| << | Contents | >> |
Archelaus
27. We may give yet another illustration, if it seems good to you. A certain man, the head of a household, and possessed of great riches, was minded to journey abroad for a time, and promised to his sons that he would send them some one who would take his place, and divide among them equally the substance falling to them. And, in truth, not long after that, he did despatch to them a certain trustworthy and righteous and true man. And on his arrival, this man took charge of the whole substance, and first of all exerted himself to arrange it and administer it, giving himself great labour in journeying, and even[1676] working diligently with his own hands, and toiling like a servant for the good of the estate. Afterwards feeling that his end was at hand,[1677] the man wrote out a will, demitting the inheritance to the relations and all the next of kin; and he gave them his seals, and called them together one by one by name, and charged them to preserve the inheritance, and to take care of the substance, and to administer it rightly, even as they had received it, and to take their use of its goods and fruits, as they were themselves left its owners and heirs. If, moreover, any person were to ask to be allowed to benefit by the fruits of this field, they were to show themselves indulgent to such. But if, on the other hand, any one were to declare himself partner in the heirship with them, and were to make his demands on that ground,[1678] they were to keep aloof from him, and pronounce him an alien; and further, they were to hold that the individual who desired to be received among them ought all the more on that account to do work.[1679] Well, then, granting that all these things have been well and rightly disposed of and settled, and that they have continued in that condition for a very long time, how shall we deal with one who presents himself well-nigh three hundred years after, and sets up his claim to the heirship? Shall we not cast him off from us? Shall we not justly pronounce such a one an alien—one who cannot prove himself to have belonged to those related to our Master, who never was with our departed Lord in the hour of His sickness, who never walked in the funeral procession of the Crucified, who never stood by the sepulchre, who has no knowledge whatsoever of the manner or the character of His departure, and who, in fine, is now desirous of getting access to the storehouse of corn without presenting any token from him who placed it under lock and seal? Shall we not cast him off from us like a robber and a thief, and thrust him out of our number by all possible means? Yet this man is now in our presence, and fails to produce any of the credentials which we have summarized in what we have already said, and declares that he is the Paraclete whose mission was presignified by Jesus. And by this assertion, in his ignorance perchance, he will make out Jesus Himself to be a liar;[1680] for thus He who once said that He would send the Paraclete no long time after, will be proved only to have sent this person, if we accept the testimony which he bears to himself, after an interval of three hundred years and more.[1681] In the day of judgment, then, what will those say to Jesus who have departed this life from that time on to the present period? Will they not meet Him with words like these: “Do not punish us rigorously if we have failed to do Thy works. For why, when Thou didst promise to send the Paraclete under Tiberius Cæsar, to convince us of sin and of righteousness,[1682] didst Thou send Him only under Probus the Roman emperor, and didst leave us orphaned, not withstanding that Thou didst say, ‘I will not leave you comfortless (orphaned),’[1683] and after Thou hadst also assured us that Thou wouldest send the Paraclete presently after Thy departure? What could we orphans do, having no guardian? We have committed no fault; it is Thou that hast deceived us.” But away with such a supposition in the case of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Saviour of every soul.[1684] For He did not confine Himself to mere promises;[1685] but when He had once said, “I go to my Father, and I send the Paraclete to you,”[1686] straightway He sent (that gift of the Paraclete), dividing and imparting the same to His disciples,—bestowing it, however, in greater fulness upon Paul.[1687]
28. Manes said:[1688] You are caught in the charge you yourself bring forward. For you have been speaking now against yourself, and have not perceived that, in trying to cast reproaches in my teeth, you lay yourself under the greater fault. Tell me this now, I pray you: if, as you allege, those who have died from the time of Tiberius on to the days of Probus are to say to Jesus, “Do not judge us if we have failed to do Thy works, for Thou didst not send the Paraclete to us, although Thou didst promise to send Him;”[1689] will not those much more use such an address who have departed this life from the time of Moses on to the advent of Christ Himself? And will not those with still greater right express themselves in terms like these: “Do not deliver us over to torments,[1690] seeing that we had no knowledge of Thee imparted to us?” And will it only be those that have died thus far previously to His advent who may be seen making such a charge with right? Will not those also do the same who have passed away from Adam’s time on to Christ’s advent? For none of these either obtained any knowledge of the Paraclete, or received instruction in the doctrine of Jesus. But only this latest generation of men, which has run its course from Tiberius onward, as you make it out,[1691] is to be saved: for it is Christ Himself that “has re-deemed them from the curse of the law;”[1692] as Paul, too, has given these further testimonies, that “the letter killeth, and quickeneth no man,”[1693] and that “the law is the ministration of death,”[1694] and “the strength of sin.”[1695] Archelaus said: You err, not knowing the Scriptures, neither the power of God.