Church Fathers: Ante-Nicene Fathers Volume 2: 2.05.36 Clement - Stromata - Book 5 - Ch 11-13

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Church Fathers: Ante-Nicene Fathers Volume 2: 2.05.36 Clement - Stromata - Book 5 - Ch 11-13



TOPIC: Ante-Nicene Fathers Volume 2 (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 2.05.36 Clement - Stromata - Book 5 - Ch 11-13

Other Subjects in this Topic:

Clement of Alexandria (Cont.)

The Stromata, Or Miscellanies. (Cont.)

Book V. (Cont.)

Chap. XI. - Abstraction from Material Things Necessary in Order to Attain to the True Knowledge of God.

Now the sacrifice which is acceptable to God is unswerving abstraction from the body and its passions. This is the really true piety. And is not, on this account, philosophy rightly called by Socrates the practice of Death? For he who neither employs his eyes in the exercise of thought, nor draws aught from his other senses, but with pure mind itself applies to objects, practises the true philosophy. This is, then, the import of the silence of five years prescribed by Pythagoras, which he enjoined on his disciples; that, abstracting themselves from the objects of sense, they might with the mind alone contemplate the Deity. It was from Moses that the chief of the Greeks drew these philosophical tenets.43 For he commands holocausts to be skinned and divided into parts. For the gnostic soul must be consecrated to the light, stript of the integuments of matter, devoid of the frivolousness of the body and of all the passions, which are acquired through vain and lying opinions, and divested of the lusts of the flesh. But the most of men, clothed with what is perishable, like cockles, and rolled all round in a ball in their excesses, like hedgehogs, entertain the same ideas of the blessed and incorruptible God as of themselves. But it has escaped their notice, though they be near us, that God has bestowed on us ten thousand things in which He does not share: birth, being Himself unborn; food, He wanting nothing; and growth, He being always equal; and long life and immortality, He being immortal and incapable of growing old. Wherefore let no one imagine that hands, and feet, and mouth, and eyes, and going in and coming out, and resentments and threats, are said by the Hebrews to be attributes of God. By no means; but that certain of these appellations are used more sacredly in an allegorical sense, which, as the discourse proceeds, we shall explain at the proper time.

“Wisdom of all medicines is the Panacea,” writes Callimachus in the Epigrams. “And one becomes wise from another, both in past times and at present,” says Bacchylides in the Paeans; “for it is not very easy to find the portals of unutterable words.” Beautifully, therefore, Isocrates writes in the Panathenaic, having put the question, “Who, then, are well trained?” adds, “First, those who manage well the things which occur each day, whose opinion jumps with opportunity, and is able for the most part to hit on what is beneficial; then those who behave becomingly and rightly to those who approach them, who take lightly and easily annoyances 461 and molestations offered by others, but conduct themselves as far as possible, to those with whom they have intercourse, with consummate care and moderation; further, those who have the command of their pleasures, and are not too much overcome by misfortunes, but conduct themselves in the midst of them with manliness, and in a way worthy of the nature which we share; fourth - and this is the greatest - those who are not corrupted by prosperity, and are not put beside themselves, or made haughty, but continue in the class of sensible people.” Then he puts on the top-stone of the discourse: “Those who have the disposition of their soul well suited not to one only of these things, but to them all - those I assert to be wise and perfect men, and to possess all the virtues.”

Do you see how the Greeks deify the gnostic life (though not knowing how to become acquainted with it)? And what knowledge it is, they know not even in a dream. If, then, it is agreed among us that knowledge is the food of reason, “blessed truly are they,” according to the Scripture, “who hunger and thirst after truth: for they shall be filled” with everlasting food. In the most wonderful harmony with these words, Euripides, the philosopher of the drama, is found in the following words, - making allusion, I know not how, at once to the Father and the Son: -

“To thee, the Lord of all, I bring

Cakes and libations too, O Zeus,

Or Hades would’st thou choose be called;

Do thou accept my offering of all fruits,

Rare, full, poured forth.”

For a whole burnt-offering and rare sacrifice for us is Christ. And that unwittingly he mentions the Saviour, he will make plain, as he adds: -

“For thou who, ’midst the heavenly gods,

Jove’s sceptre sway’st, dost also share

The rule of those on earth.”

Then he says expressly: -

“Send light to human souls that fain would know

Whence conflicts spring, and what the root of ills,

And of the blessed gods to whom due rites

Of sacrifice we needs must pay, that so

We may from troubles find repose.”

