The Conflict of Religions in the Early Roman Empire Part 38

[Sidenote: The virgin-birth]

Jesus is "G.o.d and pedagogue," "good shepherd," and "mystic Angel (or messenger)," "the pearl," "the great High Priest," and so forth.[136]

In a few pa.s.sages (some of them already quoted) Clement speaks of the earthly life of Jesus--of the crown of thorns, the common ware, and the absence of a silver foot-bath. But he takes care to make it clear that Jesus was "not an ordinary man," and that was why he did not marry and have children--this in opposition to certain {299} vain persons who held up the Lord's example as a reason for rejecting marriage, which "they call simple prost.i.tution and a practice introduced by the devil."[137] So far was Jesus from being "an ordinary man" that Clement takes pains to dissociate him from ordinary human experience.

To the miraculous birth he refers incidentally but in a way that leaves no mistake possible. "Most people even now believe, as it seems, that Mary ceased to be a virgin through the birth of her child, though this was not really the case--for some say she was found by the midwife to be a virgin after her delivery."[138] This expansion of the traditional story is to be noted as an early ill.u.s.tration of the influence of dogma. The episode appears in an elaborate form in the apocryphal Gospels.[139] But Clement goes further. "In the case of the Saviour, to suppose that his body required, _qua_ body, the necessary attentions for its continuance, would be laughable (_gelos_).

For he ate--not on account of his body, which was held together by holy power, but that it might not occur to those who consorted with him to think otherwise of him--as indeed later on some really supposed him to have been manifested merely in appearance [_i.e._ the Docetists who counted his body a phantom]. He himself was entirely without pa.s.sion (_apathes_) and into him entered no emotional movement (_kinema pathetikon_), neither pleasure nor pain."[140] A fragment (in a Latin translation) of a commentary of Clement's upon the first _Epistle of John_, contains a curious statement: "It is said in the traditions that John touched the surface of the body of Jesus, and drove his hand deep into it, and the firmness of the flesh was no obstacle but gave way to the hand of the disciple."[141] At the same time we read: "It was not idly that the Lord chose to employ a body of mean form, in order that no one, while praising his comeliness {300} and beauty, should depart from what he said, and in cleaving to what is left behind should be severed from the higher things of thought (_ton noeton_)."[142]

It is consistent with the general scheme of Clement's thought that the cross has but a small part in his theology. "It was not by the will of his Father that the Lord suffered, nor are the persecuted so treated in accordance with his choice"--it is rather in both cases that "such things occur, G.o.d not preventing them; this alone saves at once the providence and goodness of G.o.d."[143] Yet "the blood of the Lord is twofold; there is the fleshly, whereby we have been redeemed from corruption, and the spiritual, by which we have been anointed."[144]

The cross is the landmark between us and our past.[145] On the whole Clement has not much to say about sin, though of course he does not ignore it. It is "eternal death";[146] it is "irrational";[147] it is not to be attributed "to the operation (energy) of daemons," as that would be to acquit the sinner, still it makes a man "like the daemons"

(_daimonikos_).[148] G.o.d's punishments he holds to be curative in purpose.[149] He says nothing to imply the eternity of punishment,[150] and as we have seen he speaks definitely of the Gospel being preached to the dead.

[Sidenote: The vision of the true gnostic]

The Christian religion, according to Clement, begins in faith and goes on to knowledge. The heavier emphasis with him always falls on knowledge, though he maintains in a fine chapter that faith is its foundation.[151] "The Greeks," he says, "consider faith an empty and barbarous thing,"[152] but he is far from such a view. Faith must be well-founded--"if faith is such as to be destroyed by plausible talk, let it be destroyed."[153] But the word left upon the reader's mind is knowledge. A pa.s.sage like the following is unmistakable. "Supposing one were to offer the Gnostic his choice, whether he would prefer {301} the knowledge of G.o.d or eternal salvation, one or the other (though of course they are above all things an ident.i.ty); without the slightest hesitation he would choose the knowledge of G.o.d for its own sake."[154]

The ideal Christian is habitually spoken of in this way, as the "man of knowledge"--the true "Gnostic," as opposed to the heretics who illegitimately claim the t.i.tle. A very great deal of Clement's writing is devoted to building up this Gnostic, to outlining his ideal character. He is essentially man as G.o.d conceived him, entering into the divine life, and, by the grace of the Logos, even becoming G.o.d.

