(117) But from what has been said, it tacitly devolves on us to consider in what way the Hellenic books are to be perused by the man who is able to pass through the billows in them. Therefore "Happy is he who possesses the wealth of the divine mind," as appears according to Empedocles, "But wretched he, who cares for dark opinion about the Gods."

(1) But since they will believe neither in what is good justly nor in knowledge unto salvation, we ourselves reckoning what they claim as belonging to us, because all things are God's; and especially since what is good proceeded from us to the Greeks, let us handle those things as they are capable of hearing. For intelligence or rectitude this great crowd estimates not by truth, but by what they are delighted with. And they will be pleased not more with other things than with what is like themselves. For he who is still blind and dumb, not having understanding, or the undazzled and keen vision of the contemplative soul, which the Saviour confers, like the uninitiated at the mysteries, or the unmusical at dances, not being yet pure and worthy of the pure truth, but still discordant and disordered and material, must stand outside of the divine choir.

(7) With respect also to opinion, it is related that they spoke of it as follows: That it is the province of a stupid man to pay attention to the opinion of every one, and especially to that of the multitude. Far it belongs to a few only to apprehend and opine rightly; since it is evident that this pertains to the intelligent alone. But they are few. It is manifest therefore, that a power of this kind does not extend itself to the multitude. But it is also stupid to despise the opinion of every one. For it will happen that he who is so disposed will be unlearned and incorrigible. It is however necessary that he who is destitute of science should learn those things of which he is ignorant, and has no scientific knowledge.

And it is likewise necessary that the learner should pay attention to the opinion of him who possesses science, and is able to teach. And universally, it is necessary that those young men who wish to be saved, should attend to the opinion of their elders, and of those who have lived well. But in the whole of human life there are certain ages (denominated by them as it is said endedasmenæ ) which it is not in the power of any casual person to connect with each other. For they are expelled by each other, unless some one conducts a man from his birth, in a beautiful and upright manner. It is necessary therefore, when a child is educated well, and is formed to temperance and fortitude, that a great part of his education should be given to the age of adolescence [which is that of a lad].

In a similar manner also, when a lad is formed to temperance and fortitude, it is necessary that a great part of his education should be transferred to the age of manhood. For that which happens to the multitude is absurd and ridiculous. For they fancy it is requisite that boys should be orderly and temperate, and should abstain from every thing which appears to be troublesome and indecorous; but that when they have arrived at adolescency, they may for the most part do whatever they please. Hence there is nearly a conflux of both kinds of errors into this age. For lads commit many faults which are both puerile and virile. For, in short, to avoid every kind of sedulity and order, and to pursue every species of sport, and puerile intemperance and insolence, are most adapted to the age of a boy.

Such a disposition therefore as this, is derived from the puerile into the following age. But the genus of strong desires, and of different species of ambition, and in a similar manner the remaining impulses and dispositions, when they are of a severe and turbulent nature, are derived from the virile age into that of adolescency. Hence this of all the ages demands the greatest attention. And universally, no man ought to be suffered to do whatever he pleases, but it is always necessary that there should be a certain inspection, and a legal and elegantly-formed government, to which each of the citizens is obedient. For the animal, when left to itself and neglected, rapidly degenerates into vice and depravity.

(13) But he who culls what is useful for the advantage of the catechumens, and especially when they are Greeks (and the earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof), must not abstain from erudition, like irrational animals; but he must collect as many aids as possible for his hearers. But he must by no means linger over these studies, except solely for the advantage accruing from them; so that, on grasping and obtaining this, he may be able to take his departure home to the true philosophy, which is a strong cable for the soul, providing security from everything.

(11) And let no one fancy that we honour the Name of Love beyond the Oracles, for it is, in my opinion, irrational and stupid not to cling to the force of the meaning, but to the mere words; and this is not the characteristic of those who have wished to comprehend things Divine, but of those who receive empty sounds and keep the same just at the ears from passing through from outside, and are not willing to know what such a word signifies, and in what way one ought to distinctly represent it, through other words of the same force and more explanatory, but who specially affect sounds and signs without meaning, and syllables, and words unknown, which do not pass through to the mental part of their soul, but buzz without, around their lips and ears, as though it were not permitted to signify the number four, by twice two, or straight lines by direct lines, or motherland by fatherland, or any other, which signify the self-same thing, by many parts of speech. We ought to know, according to the correct account, that we use sounds, and syllables, and phrases, and descriptions, and words, on account of the sensible perceptions; since when our soul is moved by the intellectual energies to the things contemplated, the sensible perceptions by aid of sensible objects are superfluous; just as also the intellectual powers, when the soul, having become godlike, throws itself, through a union beyond knowledge, against the rays of the unapproachable light, by sightless efforts. But, when the mind strives to be moved upwards, through objects of sense, to contemplative conceptions, the clearer interpretations are altogether preferable to the sensible perceptions, and the more definite descriptions are things more distinct than things seen; since when objects near are not made clear to the sensible perceptions, neither will these perceptions be well able to present the things perceived to the mind. But that we may not seem, in speaking thus, to be pushing aside the Divine Oracles, let those who libel the Name of Love (Ἔρωτος) hear them. "Be in love with It," they say, "and It will keep thee--Rejoice over It, and It will exalt thee--Honour It, in order that It may encompass thee,"--and whatever else is sung respecting Love, in the Word of God.

