The Apocriticus: Book Five
Surviving Fragment
[Fragment quoted in Greek by F. Turrianus (De la Torre), Dogmaticus de Justificatione, ad Germanos adversus Luteranos, Romae, 1557, p. 37.]1
The subject is Faith and Works, and Turrianus says that Magnetes writes as follows concerning the faith of Abraham:---
For having believed through good works, he was well-pleasing to God, and therefore was considered worthy of the friendship of Him who is higher. By doing these things he caused his faith to shine brighter than the sun. And together with his faith he works what is right, wherefore he is beloved of God and honoured. For, knowing that faith is the foundation of success, he roots it deep, building upon it the multitude of mercies. For, joining each of the two things with a kindred bond, he raises on each a lofty rampart, by acquiring a faith which receives the testimony of works. Nor again does he allow the works to be base, or sundered from the faith, but knowing that faith is a seed which produces abundant fruit, he brings together all things that are brought in contact with the seed, earth, ploughman, wallet, yoke, plough, and as many things as the husbandman's skill has devised. For as the seed is not sown apart from these, and reason completes none of the things mentioned above apart from the seed, so faith which in some sense stands for mystical seed, is unfruitful if it abides alone, unless it grow by means of good works. And in like manner the linking together of good deeds is a useless thing and altogether incomplete, unless it have faith woven in with it. Wherefore, in order that it may reveal Abraham as making the grace of his works to shine forth from faith, the divine Scripture says, "Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned unto him for righteousness" (Gen. xv. 6).2
You see how faith made preceding good deeds of virtue to be reckoned for righteousness, just as the sowing makes the land to bring forth fruit.
For as a light makes the quality of the oil to shine forth when put in a lamp, so faith, being as it were put into a lamp, made the virtue of Abraham's works to give a brilliant light. For Abraham, as a natural result of his teaching, welcomed what was just and equal in social life, and showed himself serviceable to his neighbours, and without guile, living to avoid evil both in giving and in receiving, giving consolation without stint to those who needed it; in a word, he refrained from evil3 practices. But even if these things were good in appearance and respected, yet no one reckoned them, no one set virtue under its right heading, for no one had the power to do so. save God only, and he did not yet believe. But when Abraham believed God, these things, experiences of this kind that were good, were reckoned unto Abraham for righteousness.
Turrianus ends the above quotation with the words "Hactenus Magnetes," but there are strong reasons for thinking that he is still reproducing the substance of the Apocriticus in the words that follow. (For the arguments which make this probable, see J.T.S. vol. viii. No. 32, July 1907, pp. 559-560.)
After referring to the above three parables of the building, the seed, and the lamp, he adds (in Latin):---
There is yet a fourth parable, and a very apt one, as it seems to me---namely, that of the lump and the leaven, showing how faith is like the lump, while good and spiritual works are like leaven. For bread is unpleasant without leaven, and difficult for digestion and nutrition; and again, leaven alone without the lump is altogether useless, but when it is added to the lump it makes it pleasant and firm, wholesome and easy of digestion. Even so love, when we walk according to God's commands, is like leaven in binding and permeating the whole lump of faith, that is to say, by making it firm and fermenting it, it renders it wholesome and useful. Thus the lump of faith without the leaven of love and good works is neither useful nor a wholesome food for the soul, nor is it pleasing to God; nor again is love fitting, however wide it be, without the lump of faith. But it is the combination and mingling of the two that is wholesome. This new mixture of faith and good works is pleasing to God, without the old leaven, that is to say, without the corruption of concupiscence which is in the world.4
Footnotes:
1This quotation also appears in Latin form in his Adversus Magdaburgenses, lib. iv. ch. 7.
2τὸ προλαβὸν κατόρθωμα. Like the fragment of Book I., the language is here linked with that of the rest of Macarius by the use of his favourite word, which occurs three times in this fragment.
3Turrianus gives φάβλων, but his Latin rendering "pravis" shows it to have been φαύλων.
4It is uncertain what form of attack Macarius is here answering. It does not seem likely that he is simply dealing with the quotation from Genesis about Abraham's faith. And if the argument centres in the difference between the teaching of S. Paul and S. James on faith and works, it would be a return to the earlier objections of a detailed kind, whereas the latter part of Book IV. leads us to expect objections of a more general and doctrinal character. It would seem therefore as if Hierocles had gone on to attack the inner teachings of Christianity, and such difficulties within the faith as the reconciliation of justification by faith with the stress laid upon good works. If this conclusion is correct, it shows us that the scope of the Apocriticus was wider than is supposed or its title would suggest, and the dialogue is seen to have had a much broader doctrinal range than the discussion of passages in the New Testament. Internal evidence supports the genuineness of the fragment. The allegorical and Origenistic style of explanation is quite Macarian, and so is the language. His favourite word κατόρθωμα occurs no less than three times.