Fragments of Clemens Alexandrinus
Clement of Alexandria
Chapter 5
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Chap. v. 6. He says, “This is He who came by water and blood;” and again,—
Ver. 8. “For there are three
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Opening the library…
Fragments of Clemens Alexandrinus
Clement of Alexandria
Ver. 8. “For there are three
Ver. 14. “And this is the confidence which we have towards Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He will hear us.” He does not say absolutely what we shall ask, but what we ought to ask.
Ver. 19. “And the whole word lieth in the wicked one;” not the creation, but worldly men, and those who live according to their lusts.
Ver. 20. “And the Son of God hath come and given us understanding,” which comes to us, that is, by faith, and is also called the Holy Spirit.
The second Epistle of John, which is written to Virgins, is very simple. It was written to a Babylonian lady, by name Electa, and indicates
the election of the holy Church. He establishes in this Epistle that the following out of the faith is not without charity, and so that no one divide Jesus Christ; but only to believe that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. For he who has the Son by apprehension in his intellect knows also the Father, and grasps with his mind intelligibly the greatness of His power working without beginning of time.
Ver. 10. He says, “If any come unto you and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed; for he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds.” He forbids us to salute such, and to receive them to our hospitality. For this is not harsh in the case of a man of this sort. But he admonishes them neither to confer nor dispute with such as are not able to handle divine things with intelligence, lest through them they be seduced from the doctrine of truth, influenced by plausible reasons. Now, I think that we are not even to pray with such, because in the prayer which is made at home, after rising from prayer, the salutation of joy is also the token of peace.
But Job’s words may be more elegantly understood of evil and sin thus: “Naked” was formed from the earth at the beginning, as if from a “mother’s womb: naked to the earth shall I also depart;” naked, not of possessions, for that were a trivial and common thing, but of evil and sin, and of the unsightly shape which follows those who have led bad lives. Obviously, all of us human beings are born naked, and again are buried naked, swathed only in grave-clothes. For God hath provided for us another life, and made the present life the way for the course which leads to it; appointing the supplies derived from what we possess merely as provisions for the way; and on our quitting this way, the wealth, consisting of the things which we possessed, journeys no farther with us. For not a single thing that we possess is properly our own: of one possession alone, that is godliness, are we properly owners. Of this, death, when it overtakes us, will not rob us; but from all else it will eject us, though against our will. For it is for the support of life that we all have received what we possess; and after enjoying merely the use of it, each one departs, obtaining from life a brief remembrance. For this is the end of all prosperity; this is the conclusion of the good things of this life. Well, then, does the infant, on opening its eyes, after issuing from the womb, immediately begin with crying, not with laughter. For it weeps, as if bewailing life, at whose hands from the outset it tastes of deadly gifts. For immediately on being born its hands and feet are swaddled; and swathed in bonds it takes the breast. O introduction to life, precursor of death! The child has but just entered on life, and straightway there is put upon it the raiment of the dead: for nature reminds those that are born of their end. Wherefore also the child, on being born, wails, as if crying plaintively to its mother. Why, O mother, didst thou bring me forth to this life, in which prolongation of life is progress to death? Why hast thou brought me into this troubled world, in which, on being born, swaddling bands are my first experience? Why hast thou delivered me to such a life as this, in which both a pitiable youth wastes away before old age, and old age is shunned as under the doom of death? Dreadful, O mother, is the course of life, which has death as the goal of the runner. Bitter is the road of life we travel, with the grave as the wayfarer’s inn. Perilous the sea of life we sail; for it has Hades as a pirate to attack us. Man alone is born in all respects naked, without a weapon or clothing born with him; not as being inferior to the other animals, but that nakedness and your bringing nothing with you may produce thought; and that thought may bring out dexterity, expel sloth, introduce the arts for the supply of our needs, and beget variety of contrivances. For, naked, man is full of contrivances, being pricked on by his necessity, as by a goad, how to escape rains, how to elude cold, how to fence off blows, how to till the earth, how to terrify wild beasts, how to subdue the more powerful of them. Wetted with rain, he contrived a roof; having suffered from cold, he invented clothing; being struck, he constructed a breastplate; bleeding his hands with the thorns in tilling the ground, he availed himself of the help of tools; in his naked state liable to become a prey to wild beasts, he discovered from his fear an art which frightened what frightened him. Nakedness begat one accomplishment after another; so that even his nakedness was a gift and a master-favour. Accordingly, Job also being made naked of wealth, possessions, of the blessing of children, of a numerous offspring, and having lost everything in a short time, uttered this grateful exclamation: “Naked came I out of the womb, naked also shall I depart thither;”—to God, that is, and to that blessed lot and rest.
