Why I Write These Notes

… so that you may have them under your hand to read, and may be able to keep them safe. Should written works be left behind at all, or not? And if they should, by whom? If they should not, what need is there for written works? And if they should, is the writing of them to be handed to serious men, or to the opposite kind? It would certainly be ridiculous to disapprove of serious men writing and to approve of people who are not serious taking up the work. Theopompus and Timaeus, who put together fables and slanders, and Epicurus the leader of atheism, and Hipponax and Archilochus — these are to be allowed to write in their own shameful way; but the man who announces the truth is to be stopped from leaving behind him what would benefit those who come after. [a]

It is a good thing, I reckon, to leave good children behind. That is true of the children of our bodies; but words are the offspring of the soul, and that is why we call the people who taught us fathers. Wisdom is a thing that shares itself and loves people. So Solomon says, “My son, if you take in what I command and store it up with you, your ear will hear wisdom.” He is pointing out that the word which is sown is hidden in the learner’s soul as seed is hidden in the ground, and that this is a spiritual planting. So he adds, “And you will turn your heart to understanding, and turn it to the correcting of your son.” For soul joined with soul, I think, and spirit with spirit in the sowing of the word, will make what is sown grow and sprout. And everyone who is taught is, so far as he is under another, the son of the man who teaches him. “Son,” he says, “do not forget my laws.”

And even if knowledge does not belong to everyone — set a donkey to the lyre, as the proverb goes — written works are still for the many. “Pigs, for instance, enjoy dirt more than clean water.” “That is why,” says the Lord, “I speak to them in parables: because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear and do not understand.” Not that the Lord caused their ignorance — it would be impious to think so. What he did was expose, as a prophet does, the ignorance that was already in them, and give notice that they would not understand what was said.

And now the Savior shows himself out of his abundance, handing out goods to his servants according to what each one can carry, so that they may increase them by putting them to work; and then he comes back to settle accounts with them. He approves the ones who increased his money — faithful in a little — and puts them in charge of many things, and tells them to come into their Lord’s joy. But to the man who had hidden the money entrusted to him to be put out at interest, and handed it back exactly as he had received it, with no increase, he said, “You wicked and lazy servant, you should have given my money to the bankers, and when I came I would have got back what is mine.” So the useless servant “is thrown out into the darkness outside.” “So be strong,” Paul says, “in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And what you heard from me in front of many witnesses, hand on to faithful men who will be able to teach others as well.” And again: “Work hard to present yourself to God as approved, a workman with nothing to be ashamed of, cutting the word of truth straight.”

If, then, both men announce the Word — one by writing, the other by speaking — are they not both to be approved, since both of them make faith active through love? It is a man’s own fault if he does not choose what is best; God is free of blame. On the point at hand: it is the business of some to lay the word out at interest, and of others to test it and either take it or not, and the verdict is settled inside them. But there is one kind of knowledge that belongs to a herald and another that belongs, so to speak, to a messenger, and it is useful whichever way it works, by hand or by tongue. “For the one who sows to the Spirit will reap everlasting life from the Spirit. And let us not get tired of doing good.”

On the man who meets with it by God’s providence it confers the very greatest advantages: the beginning of faith, a readiness to take up a right way of life, the push toward the truth, a movement of inquiry, a trace of knowledge — in a word, it gives him the means of salvation. And those who have been properly brought up on the words of truth, and given provisions for eternal life, take wing for heaven. So the apostle puts it very well: “In everything commending ourselves as God’s servants; as poor, and yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything. Our mouth is open to you.” “I charge you,” he says, writing to Timothy, “before God and Christ Jesus and the chosen angels, to keep these rules without prejudging anyone, and to do nothing out of favoritism.”

So both have to test themselves: the one, whether he is fit to speak and to leave written records behind; the other, whether he is in a fit state to listen and to read. It is like the distribution of the thanksgiving, where some, following the custom, have each person in the congregation take his own share. A man’s own conscience is best for choosing accurately or keeping away. Its firm footing is a right life together with suitable teaching. But imitating people who have already been tested, and who have lived correctly, is the finest thing of all for understanding the commands and keeping them. “So whoever eats the bread and drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. Let a man examine himself, and then eat of the bread and drink of the cup.”