[1696] For many have also perished after the period of Christ’s advent on to this present period, and many are still perishing,—those, to wit, who have not chosen to devote themselves to works of righteousness; whereas only those who have received Him, and yet receive Him, “have obtained power to become the sons of God.”[1697] For the evangelist has not said all have obtained that power; neither, on the other hand, however, has he put any limit on the time. But this is his expression: “As many as received Him.” Moreover, from the creation of the world He has ever been with righteous men, and has never ceased to require their blood at the hands of the wicked, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zacharias.[1698] And whence, then, did righteous Abel and all those succeeding worthies,[1699] who are enrolled among the righteous, derive their righteousness when as yet there was no law of Moses, and when as yet the prophets had not arisen and discharged the functions of prophecy? Were they not constituted righteous in virtue of their fulfilling the law, “every one of them showing the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing them witness?”[1700] For when a man “who has not the law does naturally the things contained in the law, he, not having the law, is a law unto himself.”[1701] And consider now the multitude of laws thus existing among the several righteous men who lived a life of uprightness, at one time discovering for themselves the law of God implanted in their hearts, at another learning of it from their parents, and yet again being instructed in it further by the ancients and the elders. But inasmuch as only few were able to rise by this medium[1702] to the height of righteousness, that is to say, by means of the traditions of parents, when as yet there was no law embodied in writing, God had compassion on the race of man. and was pleased to give through Moses a written law to men, since verily the equity of the natural law failed to be retained in all its perfection in their hearts. In consonance, therefore, with man’s first creation, a written legislation was prepared which was given through Moses in behoof of the salvation of very many. For if we reckon that man is justified without the works of the law, and if Abraham was counted righteous, how much more shall those obtain righteousness who have fulfilled the law which contains the things that are expedient for men? And seeing that you have made mention only of three several scriptures, in terms of which the apostle has declared that “the law is a ministration of death,”[1703] and that “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law,”[1704] and that “the law is the strength of sin,”[1705] you may now advance others of like tenor, and bring forward any passages which may seem to you to be written against the law, to any extent you please.
29. Manes said: Is not that word also to the same effect which Jesus spake to the disciples, when He was demonstrating those men to be unbelieving: “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do?”[1706] By this He means, in sooth, that whatever the wicked prince of this world desired, and whatever he lusted after, he committed to writing through Moses, and by that medium gave it to men for their doing. For “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.”[1707] Archelaus said: Are you satisfied[1708] with what you have already adduced, or have you other statements still to make? Manes said: I have, indeed, many things to say, and things of greater weight even than these. But with these I shall content myself. Archelaus said: By all means. Now let us select some instance from among those statements which you allege to be on your side; so that if these be once found to have been properly dealt with, other questions may also be held to rank with them; and if the case goes otherwise, I shall come under the condemnation of the judges, that is to say, I shall have to bear the shame of defeat.[1709] You say, then, that the law is a ministration of death, and you admit that “death, the prince of this world, reigned from Adam even to Moses;”[1710] for the word of Scripture is this: “even over them that did not sin.”[1711] Manes said: Without doubt death did reign thus, for there is a duality, and these two antagonistic powers were nothing else than both unbegotten.[1712] Archelaus said: Tell me this then,—how can an unbegotten death take a beginning at a certain time? For “from Adam” is the word of Scripture, and not “before Adam.” Manes said: But tell me, I ask you in turn, how it obtained its kingdom over both the righteous and the sinful. Archelaus said: When you have first admitted that it has had that kingdom from a determinate time and not from eternity, I shall tell you that. Manes said: It is written, that “death reigned from Adam to Moses.” Archelaus said: And consequently it has an end, because it has had a beginning in time.[1713] And this saying is also true, that “death is swallowed up in victory.”[1714] It is apparent, then, that death cannot be unbegotten, seeing that it is shown to have both a beginning and an end. Manes said: But in that way it would also follow that God was its maker. Archelaus said: By no means; away with such a supposition! “For God made not death; neither hath He pleasure in the destruction of the living.”[1715] Manes said: God made it not; nevertheless it was made, as you admit. Tell us, therefore, from whom it received its empire, or by whom it was created. Archelaus said: If I give the most ample proof of the fact that death cannot have the substance of an unbegotten nature, will you not confess that there is but one God, and that an unbegotten God? Manes said: Continue your discourse, for your aim is to speak[1716] with subtlety. Archelaus said: Nay, but you have put forward those allegations in such a manner, as if they were to serve you for a demonstration of an unbegotten root. Nevertheless the positions which we have discussed above may suffice us, for by these we have shown most fully that it is impossible for the substances of two unbegotten natures to exist together.