Job v. 7. Calmness is a thing which, of all other things, is most to be prized. As an example
of this, the word proposes to us the blessed Job. For it is said of him, “What man is like Job, who drinketh up scorning like water?” For truly enviable, and, in my judgment, worthy of all admiration, a man is, if he has attained to such a degree of long-suffering as to be able with ease to grapple with the pain, truly keen, and not easily conquered by everybody, which arises from being wronged.
Matt. v. 42. Alms are to be given, but with judgment, and to the deserving, that we may obtain a recompense from the Most High. But woe to those who have and who take under false pretences, or who are able to help themselves and want to take from others. For he who has, and, to carry out false pretences or out of laziness, takes, shall be condemned.
Matt. xiii. 31. The word which proclaims the kingdom of heaven is sharp and pungent as mustard, and represses bile, that is, anger, and checks inflammation, that is, pride; and from this word the soul’s true health and eternal soundness flow. To such increased size did the growth of the word come, that the tree which sprang from it (that is the Church of Christ established over the whole earth) filled the world, so that the fowls of the air—that is, divine angels and lofty souls—dwelt in its branches.
Matt. xiii. 46. A pearl, and that pellucid and of purest ray, is Jesus, whom of the lightning flash of Divinity the Virgin bore. For as the pearl, produced in flesh and the oyster-shell and moisture, appears to be a body moist and transparent, full of light and spirit; so also God the Word, incarnate, is intellectual light, sending His rays, through a body luminous and moist.
Luke iii. 22. God here assumed the “likeness” not of a man, but “of a dove,” because He wished, by a new apparition of the Spirit in the likeness of a dove, to declare His simplicity and majesty.
Luke xvi. 17. Perhaps by the iota and tittle His righteousness cries, “If ye come right unto Me, I will also come right to you; but if crooked, I also will come crooked, saith the Lord of hosts;” intimating that the ways of sinners are intricate and crooked. For the way right and agreeable to nature which is intimated by the iota of Jesus, is His goodness, which constantly directs those who believe from hearing. “There shall not, therefore, pass from the law one iota or one tittle,” neither from the right and good the mutual promises, nor from the crooked and unjust the punishment assigned to them. “For the Lord doeth good to the good, but those who turn aside into crooked ways God will lead with the workers of iniquity.”
“Because of the angels.” By the angels he means righteous and virtuous men. Let her be veiled then, that she may not lead them to stumble into fornication. For the real angels in heaven see her though veiled.
“And if we have known Christ after the flesh.” As “after the flesh” in our case is being in the midst of sins, and being out of them is “not after the flesh;” so also “after the flesh” in the case of Christ was His subjection to natural affections, and His not being subject to them is to be “not after the flesh.” But, he says, as He was released, so also are we.
“Our heart is enlarged,” to teach you all things. But ye are straitened in your own bowels, that is, in love to God, in which ye ought to love me.
“And they that are Christ’s [have crucified] the flesh.” And why mention one aspect of virtue after another? For there are some who have crucified themselves as far as the passions are concerned, and the passions as far as respects themselves. According to this interpretation the “and” is not superfluous. “And they that are Christ’s”—that is, striving after Him—“have crucified their own flesh.”
Yes, truly, the apostles were baptised, as Clement the Stromatist relates in the fifth book of the Hypotyposes. For, in explaining the apostolic statement, “I thank God that I baptised none of you,” he says, Christ is said to have baptised Peter alone, and Peter Andrew, and Andrew John, and they James and the rest.