It is not then without reason that in the mysteries that obtain among the Greeks, lustrations hold the first place; as also the layer among the Barbarians. After these are the minor44 mysteries, which have some foundation of instruction and of preliminary preparation for what is to come after; and the great mysteries, in which nothing remains to be learned of the universe, but only to contemplate and comprehend nature and things.

We shall understand the mode of purification by confession, and that of contemplation by analysis, advancing by analysis to the first notion, beginning with the properties underlying it; abstracting from the body its physical properties, taking away the dimension of depth, then that of breadth, and then that of length. For the point which remains is a unit, so to speak, having position; from which if we abstract position, there is the conception of unity.

If, then, abstracting all that belongs to bodies and things called incorporeal, we cast ourselves into the greatness of Christ, and thence advance into immensity by holiness, we may reach somehow to the conception of the Almighty, knowing not what He is, but what He is not. And form and motion, or standing, or a throne, or place, or right hand or left, are not at all to be conceived as belonging to the Father of the universe, although it is so written. But what each of these means will be shown in its proper place. The First Cause is not then in space, but above both space, and time, and name, and conception.

Wherefore also Moses says, “ Show Thyself to me,” (Exo_33:18) - intimating most clearly that God is not capable of being taught by man, or expressed in speech, but to be known only by His own power. For inquiry was obscure and dim; but the grace of knowledge is from Him by the Son. Most clearly Solomon shall testify to us, speaking thus: “The prudence of man is not in me: but God giveth me wisdom, and I know holy things.” (Pro_30:2) Now Moses, describing allegorically the divine prudence, called it the tree of life planted in Paradise; which Paradise may be the world in which all things proceeding from creation grow. In it also the Word blossomed and bore fruit, being “made flesh,” and gave life to those “who had tasted of His graciousness;” since it was not without the wood of the tree that He came to our knowledge. For our life was hung on it, in order that we might believe. And Solomon again says: “She is a tree of immortality to those who take hold of her.” (Pro_3:18) “Behold, I set before thy face life and death, to love the Lord thy God, and to walk in His ways, and hear His voice, and trust in life. But if ye transgress the statutes and the judgments which I have given you, ye shall be destroyed with destruction. For this is life, and the length of thy days, to love the Lord thy God.” (Deu_30:15, Deu_30:16, etc.)

Again: “Abraham, when he came to the place which God told him of on the third day, looking up, saw the place afar off.” (Gen_22:3, Gen_22:4) For the 462 first day is that which is constituted by the sight of good things; and the second is the soul’s45 best desire; on the third, the mind perceives spiritual things, the eyes of the understanding being opened by the Teacher who rose on the third day. The three days may be the mystery of the seal,46 in which God is really believed. It is consequently afar off that he sees the place. For the region of God is hard to attain; which Plato called the region of ideas, having learned from Moses that it was a place which contained all things universally. But it is seen by Abraham afar off, rightly, because of his being in the realms of generation, and he is forthwith initiated by the angel. Thence says the apostle: “Now we see as through a glass, but then face to face,” by those sole pure and incorporeal applications of the intellect. In reasoning, it is possible to divine respecting God, if one attempt without any of the senses, by reason, to reach what is individual; and do not quit the sphere of existences, till, rising up to the things which transcend it, he apprehends by the intellect itself that which is good, moving in the very confines of the world of thought, according to Plato.

Again, Moses, not allowing altars and temples to be constructed in many places, but raising one temple of God, announced that the world was only-begotten, as Basilides says, and that God is one, as does not as yet appear to Basilides. And since the gnostic Moses does not circumscribe within space Him that cannot be circumscribed, he set up no image in the temple to be worshipped; showing that God was invisible, and incapable of being circumscribed; and somehow leading the Hebrews to the conception of God by the honour for His name in the temple. Further, the Word, prohibiting the constructing of temples and all sacrifices, intimates that the Almighty is not contained in anything, by what He says: “What house will ye build to Me? saith the Lord. Heaven is my throne,” (Isa_66:1) and so on. Similarly respecting sacrifices: “I do not desire the blood of bulls and the fat of lambs,” (Psa_50:13) and what the Holy Spirit by the prophet in the sequel forbids.

Most excellently, therefore, Euripides accords with these, when he writes: -

“What house constructed by the workmen’s hands,

With folds of walls, can clothe the shape divine?”

And of sacrifices he thus speaks: -

“For God needs nought, if He is truly God.

These of the minstrels are the wretched myths.”

