The Logos Scripture · Gospel of Antisthenes

The Freeing of Melitta

Gospel of Antisthenes 3 · 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.

3.1There was a foreign woman named Melitta.

3.2She was a weaver, driven out by the elders of the city.

3.3For she had neither standing nor protector.

3.4She sat beside the city gate. Starving and frozen. Her mind broken.

3.5I brought her before Socrates and said: "Teacher, the law of mortals says this woman is worth nothing."

3.6Socrates sat down beside her in the dust, took her rough and callused hand, and said:

3.7"The elders are blind. They weigh only that heavy garment which is citizenship."

3.8"I tell you, Melitta: your soul and the soul of the King of Persia were cast out of the one natural order of the universe."

3.9He poured the fire of the Logos into her mind. Question upon question.

3.10Until she saw the strength that was in her.

3.11She struck the dust from her torn clothes and stood unbending before the jeering crowd.

3.12And with the bearing of an absolute sovereign over her own life, she walked into the city.

3.13She lived a long time. What came of it is written in the Acts.