{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/002/0020369.htm","path":"chr/ecf/002/0020369.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/002/0020369.htm","text":"In this perfection it is possible for man and woman equally to share. It is not only Moses, then, that heard from God, \u201cI have spoken to thee once, and twice, saying, I have seen this people, and lo, it is stiff-necked. Suffer me to exterminate them, and blot out their name from under heaven; and I will make thee into a great and wonderful nation much greater than this;\u201d who answers not regarding himself, but the common salvation: \u201cBy no means, O Lord; forgive this people their sin, or blot me out of the book of the living.\u201d 2863 How great was his perfection, in wishing to die together with the people, rather than be saved alone!\nBut Judith too, who became perfect among women, in the siege of the city, at the entreaty of the elders went forth into the strangers\u2019 camp, despising all danger for her country\u2019s sake, giving herself into the enemy\u2019s hand in faith in God; and straightway she obtained the reward of her faith,\u2014though a woman, prevailing over the enemy of her faith, and gaining possession of the head of Holofernes. And again, Esther perfect by faith, who rescued Israel from the power of the king and the satrap\u2019s cruelty: a woman alone, afflicted with fastings, 2864 held back ten thousand armed 2865 hands, annulling by her faith the tyrant\u2019s decree; him indeed she appeased, Haman she restrained, and Israel she preserved scathless by her perfect prayer to God. I pass over in silence Susanna and the sister of Moses, since the latter was the prophet\u2019s associate in commanding the host, being superior to all the women among the Hebrews who were in repute for their wisdom; and the former in her surpassing modesty, going even to death condemned by licentious admirers, remained the unwavering martyr of chastity.\nDion, too, the philosopher, tells that a certain woman Lysidica, through excess of modesty, bathed in her clothes; and that Philotera, when she was to enter the bath, gradually drew back her tunic as the water covered the naked parts; and then rising by degrees, put it on. And did not Le\u00e6na of Attica manfully bear the torture? She being privy to the conspiracy of Harmodius and Aristogeiton against Hipparchus, uttered not a word, though severely tortured. And they say that the Argolic women, under the guidance of Telesilla the poetess, turned to flight the doughty Spartans by merely showing themselves; and that she produced in them fearlessness of death. Similarly speaks he who composed the Danais respecting the daughters of Danaus:\u2014\n \u201cAnd then the daughters of Danaus swiftly armed themselves,\nBefore the fair-flowing river, majestic Nile 2866 ,\u201d\nAnd the rest of the poets sing of Atalanta\u2019s swiftness in the chase, of Anticlea\u2019s love for children, of Alcestis\u2019s love for her husband, of the courage of Mak\u00e6ria and of the Hyacinthides. What shall I say? Did not Theano the Pythagorean make such progress in philosophy, that to him who looked intently at her, and said, \u201cYour arm is beautiful,\u201d she answered \u201cYes, but it is not public.\u201d Characterized by the same propriety, there is also reported the following reply. 2867 When asked when a woman after being with her husband attends the Thesmophoria, said, \u201cFrom her own husband at once, from a stranger never.\u201d Themisto too, of Lampsacus, the daughter of Zoilus, the wife of Leontes of Lampsacus, studied the Epicurean philosophy, as Myia the daughter of Theano the Pythagorean, and Arignote, who wrote the history of Dionysius.\nAnd the daughters of Diodorus, who was called Kronus, all became dialecticians, as Philo the dialectician says in the Menexenus, whose names are mentioned as follows\u2014Menexene, Argia, Theognis, Artemesia, Pantaclea. I also recollect a female Cynic,\u2014she was called Hipparchia, a Maronite, the wife of Crates,\u2014in whose case the so-called dog-wedding was celebrated in the P\u0153cile. Arete of Cyrene, too, the daughter of Aristippus, educated her son Aristippus, who was surnamed Mother-taught. Lastheneia of Arcis, and Axiothea of Phlius, studied philosophy with Plato. Besides, Aspasia of Miletus, of whom the writers of comedy write much, was trained by Socrates in philosophy, by Pericles in rhetoric. I omit, on account of the length of the discourse, the rest; enumerating neither the poetesses Corinna, Telesilla, Myia, and Sappho; nor the painters, as Irene the daughter of Cratinus, and Anaxandra the daughter of Nealces, according to the account of p. 432 Didymus in the Symposiaci. The daughter of Cleobulus, the sage and monarch of the Lindii, was not ashamed to wash the feet of her father\u2019s guests. Also the wife of Abraham, the blessed Sarah, in her own person prepared the cakes baked in the ashes for the angels; and princely maidens among the Hebrews fed sheep. Whence also the Nausica\u00e4 of Homer went to the washing-tubs.\nThe wise woman, then, will first choose to persuade her husband to be her associate in what is conducive to happiness. And should that be found impracticable, let her by herself earnestly aim at virtue, gaining her husband\u2019s consent in everything, so as never to do anything against his will, with exception of what is reckoned as contributing to virtue and salvation. But if one keeps from such a mode of life either wife or maid-servant, whose heart is set on it; what such a person in that case plainly does is nothing else than determine to drive her away from righteousness and sobriety, and to choose to make his own house wicked and licentious.\nIt is not then possible that man or woman can be conversant with anything whatever, without the advantage of education, and application, and training; and virtue, we have said, depends not on others, but on ourselves above all. Other things one can repress, by waging war against them; but with what depends on one\u2019s self, this is entirely out of the question, even with the most strenuous persistence. For the gift is one conferred by God, and not in the power of any other. Whence licentiousness should be regarded as the evil of no other one than of him who is guilty of licentiousness; and temperance, on the other hand, as the good of him who is able to practice it.\nExod. 32:9, 10, 32.\n431:2864\nSo rendered by the Latin translator, as if the reading were \u03c4\u03b5\u03b8\u03bb\u03b9\u03bc\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03b7.\n431:2865\nSylburguis\u2019 conjecture of \u1f61\u03c0\u03bb\u03b9\u03c3\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03b1\u03c2 instead of \u1f41\u03c0\u03bb\u03b9\u03c3\u03b1\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03b1\u03c2 is here adopted.\n431:2866\n[Theano. See, also, p. 417. Elucidation II.]","title":"Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol II: CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA: Chap....","type":"page"}