It follows that everyone who takes up the work of doing his neighbors good ought to ask himself whether he came to teaching rashly or out of rivalry with somebody; whether he hands on the word for the sake of vainglory; whether the only pay he is reaping is the salvation of those who hear him, and whether he is speaking without seeking favor. If that is how it stands, then the man who speaks by writing escapes the charge of working for money. “For we never used flattering words, as you know,” says the apostle, “or a cover for greed. God is our witness. Nor did we look for glory from men, either from you or from anyone else, when we could have thrown our weight around as apostles of Christ. Instead we were gentle among you, like a nurse caring for her own children.”

In the same way, then, people who take part in the divine words should be careful not to come to them the way men come to the founding of a city, to look them over out of curiosity; and not to come to the work in order to get worldly things, having found out that people consecrated to Christ are in the habit of sharing the necessities of life. Men like that are to be sent away as frauds. But if a man wants not to seem righteous but to be righteous, it is his business to know what things are best. If, then, “the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few,” it is up to us “to pray” that there may be as great a supply of workers as possible.

But farming is of two kinds — one unwritten, the other written. And whichever way the Lord’s worker sows the good wheat, and grows it, and reaps the ears, he will show himself a truly divine farmer. “Work,” says the Lord, “not for the food that spoils, but for the food that lasts into everlasting life.” And nourishment is taken in by bread and by words alike. Truly “blessed are the peacemakers,” who by teaching those who are at war in their lives and in their errors here, lead them back to the peace that is in the Word, and feed them for the life that is lived toward God by handing out bread to those who “hunger for righteousness.” Each soul has its own proper food: some grow by knowledge and learning, others feed on Greek philosophy — the whole of which, like nuts, is not all edible. “The one who plants and the one who waters,” “being servants” of him “who gives the growth, are one” in the service. “But each will get his own pay, according to his own work. For we are God’s farmhands, God’s field. You are God’s building,” as the apostle says.

That is why the hearers are not permitted to apply the test of comparison. And the word given out for investigation is not to be handed over to men who have been reared on every kind of verbal art and on the power of inflated proofs, whose minds are already occupied and have not first been emptied out. But whoever chooses to feast on faith is steady in receiving the divine words, since he has already acquired faith as a power of judging, in accordance with reason. From that, persuasion comes to him in abundance. And this is what that saying of prophecy meant: “If you do not believe, neither will you understand.” “So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to the household of faith.”

And let each of these sing, giving thanks, as the blessed David does: “You will sprinkle me with hyssop and I will be clean. You will wash me and I will be whiter than snow. You will make me hear gladness and joy, and the bones that have been humbled will be glad. Turn your face away from my sins. Wipe out my wrongdoing. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and make a right spirit new within me. Do not throw me away from your face, and do not take your Holy Spirit from me. Give me back the joy of your salvation, and steady me with your princely spirit.”

A man who addresses people standing in front of him tests them by time and judges them by his own judgment, and picks out from the rest the one who can really hear — watching the words, the manners, the habits, the life, the movements, the postures, the look, the voice; the road, the rock, the beaten path, the fruitful ground, the wooded stretch, the rich and fine and well-worked plot that is able to multiply the seed. But the man who speaks through books consecrates himself before God, and cries out in writing like this: not for gain, not for vainglory, not to be beaten by favoritism, not enslaved by fear, not lifted up by pleasure, but only to reap the salvation of those who read — which he has no share in at present, but waits for in the expectation of the repayment that will certainly be handed over by the one who has promised to give the workers the pay they deserve.

But a man who is enrolled in the number of men ought not to want repayment. The man who boasts of his good services gets glory as his pay. And a man who does any duty for the sake of repayment — is he not held fast inside the world’s own habits, either as one who has done well and is hurrying to collect a reward, or as a wrongdoer dodging punishment? We must imitate the Lord as far as we can. And the man who will do it is the one who falls in with the will of God, receiving freely, giving freely, and getting the citizenship itself as the pay he deserves. “A prostitute’s wages shall not come into the sanctuary,” it says; and in the same way it was forbidden to bring the price of a dog to the altar.

