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ANF Pseudo-Clementine The Recognitions of Clement
“But I should like that one of you, and not Peter, should answer what I have said; for it is not fitting to take words and instruction at his hand, with questions; but when he gives a deliverance on any subject, that should be held without answering again. And therefore let us keep him as an umpire; so that if at any time our discussion does not come to an issue, he may declare what seems good to him, and so give an undoubted end to doubtful matters. And now therefore I could believe, content with his sole opinion, if he expressed any opinion; and this is what I shall do at last. Yet I wish first to see if it is possible by discussion to find what is sought. My wish therefore is, that Clement should begin first, and should show if there is any good or evil in substance or in actions.”
To this I answered: “Since indeed you wish to learn from me if there is any good or evil in nature or in act, or whether it is not rather that men, prejudiced by custom, think some things to be good, and others to be evil, forasmuch as they have made a division among themselves of common things, which ought, as you say, to be as common as the air and the sunshine; I think that I ought not to bring before you any statements from any other quarter than from those studies in which you are well versed, and which you support, so that what I say you will receive without hesitation. You assign certain boundaries of all the elements and the heavenly bodies, and these, you say, meet in some without hurt, as in marriages; but in others they are hurtfully united, as in adulteries. And you say that some things are general to all, but other things do not belong to all, and are not general. But not to make a long discussion, I shall speak briefly of the matter. The earth which is dry is in need of the addition and admixture of water, that it may be able to produce fruits, without which man cannot live: this is therefore a legitimate conjunction. On the contrary if the cold of hoar-frost be mixed with the earth, or heat with the water, a conjunction of this sort produces corruption; and this, in such things, is adultery.”
Then my father answered: “But as the harmfulness of an inharmonious conjunction of elements or stars is immediately betrayed, so ought also adultery to be immediately shown that it is an evil.” Then I: “First tell me this, whether, as you yourself have confessed, evils are produced from incongruous and inharmonious mixture; and then after that we shall inquire into the other matter.” Then my father said: “The nature of things is as you say, my son.” Then I answered: “Since, then, you wish to learn of these things, see how many things there are which no one doubts to be evils. Do you think that a fever, a fire, sedition, the fall of a house, murder, holds, racks, pains, mournings, and such like, are evils?” Then said my father: “It is true, my son, that these things are evil, and very evil; or, at all events, whoever denies that they are evil, let him suffer them!”
Then I answered: “Since, therefore, I have to deal with one who is skilled in astrological science,[859] I shall treat the matter with you according to that science, that, taking my method from those things with which you are familiar, you may the more readily acquiesce. Listen now, therefore: you confess that those things which we have mentioned are evils, such as fevers, conflagrations, and such like. Now these, according to you, are said to be produced by malignant stars, such as the humid Saturn and the hot Mars; but things contrary to these are produced by benignant stars, such as the temperate Jupiter and the humid Venus. Is it not so?” My father answered: “It is so, my son; and it cannot be otherwise.” Then said I: “Since you say, therefore, that good things are produced by good stars—by Jupiter and Venus, for example—let us see what is the product where any one of the evil stars is mixed with the good, and let us understand that that is evil. For you lay it down that Venus makes marriages, and if she have Jupiter in her configuration she makes the marriages chaste; but if Jupiter be not regarding, and Mars be present, then you pronounce that the marriages are corrupted by adultery.” Then said my father: “It is even so.” Then I answered: “Therefore adultery is an evil, seeing that it is committed through the admixture of evil stars; and, to state it in a word, all things that you say that the good stars suffer from the mixture of evil stars, are undoubtedly to be pronounced to be evil. Those stars, therefore, by whose admixture we have said that fevers, configurations, and other such like evils are produced,—those, according to you, work also murders, adulteries, thefts, and also produce haughty and stolid men.”
Then my father said: “Truly you have shown briefly and incomparably that there are evils in actions; but still I should wish to learn this, how God justly judges those who sin, as you say, if Genesis compels them to sin?” Then I answered: “I am afraid to speak anything to you, my father, because it becomes me to hold you in all honour, else I have an answer to give you, if it were becoming.” Then says my father: “Speak what occurs to you, my son; for it is not you, but the method of inquiry, that does the wrong, as a modest woman to an incontinent man, if she is indignant for her safety and her honour.” Then I answered: “If we do not hold by the principles that we have acknowledged and confessed, but if those things which have been defined are always loosened by forgetfulness, we shall seem to be weaving Penelope’s web, undoing what we have done. And therefore we ought either not to acquiesce too easily, before we have diligently examined the doctrine propounded; or if we have once acquiesced, and the proposition has been agreed to, then we ought to keep by what has been once determined, that we may go on with our inquiries respecting other matters.” And my father said: “You say well, my son; and I know why you say this: it is because in the discussion yesterday on natural causes, you showed that some malignant power, transferring itself into the order of the stars, excites the lusts of men, provoking them in various ways to sin, yet not compelling or producing sins.” To this I answered: “It is well that you remember it; and yet, though you do remember it, you have fallen into error.” Then said my father: “Pardon me, my son; for I have not yet much practice in these things: for indeed your discourses yesterday, by their truth, shut me up to agree with you; yet in my consciousness there are, as it were, some remains of fevers, which for a little hold me back from faith, as from health. For I am distracted, because I know that many things, yea, almost all things, have befallen me according to Genesis.”
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