The Stromata, Book IV

Pain, Poverty, and Virtue

The Stoics deserve our admiration when they say that the soul is not affected by the body — not pushed into vice by disease, nor into virtue by health. Both, they say, are matters of indifference. And Job, through extraordinary self-control and outstanding faith, is set before us as a good example. He went from rich to poor, from honored to despised, from handsome to disfigured, from healthy to sick; and he put the tempter to shame and blessed his Creator. He carried what came second exactly as he had carried what came first, and he showed as plainly as anything can be shown that the one who truly knows can make excellent use of any circumstance whatever. That achievements of long ago are set before us as pictures for our correction, the apostle shows when he says, “so that my chains in Christ have become known throughout the whole praetorium and to everyone else, and most of the brothers in the Lord, made confident by my chains, are far bolder to speak the word of God without fear” — for the witness that martyrs bear is an example of a life turned around and gloriously made holy. “For whatever the Scripture says was written for our instruction, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have the hope of encouragement.”

When pain is present, the soul seems to shrink back from it and to count release from the pain in front of it a precious thing. At that moment it slackens in its studies, and the other virtues are neglected along with them. And yet we do not say that it is virtue itself that suffers, for virtue is not affected by disease. It is the man who shares in both — in the virtue and in the disease — who is worn down by the pressure of the disease. If he has not yet acquired the habit of self-command, and is not great-souled, he loses his composure; and being unable to bear the pain turns out to be the same thing as running away from it.

Poverty and the Divided Soul

The same holds good in the case of poverty. It forces the soul to give up what is necessary — I mean contemplation, and a pure freedom from sin — and drives the man who has not given himself wholly to God in love to busy himself instead with getting a living. Health, on the other hand, and a sufficient supply of what a person needs, leave the soul free and unhindered, able to make good use of what is at hand. For, as the apostle says, “Such people will have trouble in this life, and I am trying to spare you. I want you to be free from anxiety, so that you may live decently and wait constantly on the Lord without distraction.”

These things, then, are to be kept clear of, not for their own sake, but for the body’s sake; and the body is looked after for the sake of the soul, which is what it serves. That is why the man who lives as one who truly knows has to know what is fitting. That pleasure is not a good thing is granted from the fact that some pleasures are evil — by that reasoning good would turn out to be evil, and evil good. And besides, if we choose some pleasures and avoid others, then not every pleasure is a good thing. The same rule holds with pains: some we endure and some we avoid. But choosing and avoiding are done according to knowledge. So the good thing is not pleasure, but the knowledge by which we will choose a pleasure at a certain time and of a certain kind. And the martyr chooses the pleasure that lies ahead, by way of the pain that is present. Suppose the pain is thirst and the pleasure is drinking: then the pain that came first is what produces the pleasure. But evil cannot be what produces good. So neither the one nor the other is evil. Simonides writes accordingly — and Aristotle says the same — “that being healthy is the best thing, and the second best is to be good-looking, and the third best is to be rich without cheating.”

What the Poets Say About Money

And Theognis of Megara says:

To escape poverty you must throw yourself,

Cyrnus, down from the sheer cliffs

into the deep sea.

On the other side, Antiphanes the comic poet says, “Wealth, once he takes hold of people who see better than the rest, makes them blind.” The poets, in fact, proclaim him blind from birth:

And she brought him forth blind, who never saw the sun.

Euphorion of Chalcis says:

Riches, then, and extravagant luxuries

were the worst training men ever had in manliness.

And Euripides wrote in his Alexander:

And it is said

that poverty has come by wisdom through misfortune,

but that great wealth will capture

not Sparta alone, but every city.

“The white silver and the gold are not the only coin mortals have,” as Sophocles says; “virtue is coin as well.”