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PORPHYRY'S AGAINST THE CHRISTIANS: THE LITERARY REMAINS |
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3: The Ruler and End of the World Apocrit. 11.16 [John 7.43-4] Let us review that dark saying which Jesus directed at the Jews when he said, "You do not receive my word because your father is that devil the Slanderer, and you do the whims of your father." Tell us, who exactly is this Slanderer who is the father of the Jews? For in the normal course of things anyone who does what his father tells him is acting correctly in obeying a parent, out of respect for the parent. If a father is wicked, then the sins of the father must not be attributed to his children. So who is this father who prevented [the Jews] from listening to Christ? When the Jews said, "We have [but] one father and that is God," Jesus retorted, "[No], you are of your father the Slanderer." So I ask, Who and where is this Slanderer? From what act of slander does he get his name? "Slanderer" cannot be his birth-name, but a name that comes from something he did. Among what race of people did he appear and commit his act of slander? [Normally] it is those who accept the slander who appear guilty of an offense; those who are slandered are merely the victims. And it could be argued that it is not the Slanderer who did wrong but the one who gave him an excuse for slander.
If a man puts an obstacle in the road [with the intention of blocking someone's way], and someone comes along and trips over it in the dark, it is the man who put it there who is responsible for the fall -- not the man who stumbles. So, too, the man who causes slander is guilty of a greater wrong than those who use it or those who are hurt by it.
Is this Slanderer a man of passion? If he is not he would never have slandered -- but
if he is subject to human weaknesses, then he ought to be forgiven what he has done, just as we forgive those who are sick and frail and do not hold them responsible for their ailments. [12]
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Notes:
12. Porphyry's suggestion is that an evil father capable of
enforcing obedience is the source of evil. His agents or children have no
choice but to obey and in so doing at least uphold the virtue of filial respect
and loyalty. The equivalent point is made in a different context by the heretic
Marcion, who maintained that the "just" God of the Old Testament is the
ultimate source of human failings, as his laws and demands are incoherent and contradictory (Tertullian, Against Marcion 1.16.5). The philosopher
may have had some such critique in mind. The disjunctive proposition that
follows dictates Macarius' response: either the slanderer is moved by human affections or he is not. If he is not, then he would not have
slandered. If he is, then he must be forgiven for his
failings as the Christian God forgives others. To win his point, Macarius makes the best of ambiguities in
the translation of the verse, arguing that humeis ek tou patros tou
diabolou este (John 8.44) means "You are of the father of the Slanderer,"
rather than "You are of your father, the slanderer." But the point is oblique.
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