And if anyone has had the eye of his soul blinded by bad upbringing and teaching, let him come forward to the true light, to the truth, which shows in writing the things that are not written. “You who are thirsty, go to the waters,” says Isaiah. And “drink water from your own vessels,” Solomon urges. So in The Laws, Plato — the philosopher who learned from the Hebrews — orders farmers not to irrigate, or to take water from other people, until they have first dug down in their own ground to what is called the virgin soil and found it dry. It is right to supply a need, but it is not good to keep laziness going. As Pythagoras said, although it agrees with reason to take a share of a load, it is no duty to take the load away.

Now Scripture kindles the living spark in the soul and directs the eye rightly for contemplation — putting something in, perhaps, as a farmer does when he grafts, but, in the view of the divine apostle, stirring up what is already in the soul. “For there are certainly many among us who are weak and sick, and many are asleep. But if we judged ourselves, we would not be judged.” And this writing of mine is not artfully put together for display. My notes are stored up against old age, a remedy against forgetting — truly an image and outline of those vigorous and living talks that I had the privilege of hearing, and of blessed and truly remarkable men.

Of these men, one was in Greece, an Ionian; another in Magna Graecia. The first of them came from Coele-Syria, the second from Egypt. And there were others in the East, one born in the land of Assyria, the other a Hebrew in Palestine.

When I came upon the last of them — he was the first in power — I tracked him down where he lay hidden in Egypt, and there I found rest. He was the true Sicilian bee: he gathered his spoil from the flowers of the prophetic and apostolic meadow, and bred in the souls of his hearers a knowledge that does not die.

These men kept the tradition of the blessed teaching straight from the holy apostles Peter, James, John and Paul, sons receiving it from the father — though few sons were like the fathers — and by God’s will they came to us as well, to lay down those ancestral, apostolic seeds. And I know very well that they will be glad. I do not mean pleased with this tribute, but glad only because the truth has been kept exactly as they handed it over. A sketch like this will, I think, be welcome to a soul that wants to keep the blessed tradition from slipping away. “In a man who loves wisdom, his father will be glad.”

Wells give purer water when they are pumped out; water nobody draws goes bad. Use keeps steel bright, and not using it makes it rust. In a word, exercise produces a healthy condition in souls and in bodies alike. “No one lights a lamp and puts it under a basket; he puts it on a lampstand, so that it gives light to those who are counted worthy of the feast.” What is the use of wisdom if it does not make the man who can hear it wise? For the Savior still saves, and “is always at work, as he sees the Father working.” A man learns more by teaching, and in speaking he is often a hearer along with his audience. The teacher of the man who speaks and of the man who hears is one and the same, and he waters both the mind and the word. So the Lord did not hold back from doing good while he kept the Sabbath, but allowed us to share those divine mysteries, and that holy light, with people able to receive them. He certainly did not disclose to the many what did not belong to the many, but only to the few he knew it belonged to, who were able to receive it and be shaped by it. Secret things are entrusted to speech, not to writing; that is how it is with God as well.

And if someone says that it is written, “There is nothing secret that will not be revealed, nothing hidden that will not be made known,” let him hear from us as well that for the man who hears secretly, even what is secret will be made plain. That is what this oracle predicted. And to the man who is able to keep secretly what has been handed to him, what is veiled will be uncovered as truth, and what is hidden from the many will show plainly to the few. Why do not all know the truth? Why is righteousness not loved, if righteousness belongs to everyone? But the mysteries are handed over in a mystery, so that what is spoken is in the speaker’s mouth — or rather not in his voice, but in his understanding. “God gave to the church some as apostles, some as prophets, some as evangelists, some as pastors and teachers, to equip the holy ones for the work of service, for the building up of the body of Christ.”

I know very well that the writing of these notes of mine is weak beside that spirit, full of grace, which I had the privilege of hearing. But it will be an image to call the original back to a man who has been struck with the thyrsus. For it is said, “Speak to a wise man, and he will grow wiser,” and “to him who has, more will be added.” And I do not profess to explain secret things adequately — far from it — only to call them back to memory, whether I have forgotten anything or in order not to forget.

