the Catholic democracy of Christianity, which levels up and not
downward.] | For self-control is common to all human beings
who have made choice of it. And we admit that the same nature exists
in every race, and the same virtue. As far as respects human nature,
the woman does not possess one nature, and the man exhibit another,
but the same: so also with virtue. If, consequently, a self-restraint
and righteousness, and whatever qualities are regarded as
following them, is the virtue of the
male, it belongs to the male alone to be virtuous, and to the woman to be
licentious and unjust. But it is offensive even to say this. Accordingly
woman is to practice self-restraint and righteousness, and every
other virtue, as well as man, both bond and free; since it is a fit
consequence that the same nature possesses one and the same virtue.2770
We do not say that woman’s nature is the same as man’s, as
she is woman. For undoubtedly it stands to reason that some difference
should exist between each of them, in virtue of which one is male
and the other female. Pregnancy and parturition, accordingly, we say
belong to woman, as she is woman, and not as she is a human being. But
if there were no difference between man and woman, both would do and
suffer the same things. As then there is sameness, as far as respects
the soul, she will attain to the same virtue; but as there is difference
as respects the peculiar construction of the body, she is destined for
child-bearing and housekeeping. “For I would have you know,”
says the apostle, “that the head of every man is Christ; and the
head of the woman is the man: for the man is not of the woman, but the
woman of the man. For neither is the woman without the man, nor the
man without the woman, in the Lord.”2771
| 2771 1 Cor. xi. 3, 8, 11. | For as we say that
the man ought to be continent, and superior to pleasures; so also we
reckon that the woman should be continent and practiced in fighting
against pleasures. “But I say, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall
not fulfil the lusts of the flesh,” counsels the apostolic command;
“for the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against
the flesh. These, then, are contrary” (not as good to evil,
but as fighting advantageously), he adds therefore, so that ye cannot
do the things that ye would. Now the works of the flesh are manifest,
which are, fornication uncleanness, profligacy, idolatry, witchcrafts,
enmities, strifes, jealousies, wrath, contentions, dissensions, heresies,
envyings, drunkenness, revellings, and such like; of which I tell you
before, as I have also said before, that they which do such things shall
not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love,
joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, temperance, goodness, faith,
meekness.”2772
He calls sinners, as I
think, “flesh,” and the righteous “spirit.”
Further, manliness is to be assumed in order to produce confidence and
forbearance, so as “to him that strikes on the one cheek, to give
to him the other; and to him that takes away the cloak, to yield to him
the coat also,” strongly, restraining anger. For we do not train
our women like Amazons to manliness in war; since we wish the men even to
be peaceable. I hear that the Sarmatian women practice war no less than
the men; and the women of the Sacæ besides, who shoot backwards,
feigning flight as well as the men. I am aware, too, that the women
near Iberia practice manly work and toil, not refraining from their
tasks even though near their delivery; but even in the very struggle of
her pains, the woman, on being delivered, taking up the infant, carries
it home. Further, the females no less than the males manage the house,
and hunt, and keep the flocks:—
“Cressa the hound ran keenly in the stag’s track.”
Women are therefore to philosophize
equally with men, though the males are preferable at everything,
unless they have become effeminate.2773
| 2773 [The Edin. Trans. has “best at
everything,” but I have corrected it in closer accord with the
comparative degree in the Greek.] | To the whole human race,
then, discipline and virtue are a necessity, if they would pursue
after happiness. And how recklessly Euripides writes sometimes this and
sometimes that! On one occasion, “For every wife is inferior to
her husband, though the most excellent one marry her that is of fair
fame.” And on another:—
“For the chaste is her husband’s slave,
While she that is unchaste in her folly despises her consort.
. . . . For nothing is better and more excellent,
Than when as husband and wife ye keep house,
Harmonious in your sentiments.”