(1) HERE I must encounter with the proud and seeming conceited Wise, who does but grope in the Dark, and knows or understands nothing of the Spirit of God, and must comfort both him, and also the desirous longing Reader who loves God, and must show them a little Door to the heavenly Essence; and show them in what Manner they should understand these Writings, before I come to the Chapter itself.

(44) Thou dear Soul, thus saith the high Spirit to thee; yield Infusion. up thy Mind here, and I will show it thee. Behold, what does comprehend thy Will, or wherein consists thy Life? If thou sayest, in Water and Flesh: No, it consists in the Fire, in the Warmth. If the Warmth was not, then thy Body would be stiff [with Cold,] and the Water would dry away; therefore the Mind and the Life consists in the Fire.

(166) It is not proper to understand that Intelligible One with vehemence, but with the extended flame of far reaching Mind, measuring all things except that Intelligible. But it is requisite to understand this; for if thou inclinest thy Mind thou wilt understand it, not earnestly; but it is becoming to bring with thee a pure and enquiring sense, to extend the void mind of thy Soul to the Intelligible, that thou mayest learn the Intelligible, because it subsisteth beyond Mind.

(2) For as the World’s illumined by the Sun, so is the mind of man illumined by that Light; nay, in [still] fuller measure. For whatsoever thing the Sun doth shine upon, it is anon, by interjection of the Earth or Moon, or by the intervention of the night, robbed of its light. But once the [Higher] Sense hath been commingled with the soul of man, there is at-onement from the happy union of the blending of their natures; so that minds of this kind are never more held fast in errors of the darkness. Wherefore, with reason have they said the [Higher] Senses are the souls of Gods; to which I add: not of all Gods, but of the great ones [only]; nay, even of the principles of these.

(27) For I do not imagine that any composition can be so fortunate as that no one will speak against it. But that is to be regarded as in accordance with reason, which nobody speaks against, with reason. And that course of action and choice is to be approved, not which is faultless, but which no one rationally finds fault with. For it does not follow, that if a man accomplishes anything not purposely, he does it through force of circumstances. But he will do it, managing it by wisdom divinely given, and in accommodation to circumstances. For it is not he who has virtue that needs the way to virtue, any more than he, that is strong, needs recovery. For, like farmers who irrigate the land beforehand, so we also water with the liquid stream of Greek learning what in it is earthy; so that it may receive the spiritual seed cast into it, and may be capable of easily nourishing it. The Stromata will contain the truth mixed up in the dogmas of philosophy, or rather covered over and hidden, as the edible part of the nut in the shell. For, in my opinion, it is fitting that the seeds of truth be kept for the husbandmen of faith, and no others. I am not oblivious of what is babbled by some, who in their ignorance are frightened at every noise, and say that we ought to occupy ourselves with what is most necessary, and which contains the faith; and that we should pass over what is beyond and superfluous, which wears out and detains us to no purpose, in things which conduce nothing to the great end. Others think that philosophy was introduced into life by an evil influence, for the ruin of men, by an evil inventor. But I shall show, throughout the whole of these Stromata, that evil has an evil nature, and can never turn out the producer of aught that is good; indicating that philosophy is in a sense a work of Divine Providence.

(26) Now thus say the three Elements (Fire, Water, and Air,) to the Spirit; Fetch us Children of the Earth, that they may dwell in our Courts, we will eat of their Essences, and make thee strong. Here the Spirit of the Soul (like a Captive) must be obedient, and must reach with his Essences, and fetch them forth. And then comes the Fiat, and says, No: Thou tmightest [so] out-run me; and [the Fiat] created the Reaching forth, and there came forth from thence, Hands, and all other Essences and Forms, as it is before our Eyes, and the Astronomicus [Astronomer] knows it well, yet he knows not the Secrecy of it, although he can explain the Signs according to the Constellation and Elements, which qualify [and mingle] together in the Essences of the Spirit of the Soul.

