The Logos Scripture · Gospel of Antisthenes

The Sermon on the Bare Rock

Gospel of Antisthenes 2 · Second Witness: Austerity, and War Against Matter

The sentences of this book are short. The shortness is deliberate. Long sentences are written for men with leisure.

2.1I record how the Teacher gathered the people in bitter cold upon the jagged rocks of Lycabettus.

2.2They shivered in heavy wool.

2.3Socrates stood barefoot upon the frost. His soul had gone entirely past the pain of the body.

2.4He cried out to the crowd:

2.5"You weep because your pockets are empty."

2.6"I tell you: blessed are the poor, for nothing binds them."

2.7"The true and highest sovereignty is to need nothing at all."

2.8He saw a man counting his last coins with shaking hands.

2.9He snatched the purse and hurled it into the ravine, and rebuked him:

2.10"I mean to cure your chains."

2.11"Gold is a heavy stone. It drags the soul down into the dirt."

2.12"Look up at the sky — a man who grips a stone cannot fly."

2.13The man looked down into the empty ravine, and then up at the vast sky.

2.14And a fierce, burning gladness rose in him.

2.15He laughed aloud. His greed was wholly cured.

2.16Someone asked me: what if that purse held the medicine money for his mother?

2.17I answered: his mother died, and he will die. Medicine only postpones. It does not repeal.

2.18I know this verse is hard to read. I will not change it.