30. The judges said: Speak to those points, Archelaus, which he has just now propounded. Archelaus said: By the prince of the world, and the wicked one, and darkness, and death, he means one and the same thing, and alleges that the law has been given by that being, on the ground of the scriptural statement that it is “the ministration of death,” as well as on the ground of other things which he has urged against it. Well, then, I say[1717] that since, as we have explained above, the law which was written naturally on men’s hearts did not keep carefully by the memory of evil things, and since there was not a sufficiently established tradition among the elders, inasmuch as hostile oblivion always attached itself to the memory,[1718] and one man was instructed in the knowledge of that law by master, and another by himself, it easily came about that transgressions of the law engraved by nature did take place, and that through the violation of the commandments death obtained its kingship among men. For the race of men is of such a nature, that it needs to be ruled by God with a rod of iron. And so death triumphed and reigned with all its power on to Moses, even over those who had not sinned, in the way which we have explained: over sinners indeed, as these were its proper objects, and under subjection to it,—men after the type of Cain and Judas;[1719] but also over the righteous, because they refused to consent to it, and rather withstood it, by putting away from themselves the vices and concupiscence of lusts,—men like those who have arisen at times from Abel on to Zacharias;[1720]—death thus always passing, up to the time of Moses, upon those after that similitude.[1721]
But after Moses had made his appearance, and had given the law to the children of Israel, and had brought into their memory all the requirements of the law, and all that it behoved men to observe and do under it, and when he delivered over to death only those who should transgress the law, then death was cut off from reigning over all men; for it reigned then over sinners alone, as the law said to it, “Touch not those that keep my precepts.”[1722] Moses therefore served the ministration of this word upon death, while he delivered up to destruction[1723] all others who were transgressors of the law; for it was not with the intent that death might not reign in any territory at all that Moses came, inasmuch as multitudes were assuredly held under the power of death even after Moses. And the law was called a “ministration of death” from the fact that then only transgressors of the law were punished, and not those who kept it, and who obeyed and observed the things which are in the law, as Abel did, whom Cain, who was made a vessel of the wicked one, slew. However, even after these things death wished to break the covenant which had been made by the instrumentality of Moses, and to reign again over the righteous; and with this object it did indeed assail the prophets, killing and stoning those who had been sent by God, on to Zacharias. But my Lord Jesus, as maintaining the righteousness of the law of Moses, was wroth with death for its transgression of the covenant[1724] and of that whole ministration, and condescended to appear in the body of man, with the view of avenging not Himself, but Moses, and those who in a continuous succession after him had been oppressed by the violence of death. That wicked one, however, in ignorance of the meaning of a dispensation of this kind, entered into Judas, thinking to slay Him by that man’s means, as before he had put righteous Abel to death. But when he had entered into Judas, he was overcome with penitence, and hanged himself; for which reason also the divine word says: “O death, where is thy victory? O death,[1725] where is thy sting?” And again: “Death is swallowed up of victory.”[1726] It is for this reason, therefore, that the law is called a “ministration of death” because it delivered sinners and transgressors over to death; but those who observed it, it defended from death; and these it also established in glory, by the help and aid of our Lord Jesus Christ.