(7) If the mind reels before something thus alien to all we know, we must take our stand on the things of this realm and strive thence to see. But, in the looking, beware of throwing outward; this Principle does not lie away somewhere leaving the rest void; to those of power to reach, it is present; to the inapt, absent. In our daily affairs we cannot hold an object in mind if we have given ourselves elsewhere, occupied upon some other matter; that very thing must be before us to be truly the object of observation. So here also; preoccupied by the impress of something else, we are withheld under that pressure from becoming aware of The Unity; a mind gripped and fastened by some definite thing cannot take the print of the very contrary. As Matter, it is agreed, must be void of quality in order to accept the types of the universe, so and much more must the soul be kept formless if there is to be no infixed impediment to prevent it being brimmed and lit by the Primal Principle.

In sum, we must withdraw from all the extern, pointed wholly inwards; no leaning to the outer; the total of things ignored, first in their relation to us and later in the very idea; the self put out of mind in the contemplation of the Supreme; all the commerce so closely There that, if report were possible, one might become to others reporter of that communion.

Such converse, we may suppose, was that of Minos, thence known as the Familiar of Zeus; and in that memory he established the laws which report it, enlarged to that task by his vision There. Some, on the other hand, there will be to disdain such citizen service, choosing to remain in the higher: these will be those that have seen much.

God- we read- is outside of none, present unperceived to all; we break away from Him, or rather from ourselves; what we turn from we cannot reach; astray ourselves, we cannot go in search of another; a child distraught will not recognise its father; to find ourselves is to know our source.

(78) Though indeed here we shall be as one that is dumb to the World, yet we have written it for ourselves, for we understand it very well; and it is plain enough to the Tree of the Lily. But that the Person of Christ, with his Deeds and Essence, might be rightly demonstrated to the Reader, that he might apprehend it right, I therefore direct him to the Temptation of Christ in the Wilderness after his Baptism; whereat thou shouldst open thine Eyes, and not speak like the Spirit in Babel, which says, we know not what his Temptation was, and lay the Fault upon the Devil, that he was so impudent to presume to tempt Christ; saying moreover, we ought not to dive into it, [nor be so inquisitive about it,] we will let that alone till we come thither, [into the other Life,] and then we shall see what it is. Besides, they forbid him that has Eyes to see, none must search into it, [if they do,] they are called Enthusiasts, and are cried out upon for Novellists [such as broach new Opinions and pretend to new Lights] and for Heretics.

(3) Also, in the whole universe, all the parts, though differing one from another, preserve their relation to the whole. So, then, the barbarian and Hellenic philosophy has torn off a fragment of eternal truth not from the mythology of Dionysus, but from the theology of the ever-living Word. And He who brings again together the separate fragments, and makes them one, will without peril, be assured, contemplate the perfect Word, the truth. Therefore it is written in Ecclesiastes: "And I added wisdom above all who were before me in Jerusalem; and my heart saw many things; and besides, I knew wisdom and knowledge, parables and understanding. And this also is the choice of the spirit, because in abundance of wisdom is abundance of knowledge." He who is conversant with all kinds of wisdom, will be pre-eminently a gnostic.

(386) ‘Lest the mansions grim and squalid which the gods abhor should be seen both of mortals and immortals 2 .’ And again:— ‘O heavens! verily in the house of Hades there is soul and ghostly form but no mind at all 3 !’ Again of Tiresias:— ‘[To him even after death did Persephone grant mind,] that he alone should be wise; but the other souls are flitting shades 4 .’ Again:— ‘The soul flying from the limbs had gone to Hades, lamenting her fate, leaving manhood and youth 5 .’ Again:— ‘And the soul, with shrilling cry, passed like smoke beneath the earth 6 .’ And,— ‘As bats in hollow of mystic cavern, whenever any of them has dropped out of the string and falls from the rock, fly shrilling and cling to one another, so did they with shrilling cry hold together as they moved 7 .’ And we must beg Homer and the other poets not to be angry if we strike out these and similar passages, not because they are unpoetical, or unattractive to the popular ear, but because the greater the poetical charm of them, the less are they meet for the ears of boys and men who are meant to be free, and who should fear slavery more than death. Undoubtedly. Also we shall have to reject all the terrible and appalling names which describe the world below—Cocytus and Styx,

(16) O that I had but the Pen of Man, and were able therewith to write down the Spirit of Knowledge. I can but stammer of the great Mysteries like a Child that is beginning to speak; so very little can the earthly Tongue express what the Spirit comprehends and understands; yet I will venture to try, whether I may procure some to go about to seek the Pearl, whereby also I might a labour in the Works of God in my paradisical Garden of Roses; for the Longing of the eternal Matrix drives me on to write and exercise myself in this my Knowledge.