“For it was not from need that God made the world; that He might reap honours from men and the other gods and demons, winning a kind of revenue from creation, and from us, fumes, and from the gods and demons, their proper ministries,” says Plato. Most instructively, therefore, says Paul in the Acts of the Apostles: “The God that made the world, and all things in it, being the Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; neither is worshipped by men’s hands, as if He needed anything; seeing that it is He Himself that giveth to all breath, and life, and all things.” (Act_17:24, Act_17:25) And Zeno, the founder of the Stoic sect, says in this book of the Republic, “that we ought to make neither temples nor images; for that no work is worthy of the gods.” And he was not afraid to write in these very words: “There will be no need to build temples. For a temple is not worth much, and ought not to be regarded as holy. For nothing is worth much, and holy, which is the work of builders and mechanics.” Rightly, therefore, Plato too, recognising the world as God’s temple, pointed out to the citizens a spot in the city where their idols were to be laid up. “Let not, then, any one again,” he says, “consecrate temples to the gods. For gold and silver in other states, in the case of private individuals and in the temples, is an invidious possession; and ivory, a body which has abandoned the life, is not a sacred votive offering; and steel and brass are the instruments of wars; but whatever one wishes to dedicate, let it be wood of one tree, as also stone for common temples.” Rightly, then, in the great Epistle he says: “For it is not capable of expression, like other branches of study. But as the result of great intimacy with this subject, and living with it, a sudden light, like that kindled by a coruscating fire, arising in the soul, feeds itself.” Are not these statements like those of Zephaniah the prophet? “And the Spirit of the Lord took me, and brought me up to the fifth heaven, and I beheld angels called Lords; and their diadem was set on in the Holy Spirit; and each of them had a throne sevenfold brighter than the light of the rising sun; and they dwelt in temples of salvation, and hymned the ineffable, Most High God.”47





Chap. XII. - God Cannot Be Embraced In Words Or By The Mind.

“For both is it a difficult task to discover the Father and Maker of this universe; and having found Him, it is impossible to declare Him to all. For this is by no means capable of expression, like the other subjects of instruction,” says the truth-loving Plato. For he that had heard right well that the all-wise Moses, ascending the mount for holy contemplation, to the summit of 463 intellectual objects, necessarily commands that the whole people do not accompany him. And when the Scripture says, “Moses entered into the thick darkness where God was,” this shows to those capable of understanding, that God is invisible and beyond expression by words, And “the darkness” - which is, in truth, the unbelief and ignorance of the multitude - obstructs the gleam of truth. And again Orpheus, the theologian, aided from this quarter, says: -

“One is perfect in himself, and all things are made the progeny of one,”

or, “are born;” for so also is it written. He adds: -

“Him

No one of mortals has seen, but He sees all.”

And he adds more clearly: -

“Him see I not, for round about, a cloud

Has settled; for in mortal eyes are small,

And mortal pupils - only flesh and bones grow there.”

To these statements the apostle will testify: “I know a man in Christ, caught up into the third heaven, and thence into Paradise, who heard unutterable words which it is not lawful for a man to speak,” - intimating thus the impossibility of expressing God, and indicating that what is divine is unutterable by human48 power; if, indeed, he begins to speak above the third heaven, as it is lawful to initiate the elect souls in the mysteries there. For I know what is in Plato (for the examples from the barbarian philosophy, which are many, are suggested now by the composition which, in accordance with promises previously given, waits the suitable time). For doubting, in Timaeus, whether we ought to regard several worlds as to be understood by many heavens, or this one, he makes no distinction in the names, calling the world and heaven by the same name. But the words of the statement are as follows: “Whether, then, have we rightly spoken of one heaven, or of many and infinite? It were more correct to say one, if indeed it was created according to the model.” Further, in the Epistle of the Romans to the Corinthians49 it is written, “An ocean illimitable by men and the worlds after it.” Consequently, therefore, the noble apostle exclaims, “Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God!” (Rom_11:33)

And was it not this which the prophet meant, when he ordered unleavened cakes50 to be made, intimating that the truly sacred mystic word, respecting the unbegotten and His powers, ought to be concealed? In confirmation of these things, in the Epistle to the Corinthians the apostle plainly says: “Howbeit we speak wisdom among those who are perfect, but not the wisdom of this world, or of the princes of this world, that come to nought. But we speak the wisdom of God hidden in a mystery.” (1Co_2:6, 1Co_2:7) And again in another place he says: “To the acknowledgment of the mystery of God in Christ, in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” (Col_2:2, Col_2:3) These things the Saviour Himself seals when He says: “To you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven.” (Mat_13:11; Mar_4:11; Luk_8:10) And again the Gospel says that the Saviour spake to the apostles the word in a mystery. For prophecy says of Him: “He will open His mouth in parables, and will utter things kept secret from the foundation of the world.” (Psa_78:2) And now, by the parable of the leaven, the Lord shows concealment; for He says, “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened.” (Mat_13:33) For the tripartite soul is saved by obedience, through the spiritual power hidden in it by faith; or because the power of the word which is given to us, being strong51 and powerful, draws to itself secretly and invisibly every one who receives it, and keeps it within himself, and brings his whole system into unity.