Many things, I know, have got away from us over the length of time and have dropped out unwritten. So, to help my weak memory and to provide myself a wholesome aid to recollection in a systematic arrangement of chapters, I have to make use of this form. There are some things we have no memory of at all, because the power that was in those blessed men was great. There are others that stayed unrecorded a long while and have now escaped, and others that have been rubbed out, having faded away in the mind itself, since a task like this is not easy for people without experience. These I bring back to life in my commentaries.

Some things I leave out on purpose, exercising a careful selection, because I am afraid to write what I was careful not to say — not out of grudging, which would be wrong, but out of fear for my readers, in case they stumble by taking things in the wrong sense; as the proverb says, we would be found “handing a sword to a child.” For it is impossible that what has been written should not get out, even if I never publish it. Books are always being turned over, and they have only the one voice, the voice of writing; they answer nothing to a man who asks questions beyond what is written. They necessarily need someone’s help — either the man who wrote them, or somebody else who has walked in his footsteps.

Some things my treatise will hint at; over some it will linger; some it will merely mention. It will try to speak without being noticed, to display secretly, to demonstrate in silence. The teachings of the notable sects will be brought forward, and against them will be set everything that has to be laid down first, in accordance with the deepest contemplation of that knowledge which will come into view as we advance to the famous and venerable rule of the tradition, starting from the creation of the world — putting before us what natural contemplation makes it necessary to treat beforehand, and clearing away whatever stands in the way of this arrangement. In that way our ears will be ready to receive the tradition of true knowledge, the soil having first been cleared by the farmer of thorns and every weed, for the planting of the vine. For there is the contest, and there is the warm-up before the contest; and there are some mysteries before other mysteries.

Our book will not shrink from making use of what is best in philosophy and in the other preparatory training. “For it is right,” according to the apostle, “to become a Jew not only for the Hebrews and those under the law, but also a Greek for the sake of the Greeks, so that we may gain them all.” In the letter to the Colossians too he writes, “Warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, so that we may present every man complete in Christ.” The fine points of speculation suit the sketch presented in my commentaries as well. In this respect the resources of learning are like a relish mixed into the food of an athlete who is not indulging himself, but has a noble desire for distinction.

By music we relax the excessive tension of seriousness in a harmonious way. And just as people who want to address a crowd often do it through a herald, so that what is said may be heard better, that is how it is here too. For we have the word that was spoken to many, before the tradition that is common to all. So we must set out the opinions and sayings that called to men one by one, by which those who hear them will turn around more readily.

And, to put it briefly and truly: among many small pearls there is the one; in a great catch of fish there is the beauty-fish; and by time and hard work the truth will shine out, if a good helper is at hand. Most benefits are supplied by God through men. All of us who use our eyes see what is set in front of them, but people look at things for different reasons. The cook and the shepherd do not look a sheep over in the same way: the one examines it to see whether it is fat, the other watches to see whether it is well bred. Let a man milk the sheep’s milk if he needs food, and shear the wool if he needs clothing. And in this way let me take the fruit of Greek learning.

I do not imagine that any book can be so lucky that nobody will speak against it. But the book to be counted reasonable is the one nobody speaks against with reason. And the course of action and choice to be approved is not the one that is faultless, but the one nobody finds fault with reasonably. It does not follow that a man who accomplishes something without meaning to has done it by force of circumstances; he will do it by managing it with wisdom given from God, and by fitting himself to the circumstances. A man who has virtue does not need the road to virtue, any more than a man who is strong needs to recover.

So, like farmers who water the land beforehand, we too water with the flowing stream of Greek learning whatever is earthy in it, so that it may take in the spiritual seed thrown into it and be able to nourish it easily. The Stromata will contain the truth mixed in with the teachings of philosophy — or rather covered over and hidden by them, the way the edible part of a nut is hidden in the shell. In my opinion it is fitting that the seeds of truth be kept for the farmers of faith and for nobody else.

I am not unaware of what is babbled by certain people who in their ignorance are frightened at every noise, and who say that we ought to occupy ourselves with what is most necessary and holds the faith, and pass over what lies beyond it and is superfluous, which wears us out and holds us up for nothing, in things that contribute nothing to the great end. Others think that philosophy was brought into life by an evil influence, for the ruin of men, by an evil inventor. But I will show all through these Stromata that evil has an evil nature and can never turn out to be the producer of anything good — indicating that philosophy is, in a certain sense, a work of divine providence.