(498) At present, I said, the students of philosophy are quite young; beginning when they are hardly past childhood, they devote only the time saved from moneymaking and housekeeping to such pursuits; and even those of them who are reputed to have most of the philosophic spirit, when they come within sight of the great difficulty of the subject, I mean dialectic, take themselves off. In after life when invited by some one else, they may, perhaps, go and hear a lecture, and about this they make much ado, for philosophy is not considered by them to be their proper business: at last, when they grow old, in most cases they are extinguished more truly than Heracleitus’ sun, inasmuch as they never light up again 5 . But what ought to be their course? Just the opposite. In childhood and youth their study, and what philosophy they learn, should be suited to their tender years: during this period while they are growing up towards manhood, the chief and special care should be given to their bodies that they may have them to use in the service of philosophy; as life advances and the intellect begins to mature, let them increase the gymnastics of the soul; but when the strength of our citizens fails and is past civil and military duties, then let them range at will and engage in no serious labour, as we intend them to live happily here, and to crown this life with a similar happiness in another. How truly in earnest you are, Socrates! he said; I am sure of that; and yet most of your hearers, if I am not mistaken, are likely to be still more earnest in their opposition to you, and will never be convinced; Thrasymachus least of all. Do not make a quarrel, I said, between Thrasymachus and

(30) Here the Learned of the Schools [or Universities] of this World must stand still, and the Scholar (born of God) must here begin to a learn concerning this Birth; for the Spirit of this World apprehends no more here, this is Foolishness to it; and though he goes very far b, yet he is but in Babel, in his own Reason.

(2) Although at one time philosophy justified the Greeks, not conducting them to that entire righteousness to which it is ascertained to cooperate, as the first and second flight of steps help you in your ascent to the upper room, and the grammarian helps the philosopher. Not as if by its abstraction, the perfect Word would be rendered incomplete, or truth perish; since also sight, and hearing, and the voice contribute to truth, but it is the mind which is the appropriate faculty for knowing it. But of those things which co-operate, some contribute a greater amount of power; some, a less. Perspicuity accordingly aids in the communication of truth, and logic in preventing us from falling under the heresies by which we are assailed. But the teaching, which is according to the Saviour, is complete in itself and without defect, being "the power and wisdom of God;" and the Hellenic philosophy does not, by its approach, make the truth more powerful; but rendering powerless the assault of sophistry against it, and frustrating the treacherous plots laid against the truth, is said to be the proper "fence and wall of the vineyard." And the truth which is according to faith is as necessary for life as bread; while the preparatory discipline is like sauce and sweetmeats. "At the end of the dinner, the dessert is pleasant," according to the Theban Pindar. And the Scripture has expressly said, "The innocent will become wiser by understanding, and the wise will receive knowledge." "And he that speaketh of himself," saith the Lord, "seeketh his own glory; but He that seeketh His glory that sent Him is true, and there is no unrighteousness in Him." On the other hand, therefore, he who appropriates what belongs to the barbarians, and vaunts it is his own, does wrong, increasing his own glory, and falsifying the truth. It is such an one that is by Scripture called a "thief." It is therefore said, "Son, be not a liar; for falsehood leads to theft."

(1) This, then, "the wisdom of the world is foolishness with God," and of those who are "the wise the Lord knoweth their thoughts that they are vain." Let no man therefore glory on account of pre-eminence in human thought. For it is written well in Jeremiah, "Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, and let not the mighty man glory in his might, and let not the rich man glory in his riches: but let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth that I am the Lord, that executeth mercy and judgment and righteousness upon the earth: for in these things is my delight, saith the Lord." "That we should trust not in ourselves, but in God who raiseth the dead," says the apostle, "who delivered us from so great a death, that our faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God." "For the spiritual man judgeth all things, but he himself is judged of no man." I hear also those words of his, "And these things I say, lest any man should beguile you with enticing words, or one should enter in to spoil you." And again, "Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ;" branding not all philosophy, but the Epicurean, which Paul mentions in the Acts of the Apostles, which abolishes providence and deifies pleasure, and whatever other philosophy honours the elements, but places not over them the efficient cause, nor apprehends the Creator.