This thought of man becoming G.o.d Clement repeats very often, and it is a mark of how far Christianity has travelled from Palestine. It begins with the Platonic ideal of being made like to G.o.d, and the means is the knowledge of G.o.d or the sight of G.o.d given by the Logos. "'Nought say I of the rest,'[155] glorifying G.o.d. Only I say that those Gnostic souls are so carried away by the magnificence of the vision (_theopia_) that they cannot confine themselves within the lines of the const.i.tution by which each holy degree is a.s.signed and in accordance with which the blessed abodes of the G.o.ds have been marked out and allotted; but being counted as 'holy among the holy,' and translated absolutely and entirely to another sphere, they keep on always moving to better and yet better regions, until they no longer greet the divine vision in mirrors or by means of mirrors, but with loving souls feast for ever on the uncloying never-ending sight, radiant in its transparent clearness, while throughout the endless ages they taste a never-wearying delight, and thus continue, all alike honoured with an ident.i.ty of pre-eminence. This is the apprehensive vision of the pure in heart. This, then, is the work (_energeia_) of the perfected Gnostic--to hold communion with G.o.d through the Great High Christ being made like the Lord as far as may be. Yes, and in this process of becoming like G.o.d the Gnostic creates and fas.h.i.+ons himself anew, and adorns those that hear him."[156] In an interesting chapter Clement discusses abstraction from material things as a necessary {302} condition for attaining the knowledge of G.o.d; we must "cast ourselves into the greatness of Christ and thence go forward."[157] "If a man know himself, he shall know G.o.d, and knowing G.o.d shall be made like to him.... The man with whom the Logos dwells ... is made like to G.o.d ...

and that man _becomes_ G.o.d, for G.o.d wishes it."[158] "By being deified into Apathy (_apatheian_) a man becomes Monadic without stain."[159] As Homer makes men poets, Crobylus cooks, and Plato philosophers; "so he who obeys the Lord and follows the prophecy given through him, is fully perfected after the likeness of his Teacher, and thus becomes a G.o.d while still moving about in the flesh."[160] "Dwelling with the Lord, talking with him and sharing his hearth, he will abide according to the spirit, pure in flesh, pure in heart, sanctified in word. 'The world to him,' it says, 'is crucified and he to the world.' He carries the cross of the Saviour and follows the Lord 'in his footsteps as of a G.o.d,' and is become holy of the holy."[161]

We seem to touch the world of daily life, when after all the beatific visions we see the cross again. Clement has abundance of suggestion for Christian society in Alexandria, and it is surprising how simple, natural and wise is his att.i.tude to the daily round and common task.

Men and women alike may "philosophize," for their "virtue" (in Aristotle's phrase) is the same--so may the slave, the ignorant and the child.[162] The Christian life is not to eradicate the natural but to control it.[163] Marriage is a state of G.o.d's appointing--Clement is no Jerome. Nature made us to marry and "the childless man falls short of the perfection of Nature."[164] Men must marry for their country's sake and for the completeness of the universe.[165] True manhood is not proved by celibacy--the married man may "fall short of the other as regards his personal salvation, but he has {303} the advantage in the conduct of life inasmuch as he really preserves a faint (_oligen_) image of the true Providence."[166] The heathen, it is true, may expose their own children and keep parrots, but the begetting and upbringing of children is a part of the married Christian life.[167]

"Who are the two or three gathering in the name of Christ, among whom the Lord is in the midst? Does he not mean man, wife and child by the _three_, seeing woman is made to match man by G.o.d."[168]

The real fact about the Christian life is simply this, that the New Song turns wild beasts into men of G.o.d.[169] "Sail past the siren's song, it works death," says Clement, "if only thou wilt, thou hast overcome destruction; lashed to the wood thou shalt be loosed from ruin; the Word of G.o.d will steer thee and the holy spirit will moor thee to the havens of heaven."[170] To the early Christian "the wood"

always meant the cross of Jesus. The new life is "doing good for love's sake,"[171] and "he who shows pity ought not to know that he is doing it.... When he does good by instinctive habit (_en hexei_) then he will be imitating the nature of good."[172] G.o.d breathed into man and there has always been something charming in a man since then (_philtron_).[173] So "the new people" are always happy, always in the full bloom of thought, always at spring-time.[174] The Church is the one thing in the world that always rejoices.[175]

Clement's theology is composite rather than organic--a structure of materials old and new, hardly fit for the open air, the wind and the rain. But his faith is another thing--it rests upon the living personality of the Saviour, the love of G.o.d and the significance of the individual soul, and it has the stamp of such faith in all the ages--joy and peace in believing. It has lasted because it lived. If Christianity had depended on the {304} Logos, it would have followed the Logos to the limbo whither went aeon and Aporrhoia and Spermaticos Logos. But that the Logos has not perished is due to the one fact that with the Cross it has been borne through the ages on the shoulders of Jesus.