Now Clement, writing in the sixth book of the Hypotyposes, makes this statement. For he says that Peter and James and John, after the Saviour’s ascension, though pre-eminently honoured by the Lord, did not contend for glory, but made James the Just, bishop of Jerusalem.
So, then, through the visit of the divine word to them, the power of Simon was extinguished, and immediately was destroyed along with the man himself. And such a ray of godliness shone forth on the minds of Peter’s hearers, that they were not satisfied with the once hearing or with the unwritten teaching of the divine proclamation, but with all manner of entreaties importuned Mark, to whom the Gospel is ascribed, he being the companion of Peter, that he would leave in writing a record of the teaching which had been delivered to them verbally; and did not let the man alone till they prevailed upon him; and so to them we owe the Scripture called the “Gospel by Mark.” On learning what had been done, through the revelation of the Spirit, it is said that the apostle was delighted with the enthusiasm of the men, and sanctioned the composition for reading in the Churches. Clemens gives the narrative in the sixth book of the Hypotyposes.
Then, also, as the divine Scripture says, Herod, on the execution of James, seeing that what was done pleased the Jews, laid hands also on Peter; and having put him in chains, would have presently put him to death, had not an angel in a divine vision appeared to him by night, and wondrously releasing him from his bonds, sent him away to the ministry of preaching.
And in the Hypotyposes, in a word, he has made abbreviated narratives of the whole testamentary Scripture; and has not passed over the disputed books,—I mean Jude and the rest of the Catholic Epistles and Barnabas, and what is called the Revelation of Peter. And he says that the Epistle to the Hebrews is Paul’s, and was written to the Hebrews in the Hebrew language; but that Luke, having carefully translated it, gave it to the Greeks, and hence the same colouring in the expression is discoverable in this Epistle and the Acts; and that the name “Paul an Apostle” was very properly not prefixed, for, he says, that writing to the Hebrews, who were prejudiced against him and suspected, he with great wisdom did not repel them in the beginning by putting down his name.
1 Tim. ii. 6. “In his times;” that is, when men were in a condition of fitness for faith.
1 Tim. iii. 16. “Was seen of angels.” O mystery! The angels saw Christ while He was with us, not having seen Him before. Not as by men.
1 Tim. v. 8. “And especially those of his own house.” He provides for his own and those of his own house, who not only provides for his relatives, but also for himself, by extirpating the passions.
1 Tim. v. 10. “If she have washed the feet of saints;” that is, if she has performed without shame the meanest offices for the saints.
1 Tim. v. 21. “Without prejudice;” that is, without falling under the doom and punishment of disobedience through making any false step.
1 Tim. vi. 13. “Who witnessed before Pontius Pilate.” For He testified by what he did that He was Christ the Son of God.
2 Tim. ii. 2. “By many witnesses;” that is, the law and the prophets. For these the apostle made witnesses of his own preaching.
To James the Just, and John and Peter, the Lord after His resurrection imparted knowledge (τὴν γνῶσιν.) These imparted it to the rest of the apostles, and the rest of the apostles to the Seventy, of whom Barnabas was one.
And of this James, Clement also relates an anecdote worthy of remembrance in the seventh book of the Hypotyposes, from a tradition of his predecessors. He says that the man who brought him to trial, on seeing him bear his testimony, was moved, and confessed that he was a Christian himself. Accordingly, he says, they were both led away together, and on the way the other asked James to forgive him. And he, considering a little, said, “Peace be to thee” and kissed him. And so both were beheaded together.
And now, as the blessed Presbyter used to say, since the Lord, as the Apostle of the Almighty, was sent to the Hebrews, Paul, as having been sent to the Gentiles, did not subscribe himself apostle of the Hebrews, out of modesty and reverence for the Lord, and because, being the herald and apostle of the Gentiles, his writing to the Hebrews was something over and above [his assigned function.]
