The Book of the Laws of Various Countries

Bardesan.

Some days since we were calling to pay a visit to our brother Shemashgram, and Bardesan came and found us there. And when he had made inquiries after his health, and ascertained that he was well, he asked us, “What were you talking about? For I heard your voice outside as I was coming in.” For it was his habit, whenever he found us talking about anything before he came, to ask us, “What were you saying?” that he might talk with us about it.

“Avida here,” said we to him, “was saying to us, 'If God is one, as you say, and if He is the creator of men, and if it is His will that you should do that which you are commanded, why did He not so create men that they should not be able to do wrong, but should constantly be doing that which is right? For in this way His will would have been accomplished.'”

“Tell me, my son Avida,” said Bardesan to him, “why it has come into your mind that the God of all is not One; or that He is One, but does not will that men should behave themselves justly and uprightly?”

“I, sir,” said Avida, “have asked these brethren, persons of my own age, in order that 'they' may return me an answer.”

“If,” said Bardesan to him, “you wish to learn, it were for your advantage to learn from some one who is older than they; but if to teach, it is not requisite for 'you' to ask 'them,' but rather that you should induce 'them' to ask 'you' what they wish. For teachers are 'asked' questions, and do not themselves ask them; or, if they ever do ask a question, it is to direct the mind of the questioner, so that he may ask properly, and they may know what his desire is. For it is a good thing that a man should know how to ask questions.”

“For my part,” said Avida, “I wish to learn; but I began first of all to question my brethren here, because I was too bashful to ask you.”

“You speak becomingly,” said Bardesan. “But know, nevertheless, that he who asks questions properly, and wishes to be convinced, and approaches the way of truth without contentiousness, has no need to be bashful; because he is sure by means of the things I have mentioned to please him to whom his questions are addressed. If so be, therefore, my son, you have any opinion of your own respecting this matter about which you have asked, tell it to us all; and, if we too approve of it, we shall express our agreement with you; and, if we do not approve of it, we shall be under obligation to show you why we do not approve of it. But if you were simply desirous of becoming acquainted with this subject, and hast no opinion of your own about it, as a man who has but lately joined the disciples and is a recent inquirer, I will tell you respecting it; so that you may not go from us empty away. If, moreover, you are pleased with those things which I shall say to you, we have other things besides to tell you concerning this matter; but, if you are not pleased, we on our part shall have stated our views without any personal feeling.”

“I too,” said Avida, “shall be much gratified to hear and to be convinced: because it is not from another that I have heard of this subject, but I have spoken of it to my brethren here out of my own mind; and they have not cared to convince me; but they say, 'Only believe, and you will then be able to know everything.' But for my part, I cannot believe unless I be convinced.”

“Not only,” said Bardesan, “is Avida unwilling to believe, but there are many others also who, because there is no faith in them, are not even capable of being convinced; but they are always pulling down and building up, and so are found destitute of all knowledge of the truth. But notwithstanding, since Avida is not willing to believe, lo! I will speak to you who do believe, concerning this matter about which he asks; and thus he too will hear something further about it.”

He began accordingly to address us as follows: Many men are there who have not faith, and have not received knowledge from the True Wisdom. In consequence of this, they are not competent to speak and give instruction to others, nor are they readily inclined themselves to hear. For they have not the foundation of faith to build upon, nor have they any confidence on which to rest their hope. Moreover, because they are accustomed to doubt even concerning God, they likewise have not in them the fear of Him, which would of itself deliver them from all other fears: for he in whom there is no fear of God is the slave of all sorts of fears. For even with regard to those things of various kinds which they disbelieve, they are not certain that they disbelieve them rightly, but they are unsettled in their opinions, and have no fixed belief, and the taste of their thoughts is insipid in their own mouth; and they are always haunted with fear, and flushed with excitement, and reckless.

But with regard to what Avida has said: 'How is it that God did not so make us that we should not sin and incur condemnation?'— if man had been made so, he would not have belonged to himself, but would have been the instrument of him that moved him; and it is evident also, that he who moves an instrument as he pleases, moves it either for good or for evil. And how, in that case, would a man differ from a harp, on which another plays; or from a ship, which another guides: where the praise and the blame reside in the hand of the performer or the steersman, and the harp itself knows not what is played on it, nor the ship itself whether it be well steered and guided or ill, they being only instruments made for the use of him in whom is the requisite skill? But God in His benignity chose not so to make man; but by freedom He exalted him above many of His creatures, and even made him equal with the angels. For look at the sun, and the moon, and the signs of the zodiac, and all the other creatures which are greater than we in some points, and see how individual freedom has been denied them, and how they are all fixed in their course by decree, so that they may do that only which is decreed for them, and nothing else. For the sun never says, I will not rise at my appointed time; nor the moon, I will not change, nor wane, nor wax; nor does any one of the stars say, I will not rise nor set; nor the sea, I will not bear up the ships, nor stay within my boundaries; nor the mountains, We will not continue in the places in which we are set; nor do the winds say, We will not blow; nor the earth, I will not bear up and sustain whatsoever is upon me. But all these things are servants, and are subject to one decree: for they are the instruments of the wisdom of God, which errs not.