Chapter IX Footnotes:

[1] See the letter of Hadrian quoted by Vopiscus, _Saturninus_, 8 (_Script. Hist. Aug._).

[2] _Paedag._ ii, 2; 13; 14.

[3] _Paed._ ii, 20, 2, 3.

[4] _Paed._ ii, 32, 2.

[5] _Paed._ ii, 38, 1-3.

[6] _Paed._ ii, 45-60.

[7] _Paed._ ii, 61-73; Tertullian, _de corona militis_, 5, flowers on the head are against nature, etc.; _ib._ 10, on the paganism of the practice; _ib._ 13 (end), a list of the heathen G.o.ds honoured if a Christian hang a crown on his door.

[8] _Paed._ ii, 129, 3; iii, 56, 3; Tertullian ironically, _de cultu fem._ ii, 10, _scrupulosa deus et auribus vulnera intulit_.

[9] iii, 4, 2. Cf. Erman, _Handbook of Egyptian Religion_, p. 22: "In the temple of Sobk there was a tank containing a crocodile, a cat dwelt in the temple of Bast." The simile also in Lucian, _Imag._ 11, and used by Celsus _ap._ Orig. _c. Cels._ iii, 17.

[10] iii, 64, 2.

[11] iii, 79, 5.

[12] iii, 50.

[13] iii, 59, 2.

[14] ii, 60, 61.

[15] iii, 92. Cf., in general, Tertullian, _de Cultu Feminarum_.

[16] Euseb. _E.H._ v, 10.

[17] Euseb. _E.H._ vi, 11, 6; vi, 14, 8.

[18] Euseb. _E.H._ vi, 6; see de Faye, _Clement d'Alexandrie_, pp. 17 to 27, for the few facts of his life--a book I have used and shall quote with satisfaction.

[19] Epiphanius, _Haer._ I, ii, 26, p. 213; de Faye, _Clement d'Alexandrie_, p. 17, quoting Zahn.

[20] Euseb. _Praepar. Ev._ ii, 2, 64. _Klemes ... panton men dia peras elthn aner, thatton ge men planes ananeusas, hos an prs tou soteriou logou ka dia tes euaggelikes didaskalias ton kakon lelutromenos_.

[21] _Paed._ i, 1, 1.

[22] _Strom._ i, 48, 1; ii, 3, 1.

[23] _Strom._ vii. 111. Such hills are described in Greek novels; cf.

aelian, _Varia Historia_, xiii, 1, Atalanta's bower.

[24] One may perhaps compare the admiration of the contemporary Pausanias for earlier rather than later art; cf. Frazer, _Pausanias and other Sketches_, p. 92.

[25] _Strom._ i, 22, 5.

[26] _Strom._ i, 37, 6; and vi, 55, 3.

[27] _Strom._ i, 29, 10 (the phrase is Philo's); Truth in fact has been divided by the philosophic schools, as Pentheus was by the Maenads, Strom, i, 57. Cf. Milton, _Areopagitica_.

[28] _Protr._ 120, 1; _o ton hagion hos alethos mysterion, o phoos akeratou. dadouchoumai tous ouranous ka tn then epopteusai, hagios ginomai muoumenos, hierophantei de ho kyrios ka tn musten sphragizetai photagogon_. Strange as the technical terms seem to-day, yet when Clement wrote, they suggested religious emotion, and would have seemed less strange than the terms modern times have kept from the Greek--bishop, deacon, liturgy, diocese, etc.

[29] _Strom._ iv, 162, 3.

[30] _Strom._ i, 71, 4. The Brahmans also in iii, 60.

[31] _Strom._ v, 20, 3; 31, 5; etc.

[32] _Strom._ vi, ch. iv, -- 35 f.

[33] Origen, _c. Cels._ i, 2. Celsus' words: _hikanous ehurein dogmata tous barbarous_, and then _krinai de ka bebaiosasthai ka askesai prs areten ta hyp barbaron ehurethenta ameinones eisin h.e.l.lenes_.

Pausanias, iv, 32, 4, _eg de Chaldaious ka Indon tous magous protous oida eipontas hos athanatos estin anthrotou phyche. kai sphisi ka h.e.l.lenon alloi te epeisthesan ka ouch hekista Platon ho Aristonos_.