Again, in the same books Clement has set down a tradition which he had received from the elders before him, in regard to the order of the Gospels, to the following effect. He says that the Gospels containing the genealogies were written first, and that the Gospel according to Mark was composed in the following circumstances:—
Peter having preached the word publicly at Rome, and by the Spirit proclaimed the Gospel, those who were present, who were numerous, entreated Mark, inasmuch as he had attended him from an early period, and remembered what had been said, to write down what had been spoken. On his composing the Gospel, he handed it to those who had made the request to him; which coming to Peter’s knowledge, he neither hindered nor encouraged. But John, the last of all, seeing that what was corporeal was set forth in the Gospels, on the entreaty of his intimate friends, and inspired by the Spirit, composed a spiritual Gospel.
Being is in God. God is divine being, eternal and without beginning, incorporeal and illimitable, and the cause of what exists. Being is that which wholly subsists. Nature is the truth of things, or the inner reality of them. According to others, it is the production of what has come to existence; and according to others, again, it is the providence of God, causing the being, and the manner of being, in the things which are produced.
Willing is a natural power, which desires what is in accordance with nature. Willing is a natural appetency, corresponding with the nature of the rational creature. Willing is a natural spontaneous movement of the self-determining mind, or the mind voluntarily moved about anything. Spontaneity is the mind moved naturally, or an intellectual self-determining movement of the soul.
Souls that breathe free of all things, possess life, and though separated from the body, and found possessed of a longing for it, are borne immortal to the bosom of God: as in the winter season the vapours of the earth attracted by the sun’s rays rise to him.
All souls are immortal, even those of the wicked, for whom it were better that they were not deathless. For, punished with the endless vengeance of quenchless fire, and not dying, it is impossible for them to have a period put to their misery.
Never be afraid of the slanderer who addresses you. But rather say, Stop, brother; I daily commit more grievous errors, and how can I judge him? For you will gain two things, healing with one plaster both yourself and your neighbour. He shows what is really evil. Whence, by these arguments, God has contrived to make each one’s disposition manifest.
It is not abstaining from deeds that justifies the believer, but purity and sincerity of thoughts.
Repentance then becomes capable of wiping out every sin, when on the occurrence of the soul’s fault it admits no delay, and does not let the impulse pass on to a long space of time. For it is in this way that evil will be unable to leave a trace in us, being plucked away at the moment of its assault like a newly planted plant.
As the creatures called crabs are easy to catch, from their going sometimes forward and sometimes backward; so also the soul, which at one time is laughing, at another weeping, and at another giving way to luxury, can do no good.
He who is sometimes grieving, and is sometimes enjoying himself and laughing, is like a man pelting the dog of voluptuousness with bread, who chases it in appearance, but in fact invites it to remain near him.
Some flatterers were congratulating a wise man. He said to them, If you stop praising me, I think myself something great after your departure; but if you do not stop praising me, I guess my own impurity.
Feigned praise is worth less than true censure.
To the weak and infirm, what is moderate appears excessive.
The reproof that is given with knowledge is very faithful. Sometimes also the knowledge of those who are condemned is found to be the most perfect demonstration.
To the man who exalts and magnifies himself is attached the quick transition and the fall to low estate, as the divine word teaches.
Pure speech and a spotless life are the throne and true temple of God.
It is not only fornication, but also the giving in marriage prematurely, that is called fornication; when, so to speak, one not of ripe age is given to a husband, either of her own accord or by her parents.
Flattery is the bane of friendship. Most men are accustomed to pay court to the good fortune of princes, rather than to the princes themselves.
The lovers of frugality shun luxury as the bane of soul and body. The possession and use of necessaries has nothing injurious in quality, but it has in quantity above measure. Scarcity of food is a necessary benefit.
This down to “lives” is quoted in Strom., book iv. ch. xxv. p. 439, supra.
εύκρασία
Φωτός here has probably taken the place of φωτεινοῦ. [This passage is in the Stromata; and also a similar figure, p. 347, this series.]
Ps. cxxv. 4, 5.
[See Kaye, p. 442, and the eleventh chapter entire.]
προκρίματος, “without preferring one before another.”—A.V.
διά. A.V. “before.”