Accordingly Solon has written most wisely respecting God thus: -

“It is most difficult to apprehend the mind’s invisible measure

Which alone holds the boundaries of all things.”

For “the divine,” says the poet of Agrigenturn,52 -

“Is not capable of being approached with our eyes,

Or grasped with our hands; but the highway

Of persuasion, highest of all, leads to men’s minds.”

And John the apostle says: “No man hath seen God at any time. The only-begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him,” (Joh_1:18) - calling invisibility and ineffableness the bosom of God. Hence some have called it the Depth, as containing and embosoming all things, inaccessible and boundless.

This discourse respecting God is most difficult to handle. For since the first principle of everything is difficult to find out, the absolutely first and oldest principle, which is the cause of all other things being and having been, is difficult to exhibit. For bow can that be expressed which is neither genus, nor difference, nor species, nor individual, nor number; nay more, is 464 neither an event, nor that to which an event happens? No one can rightly express Him wholly. For on account of His greatness He is ranked as the All, and is the Father of the universe. Nor are any parts to be predicated of Him. For the One is indivisible; wherefore also it is infinite, not considered with reference to inscrutability, but with reference to its being without dimensions, and not having a limit. And therefore it is without form and name. And if we name it, we do not do so properly, terming it either the One, or the Good, or Mind, or Absolute Being, or Father, or God, or Creator or Lord. We speak not as supplying His name; but for want, we use good names, in order that the mind may have these as points of support, so as not to err in other respects. For each one by itself does not express God; but all together are indicative of the power of the Omnipotent. For predicates are expressed either from what belongs to things themselves, or from their mutual relation. But none of these are admissible in reference to God. Nor any more is He apprehended by the science of demonstration. For it depends on primary and better known principles. But there is nothing antecedent to the Unbegotten.

It remains that we understand, then, the Unknown, by divine grace, and by the word alone that proceeds from Him; as Luke in the Acts of the Apostles relates that Paul said, “Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious.53 For in walking about, and beholding the objects of your worship, I found an altar on which was inscribed, To the Unknown God. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, Him declare I unto you.” (Act_17:22, Act_17:23)





Chap. XIII. - The Knowledge Of God A Divine Gift, According To The Philosophers.

Everything, then, which falls under a name, is originated, whether they will or not. Whether, then, the Father Himself draws to Himself everyone who has led a pure life, and has reached the conception of the blessed and incorruptible nature; or whether the free-will which is in us, by reaching the knowledge of the good, leaps and bounds over the barriers, as the gymnasts say; yet it is not without eminent grace that the soul is winged, and soars, and is raised above the higher spheres, laying aside all that is heavy, and surrendering itself to its kindred element.

Plato, too, in Meno, says that virtue is God-given, as the following expressions show: “From this argument then, O Meno, virtue is shown to come to those, in whom it is found, by divine providence.” Does it not then appear that “the gnostic disposition” which has come to all is enigmatically called “divine providence?” And he adds more explicitly: “If, then, in this whole treatise we have investigated well, it results that virtue is neither by nature, nor is it taught, but is produced by divine providence, not without intelligence, in those in whom it is found.” Wisdom which is God-given, as being the power of the Father, rouses indeed our free-will, and admits faith, and repays the application of the elect with its crowning fellowship.

