And it prohibits an ox and ass to be yoked in the plough together;[203] pointing perhaps to the want of agreement in the case of the animals; and at the same time teaching not to wrong any one belonging to another race, and bring him under the yoke, when there is no other cause to allege than difference of race, which is no cause at all, being neither wickedness nor the effect of wickedness. To me the allegory also seems to signify that the husbandry of the Word is not to be assigned equally to the clean and the unclean, the believer and the unbeliever; for the ox is clean, but the ass has been reckoned among the unclean animals. But the benignant Word, abounding in humanity, teaches that neither is it right to cut down cultivated trees, or to cut down the grain before the harvest, for mischief’s sake; nor that cultivated fruit is to be destroyed at all—either the fruit of the soil or that of the soul: for it does not permit the enemy’s country to be laid waste.
Further, husbandmen derived advantage from the law in such things. For it orders newly planted trees to be nourished three years in succession, and the superfluous growths to be cut off, to prevent them being loaded and pressed down; and to prevent their strength being exhausted from want, by the nutriment being frittered away, enjoins tilling and digging round them, so that [the tree] may not, by sending out suckers, hinder its growth. And it does not allow imperfect fruit to be plucked from immature trees, but after three years, in the fourth year; dedicating the first-fruits to God after the tree has attained maturity.
This type of husbandry may serve as a mode of instruction, teaching that we must cut the growths of sins, and the useless weeds of the mind that spring up round the vital fruit, till the shoot of faith is perfected and becomes strong. For in the fourth year, since there is need of time to him that is being solidly instructed, the four virtues are consecrated to God, the third alone being already joined to the fourth,[204] the person of the Lord. And a sacrifice of praise is above holocausts: “for He,” it is said, “giveth strength to get power.”[205] And if your affairs are in the sunshine of prosperity, get and keep strength, and acquire power in knowledge. For by these instances it is shown that both good things and gifts are supplied by God; and that we, becoming ministers of the divine grace, ought to sow the benefits of God, and make those who approach us noble and good; so that, as far as possible, the temperate man may make others continent, he that is manly may make them noble, he that is wise may make them intelligent, and the just may make them just.
CHAPTER XIX.
THE TRUE GNOSTIC IS AN IMITATOR OF GOD, ESPECIALLY IN BENEFICENCE.
He is the Gnostic, who is after the image and likeness of God, who imitates God as far as possible, deficient in none of the things which contribute to the likeness as far as compatible, practising self-restraint and endurance, living righteously, reigning over the passions, bestowing of what he has as far as possible, and doing good both by word and deed. “He is the greatest,” it is said, “in the kingdom who shall do and teach;”[206] imitating God in conferring like benefits. For God’s gifts are for the common good. “Whoever shall attempt to do aught with presumption, provokes God,”[207] it is said. For haughtiness is a vice of the soul, of which, as of other sins, He commands us to repent; by adjusting our lives from their state of derangement to the change for the better in these three things—mouth, heart, hands. These are signs—the hands of action, the heart of volition, the mouth of speech. Beautifully, therefore, has this oracle been spoken with respect to penitents: “Thou hast chosen God this day to be thy God; and God hath chosen thee this day to be His people.”[208] For him who hastes to serve the self-existent One, being a suppliant,[209] God adopts to Himself; and though he be only one in number, he is honoured equally with the people. For being a part of the people, he becomes complementary of it, being restored from what he was; and the whole is named from a part.
But nobility is itself exhibited in choosing and practising what is best. For what benefit to Adam was such a nobility as he had? No mortal was his father; for he himself was father of men that are born. What is base he readily chose, following his wife, and neglected what is true and good; on which account he exchanged his immortal life for a mortal life, but not for ever. And Noah, whose origin was not the same as Adam’s, was saved by divine care. For he took and consecrated himself to God. And Abraham, who had children by three wives, not for the indulgence of pleasure, but in the hope, as I think, of multiplying the race at the first, was succeeded by one alone, who was heir of his father’s blessings, while the rest were separated from the family; and of the twins who sprang from him, the younger having won his father’s favour and received his prayers, became heir, and the elder served him. For it is the greatest boon to a bad man not to be master of himself.
And this arrangement was prophetical and typical. And that all things belong to the wise, Scripture clearly indicates when it is said, “Because God hath had mercy on me, I have all things.”[210] For it teaches that we are to desire one thing, by which are all things, and what is promised is assigned to the worthy. Accordingly, the good man who has become heir of the kingdom, it registers also as fellow-citizen, through divine wisdom, with the righteous of the olden time, who under the law and before the law lived according to law, whose deeds have become laws to us; and again, teaching that the wise man is king, introduces people of a different race, saying to him, “Thou art a king before God among us;”[211] those who were governed obeying the good man of their own accord, from admiration of his virtue.
Now Plato the philosopher, defining the end of happiness, says that it is likeness to God as far as possible; whether concurring with the precept of the law (for great natures that are free of passions somehow hit the mark respecting the truth, as the Pythagorean Philo says in relating the history of Moses), or whether instructed by certain oracles of the time, thirsting as he always was for instruction. For the law says, “Walk after the Lord your God, and keep my commandments.”[212] For the law calls assimilation following; and such a following to the utmost of its power assimilates. “Be,” says the Lord, “merciful and pitiful, as your heavenly Father is pitiful.”[213] Thence also the Stoics have laid down the doctrine, that living agreeably to nature is the end, fitly altering the name of God into nature; since also nature extends to plants, to seeds, to trees, and to stones. It is therefore plainly said, “Bad men do not understand the law, but they who love the law fortify themselves with a wall.”[214] “For the wisdom of the clever knows its ways; but the folly of the foolish is in error.”[215] “For on whom will I look, but on him who is mild and gentle, and trembleth at my words?” says the prophecy.
We are taught that there are three kinds of friendship: and that of these the first and the best is that which results from virtue, for the love that is founded on reason is firm; that the second and intermediate is by way of recompense, and is social, liberal, and useful for life; for the friendship which is the result of favour is mutual. And the third and last we assert to be that which is founded on intimacy; others, again, that it is that variable and changeable form which rests on pleasure. And Hippodamus the Pythagorean seems to me to describe friendships most admirably: “That founded on knowledge of the gods, that founded on the gifts of men, and that on the pleasures of animals.” There is the friendship of a philosopher,—that of a man and that of an animal. For the image of God is really the man who does good, in which also he gets good: as the pilot at once saves, and is saved. Wherefore, when one obtains his request, he does not say to the giver, Thou hast given well, but, Thou hast received well. So he receives who gives, and he gives who receives. “But the righteous pity and show mercy.”[216] “But the mild shall be inhabitants of the earth, and the innocent shall be left in it. But the transgressors shall be extirpated from it.”[217] And Homer seems to me to have said prophetically of the faithful, “Give to thy friend.” And an enemy must be aided, that he may not continue an enemy. For by help good feeling is compacted, and enmity dissolved. “But if there be present readiness of mind, according to what a man hath it is acceptable, and not according to what he hath not; for it is not that there be ease to others, but tribulation to you, but of equality at the present time,” and so forth.[218] “He hath dispersed, he hath given to the poor; his righteousness endureth for ever,” the Scripture says.[219] For conformity with the image and likeness is not meant of the body (for it were wrong for what is mortal to be made like what is immortal), but in mind and reason, on which fitly the Lord impresses the seal of likeness, both in respect of doing good and of exercising rule. For governments are directed not by corporeal qualities, but by judgments of the mind. For by the counsels of holy men states are managed well, and the household also.