The Logos Scripture · Gospel of Aristippus

The Feast on the Summit

Gospel of Aristippus 2 · Third Witness: The Wave of Sovereignty, and Living in the Hour

This book is written at ease. Whoever reads it and does not laugh once has not read this book.

2.1When Socrates preached upon the slope of Lycabettus, he did indeed unbind the minds of the poor.

2.2But he did not require them to go hungry.

2.3He required them to enjoy everything with a free mind.

2.4A wealthy patron carried up the slope several baskets of the finest figs and several jars of sweet Chian wine.

2.5The people dared not touch them. They supposed holiness must mean hardship.

2.6But Socrates filled the cups to the brim and laughed aloud:

2.7"Eat. Drink. For this material world is a playground the Logos has given you."

2.8"Blessed is the one who can taste the sweetness of the world and not be enslaved by it."

2.9He saw an anxious man refusing the wine for fear of becoming a drunkard.

2.10Socrates put the cup into his hand and said:

2.11"The coward runs from the wave. The slave drowns in it. The sovereign mind surfs on its crest."

2.12"Drink. Prove that you are the master of the wine, and not mastered by it."

2.13The man drank. His anxiety turned at once into perfect self-command.

2.14Afterward I was told that another book records the Teacher throwing a man's purse down a ravine.

2.15I do not deny it. It was cold on the mountain that day, and I did not go up.

2.16I say only this: the man who throws another's purse down a ravine and the man who puts a cup into another's hand can be one and the same man.

2.17The ones who cannot be both at once are you.