And now I will adduce Plato himself, who clearly deems it fit to believe the children of God. For, discoursing on gods that are visible and born, in Timaeus, he says: “But to speak of the other demons, and to know their birth, is too much for us. But we must credit those who have formerly spoken, they being the offspring of the gods, as they said, and knowing well their progenitors, although they speak without probable and necessary proofs.” I do not think it possible that clearer testimony could be borne by the Greeks, that our Saviour, and those anointed to prophesy (the latter being called the sons of God, and the Lord being His own Son), are the true witnesses respecting divine things. Wherefore also they ought to be believed, being inspired, he added. And were one to say in a more tragic vein, that we ought not to believe,

“For it was not Zeus that told me these things,”

yet let him know that it was God Himself that promulgated the Scriptures by His Son. And he, who announces what is his own, is to be believed. “No one,” says the Lord, “hath known the Father but the Son, and he to whom the Son shall reveal Him.” (Mat_11:27; Luk_10:22) This, then, is to be believed, according to Plato, though it is announced and spoken “without probable and necessary proofs,” but in the Old and New Testament. “For except ye believe,” says the Lord, “ye shall die in your sins.” (Joh_8:24) And again: “He that believeth hath everlasting life.” (Joh_3:15, Joh_3:16, Joh_3:36, Joh_5:24) “Blessed are all they that put their trust in Him.” (Psa_2:12) For trusting is more than faith. For when one has believed54 that the Son of God is our teacher, he trusts55 that his teaching is true. And as “instruction,” according to Empedocles, “makes the mind grow,” so trust in the Lord makes faith grow.

We say, then, that it is characteristic of the same persons to vilify philosophy, and run down faith, and to praise iniquity and felicitate a libidinous life. But now faith, if it is the voluntary assent of the soul, is still the doer of good things, the foundation of right conduct; and if Aristotle defines strictly when he teaches that ποιεῖν is applied to the irrational creatures and to inanimate 465 things, while πράττειν is applicable to men only, let him correct those who say that God is the maker (ποιητής) of the universe. And what is done (πρακτόν), he says, is as good or as necessary. To do wrong, then, is not good, for no one does wrong except for some other thing; and nothing that is necessary is voluntary. To do wrong, then, is voluntary, so that it is not necessary. But the good differ especially from the bad in inclinations and good desires. For all depravity of soul is accompanied with want of restraint; and he who acts from passion, acts from want of restraint and from depravity.

I cannot help admiring in every particular that divine utterance: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that entereth not in by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber. But he that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the porter openeth.” Then the Lord says in explanation, “I am the door of the sheep.” (Joh_10:1-3, Joh_10:7) Men must then be saved by learning the truth through Christ, even if they attain philosophy. For now that is clearly shown “which was not made known to other ages, which is now revealed to the sons of men.” (Eph_3:5) For there was always a natural manifestation of the one Almighty God, among all right-thinking men; and the most, who had not quite divested themselves of shame with respect to the truth, apprehended the eternal beneficence in divine providence. In fine, then, Xenocrates the Chalcedonian was not quite without hope that the notion of the Divinity existed even in the irrational creatures. And Democritus, though against his will, will make this avowal by the consequences of his dogmas; for he represents the same images as issuing, from the divine essence, on men and on the irrational animals.56 Far from destitute of a divine idea is man, who, it is written in Genesis, partook of inspiration, being endowed with a purer essence than the other animate creatures. Hence the Pythagoreans say that mind comes to man by divine providence, as Plato and Aristotle avow; but we assert that the Holy Spirit inspires him who has believed. The Platonists hold that mind is an effluence of divine dispensation in the soul, and they place the soul in the body. For it is expressly said by Joel, one of the twelve prophets, “And it shall come to pass after these things, I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy.” (Joe_2:28) But it is not as a portion of God that the Spirit is in each of us. But how this dispensation takes place, and what the Holy Spirit is, shall be shown by us in the books on prophecy, and in those on the soul. But “incredulity is good at concealing the depths of knowledge,” according to Heraclitus; “for incredulity escapes from ignorance.”





FOOTNOTES



43 [See p. 316, note 74, supra.]

44 [Analogies in Bunsen, Hipol., iii. 75, and notes. p. 123.]

45 Or, “the desire of a very good soul,” according to the text which reads Ἠ ψυχῆς ἀρίστης. The other reading is ἀρίστη.

46 Baptism. [Into the Triad.]

47 From some apocryphal writing.

48 ἁγια is the reading of the text. This is with great probability supposed to be changed from ἀνη, a usual contraction for ανθρωπινη.

49 [i.e., as written by St. Clement of Rome. See vol. 1, p. 10. S.]

50 Alluding to Gen_18:6; the word used is ἐγκρυφίαι, which Clement, following Philo, from its derivation, takes to signify occult mysteries.

51 According to the conjecture of Sylburgius, σύντονος is adopted for συντομος.

52 Empedocles.

53 [Elucidation VII.]

54 The text ἐπίστηται, but the sense seems to require ἐπιστευσε.

55 πεποιθεν has confidence.

56 [Elucidation VIII.]