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| Chapter XIV.—Description of the Gnostic Furnished by an Exposition of 1 Cor. vi. 1, Etc.
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Chapter XIV.—Description of the Gnostic Furnished by an Exposition of 1 Cor. vi. 1, Etc.
Now, of what I may call the passionlessness which we attribute to
the Gnostic (in which the perfection of the believer, “advancing
by love, comes to a perfect man, to the measure of full
stature,”3645
by being assimilated to God, and by becoming
truly angelic), many other testimonies from the Scripture, occur to me
to adduce. But I think it better, on account of the length of the
discourse, that such an honour should be devolved on those who wish to
take pains, and leave it to them to elaborate the dogmas by the
selection of Scriptures.
One passage, accordingly, I shall in the briefest terms
advert to, so as not to leave the topic unexplained.
For in the first Epistle to the Corinthians the divine
apostle says: “Dare any of you, having a matter against the
other, go to law before the unrighteous, and not before the saints?
Know ye not that the saints shall judge the world?”3646
and so
on.
The section being very long, we shall exhibit the
meaning of the apostle’s utterance by employing
such of the apostolic expressions as are most pertinent,
and in the briefest language, and in a sort of cursory way, interpreting
the discourse in which he describes the perfection of the Gnostic. For
he does not merely instance the Gnostic as characterized by suffering
wrong rather than do wrong; but he teaches that he is not mindful of
injuries, and does not allow him even to pray against the man who has
done him wrong. For he knows that the Lord expressly enjoined “to
pray for enemies.”3647
To say, then, that the man who has been injured goes to
law before the unrighteous, is nothing else than to say that he shows a
wish to retaliate, and a desire to injure the second in return, which
is also to do wrong likewise himself.
And his saying, that he wishes “some to go to law
before the saints,” points out those who ask by prayer that those
who have done wrong should suffer retaliation for their injustice, and
intimates that the second are better than the former; but they are not
yet obedient,3648
| 3648 εὐπειθεῖς
here substituted by Sylburgius for ἀπειθσῖς.
May not the true reading be ἀπαθείς,
as the topic is ἀπαθεια? | if they do not, having become entirely free of
resentment, pray even for their enemies.
It is well, then, for them to receive right dispositions
from repentance, which results in faith. For if the truth seems to get
enemies who entertain bad feeling, yet it is not hostile to any one.
“For God makes His sun to shine on the just and on the
unjust,”3649
and sent the Lord Himself to the just and the
unjust. And he that earnestly strives to be assimilated to God, in the
exercise of great absence of resentment, forgives seventy times seven
times, as it were all his life through, and in all his course in this
world (that being indicated by the enumeration of sevens) shows
clemency to each and any one; if any during the whole time of his life
in the flesh do the Gnostic wrong. For he not only deems it right that
the good man should resign his property alone to others, being of the
number of those who have done him wrong; but also wishes that the
righteous man should ask of those judges forgiveness for the offences
of those who have done him wrong. And with reason, if indeed it is only
in that which is external and concerns the body, though it go to the
extent of death even, that those who attempt to wrong him take
advantage of him; none of which truly belong to the Gnostic.
And how shall one “judge” the apostate
“angels,” who has become himself an apostate from that
forgetfulness of injuries, which is according to the Gospel? “Why
do ye not rather suffer wrong?” he says; “why are ye not
rather defrauded? Yea, ye do wrong and defraud,”3650
manifestly by praying against those who transgress in ignorance, and
deprive of the philanthropy and goodness of God, as far as in you lies,
those against whom you pray, “and these your
brethren,”—not meaning those in the faith only, but also
the proselytes. For whether he who now is hostile shall afterwards
believe, we know not as yet. From which the conclusion follows clearly,
if all are not yet brethren to us, they ought to be regarded in that
light. And now it is only the man of knowledge who recognises all men
to be the work of one God, and invested with one image in one nature,
although some may be more turbid than others; and in the creatures he
recognises the operation, by which again he adores the will of God.
“Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not
inherit the kingdom of God?”3651
He acts unrighteously
who retaliates, whether by deed or word, or by the conception of a
wish, which, after the training of the Law, the Gospel rejects.
“And such were some of you”—such
manifestly as those still are whom you do not forgive; “but ye
are washed,”3652
not simply as the rest, but with knowledge; ye
have cast off the passions of the soul, in order to become assimilated,
as far as possible, to the goodness of God’s providence by
long-suffering, and by forgiveness “towards the just and the
unjust,” casting on them the gleam of benignity in word and
deeds, as the sun.
The Gnostic will achieve this either by greatness
of mind, or by imitation of what is better. And that is a third cause.
“Forgive, and it shall be forgiven you;” the commandment, as
it were, compelling to salvation through superabundance of goodness.
“But ye are sanctified.” For he
who has come to this state is in a condition to be holy, falling into
none of the passions in any way, but as it were already disembodied
and already grown holy without3653
| 3653 ἄνευ:
or above, ἄνω. | this
earth.
“Wherefore,” he says, “ye
are justified in the name of the Lord.” Ye are made,
so to speak, by Him to be righteous as He is, and are blended
as far as possible with the Holy Spirit. For “are not all
things lawful to me? yet I will not be brought under the power of
any,”3654
so as to do, or think, or speak aught contrary to
the Gospel. “Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats, which God
shall destroy,”3655
—that is, such as think and live as
if they were made for eating, and do not eat that they may live as a
consequence, and apply to knowledge as the primary end. And does he not
say that these are, as it were, the fleshy parts of the holy body? As a
body, the Church of the Lord, the
spiritual and holy choir, is symbolized.3656
| 3656 [Ps. lxxiii. 1. The “Israelite indeed”
is thus recognised as the wheat, although tares grow with it in the
Militant Church. See cap xv., infra.] | Whence those,
who are merely called, but do not live in accordance with the word, are
the fleshy parts. “Now” this spiritual “body,”
the holy Church, “is not for fornication.” Nor are those
things which belong to heathen life to be adopted by apostasy from the
Gospel. For he who conducts himself heathenishly in the Church, whether
in deed, or word, or even in thought, commits fornication with reference
to the Church and his own body. He who in this way “is joined to
the harlot,” that is, to conduct contrary to the Covenant becomes
another “body,” not holy, “and one flesh,” and
has a heathenish life and another hope. “But he that is joined to
the Lord in spirit” becomes a spiritual body by a different kind
of conjunction.
Such an one is wholly a son, an holy man, passionless,
gnostic, perfect, formed by the teaching of the Lord; in order that in
deed, in word, and in spirit itself, being brought close to the Lord,
he may receive the mansion that is due to him who has reached manhood
thus.
Let the specimen suffice to those who have ears. For it
is not required to unfold the mystery, but only to indicate what is
sufficient for those who are partakers in knowledge to bring it to
mind; who also will comprehend how it was said by the Lord, “Be
ye perfect as your father, perfectly,”3657
by forgiving sins, and
forgetting injuries, and living in the habit of passionlessness. For as
we call a physician perfect, and a philosopher perfect, so also, in my
view, do we call a Gnostic perfect. But not one of those points,
although of the greatest importance, is assumed in order to the
likeness of God. For we do not say, as the Stoics do most impiously,
that virtue in man and God is the same. Ought we not then to be
perfect, as the Father wills? For it is utterly impossible for any one
to become perfect as God is. Now the Father wishes us to be perfect by
living blamelessly, according to the obedience of the Gospel.
If, then, the statement being elliptical, we understand
what is wanting, in order to complete the section for those who are
incapable of understanding what is left out, we shall both know the
will of God, and shall walk at once piously and magnanimously, as
befits the dignity of the commandment. E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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