31. Listen also to what I have to say on this other expression which has been adduced, viz., “Christ, who redeemed us from the curse of the law.”[1727] My view of this passage is that Moses, that illustrious servant of God, committed to those who wished to have the right vision,[1728] an emblematic[1729] law, and also a real law. Thus, to take an example, after God had made the world, and all things that are in it, in the space of six days, He rested on the seventh day from all His works; by which statement I do not mean to affirm that He rested because He was fatigued, but that He did so as having brought to its perfection every creature which He had resolved to introduce. And yet in the sequel it, the new law, says: “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.”[1730] Does that mean, then, that He is still making heaven, or sun, or man, or animals, or trees, or any such thing? Nay; but the meaning is, that when these visible objects were perfectly finished, He rested from that kind of work; while, however, He still continues to work at objects invisible with an inward mode of action,[1731] and saves men. In like manner, then, the legislator desires also that every individual amongst us should be devoted unceasingly to this kind of work, even as God Himself is; and he enjoins us consequently to rest continuously from secular things, and to engage in no worldly sort of work whatsoever; and this is called our Sabbath. This also he added in the law, that nothing senseless[1732] should be done but that we should be careful and direct our life in accordance with what is just and righteous. Now this law was suspended over men, discharging most sharply its curse against those who might transgress it. But because its subjects, too, were but men, and because, as happens also frequently with us, controversies arose and injuries were inflicted, the law likewise at once, and with the severest equity, made any wrong that was done return upon the head of the wrong-doer;[1733] so that, for instance, if a poor man was minded to gather a bundle of wood upon the Sabbath, he was placed under the curse of the law, and exposed to the penalty of instant death.[1734] The men, therefore, who had been brought up with the Egyptians were thus severely pressed by the restrictive power of the law, and they were unable to bear the penalties and the curses of the law. But, again, He who is ever the Saviour, our Lord Jesus Christ, came and delivered those men from these pains and curses of the law, forgiving them their offences. And He indeed did not deal with them as Moses did, putting the severities of the law in force, and granting indulgence to no man for any offence; but He declared that if any man suffered an injury at the hands of his neighbour, he was to forgive him not once only, nor even twice or thrice, nor only seven times, but even unto seventy times seven;[1735] but that, on the other hand, if after all this the offender still continued to do such wrong, he ought then, as the last resource, to be brought under the law of Moses, and that no further pardon should be granted to the man who would thus persist in wrong-doing, even after having been forgiven unto seventy times seven. And He bestowed His forgiveness not only on a transgressor of such a character as that, but even on one who did offence to the Son of man. But if a man dealt thus with the Holy Spirit, He made him subject to two curses,—namely, to that of the law of Moses, and to that of His own law; to the law of Moses in truth in this present life, but to His own law at the time of the judgment: for His word is this: “It shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come.”[1736] There is the law of Moses, thus, that in this world gives pardon to no such person; and there is the law of Christ that punishes in the future world. From this, therefore, mark how He confirms the law, not only not destroying it, but fulfilling it. Thus, then, He redeemed them from that curse of the law which belongs to the present life; and from this fact has come the appellation “the curse of the law.” This is the whole account which needs be given of that mode of speech. But, again, why the law is called the “strength of sin,” we shall at once explain in brief to the best of our ability. Now it is written that “the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners.”[1737] In these times, then, before Moses, there was no written law for transgressors; whence also Pharaoh, not knowing the strength of sin, transgressed in the way of afflicting the children of Israel with unrighteous burdens, and despised the Godhead, not only himself, but also all who were with him. But, not to make any round-about statement, I shall explain the matter briefly as follows. There were certain persons of the Egyptian race mingling with the people of Moses, when that people was under his rule in the desert; and when Moses had taken his position on the mount, with the purpose of receiving the law, the impatient people, I do not mean those who were the true Israel, but those who had been intermixed with the Egyptians,[1738] set up a calf as their god, in accordance with their ancient custom of worshipping idols, with the notion that by such means they might secure themselves against ever having to pay the proper penalties for their iniquities.[1739] Thus were they altogether ignorant of the strength of their sin. But when Moses returned (from the mount) and found that out, he issued orders that those men should be put to death with the sword. From that occasion a beginning was made in the correct perception of the strength of sin on the part of these persons through the instrumentality of the law of Moses, and for that reason the law has been called the “strength of sin.”
Search Comments
This page has been visited 0001 times.
| << | Contents | >> |
10 per page