The ruling power is therefore
the head. And if “the Lord is head of the man, and the man is
head of the woman,” the man, “being the image and glory
of God, is lord of the woman.”2774
Wherefore also in the
Epistle to the Ephesians it is written, “Subjecting yourselves
one to another in the fear of God. Wives, submit yourselves to your
own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife,
as also Christ is the head of the Church; and He is the Saviour
of the body. Husbands, love your wives, as also Christ loved the
Church. So also ought men to love their wives as their own bodies:
he that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated
his own flesh.”2775
And in that to the Colossians it is said,
“Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands, as is fit in the
Lord.2776
| 2776 [It is a sad token
of our times that some women resent this law of the Christian family. In
every society there must be presidency even among equals; and even Christ,
though “equal to the Father,” in the Catholic theology,
is yet subordinate. See Bull, Defens. Fid., Nicæn. Works,
vol. v. p. 685.] | Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter
against them. Children, obey your parents in all things; for this is
well pleasing to the Lord. Fathers, provoke not your children to anger,
lest they be discouraged. Servants, be obedient in all things to those who
are your masters according to
the flesh; not with eye-service, as men-pleasers; but with singleness
of heart, fearing the Lord. And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as
serving the Lord and not men; knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive
the reward of the inheritance: for ye serve the Lord Christ. For the
wrongdoer shall receive the wrong, which he hath done; and there is
no respect of persons. Masters, render to your servants justice and
equity; knowing that ye also have a Master in heaven, where there is
neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian,
Scythian, bond, free: but Christ is all, and in all.”2777
And the earthly Church is the image of the heavenly,
as we pray also “that the will of God may be done upon the earth
as in heaven.”2778
“Putting on, therefore, bowels of mercy,
gentleness, humbleness, meekness, long-suffering; forbearing one another,
and forgiving one another, if one have a quarrel against any man;
as also Christ hath forgiven us, so also let us. And above all these
things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness. And let the
peace of God rule in your hearts, to which ye are called in one body;
and be thankful.”2779
| 2779
Col. iii. 12–15. [Again let us note this Catholic democracy of
the Christian brotherhood (see p. 416, supra), for which indeed
we should be thankful as Christ’s freemen.] | For there
is no obstacle to adducing frequently the same Scripture in order to
put Marcion2780
| 2780 [Book
iii. cap. iii., supra.] | to the blush, if perchance he
be persuaded and converted; by learning that the faithful ought to be
grateful to God the Creator, who hath called us, and who preached the
Gospel in the body. From these considerations the unity of the faith is
clear, and it is shown who is the perfect man; so that though some are
reluctant, and offer as much resistance as they can, though menaced with
punishments at the hand of husband or master, both the domestic and the
wife will philosophize. Moreover, the free, though threatened with death
at a tyrant’s hands, and brought before the tribunals, and all his
substances imperilled, will by no means abandon piety; nor will the wife
who dwells with a wicked husband, or the son if he has a bad father,
or the domestic if he has a bad master, ever fail in holding nobly to
virtue. But as it is noble for a man to die for virtue, and for liberty,
and for himself, so also is it for a woman. For this is not peculiar
to the nature of males, but to the nature of the good. Accordingly,
both the old man, the young, and the servant will live faithfully,
and if need be die; which will be to be made alive by death. So we know
that both children, and women, and servants have often, against their
fathers’, and masters’, and husbands’ will, reached
the highest degree of excellence. Wherefore those who are determined
to live piously ought none the less to exhibit alacrity, when some seem
to exercise compulsion on them; but much more, I think, does it become
them to show eagerness, and to strive with uncommon vigour, lest, being
overcome, they abandon the best and most indispensable counsels. For
it does not, I think, admit of comparison, whether it be better to be a
follower of the Almighty than to choose the darkness of demons. For the
things which are done by us on account of others we are to do always,
endeavouring to have respect to those for whose sake it is proper that
they be done, regarding the gratification rendered in their case, as what
is to be our rule; but the things which are done for our own sake rather
than that of others, are to be done with equal earnestness, whether
they are like to please certain people or not. If some indifferent
things have obtained such honour as to appear worthy of adoption,
though against the will of some; much more is virtue to be regarded by
us as worth contending for, looking the while to nothing but what can be
rightly done, whether it seem good to others or not. Well then, Epicurus,
writing to Menœceus, says, “Let not him who is young delay
philosophizing, and let not the old man grow weary of philosophizing;
for no one is either not of age or past age for attending to the health
of his soul. And he who says that the time for philosophizing is not
come or is past, is like the man who says that the time for happiness
is not come or has gone. So that young2781
| 2781 [He who studies the Sapiential books of the Bible and
Apocrypha and the Sermon on the Mount, is a philosopher of the sort here
commended.] | as well as old ought to philosophize: the one,
in order that, while growing old, he may grow young in good things out
of favour accruing from what is past; and the other, that he may be at
once young and old, from want of fear for the future.”E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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