Se i a +i i i ae ae nil Bt ry : a a : PUNK HAS ERR aie =: paz! re 233 ys i a i ae : in ihe BN Hai ay rat stint idl ce ; ett aah Hint stat i a : a . i I na A a a ie CHER Hh sit t i ¢ ve G3 ely i iis } i a it a ie nt RAR Ih oF ¢ a ie LL. oo. iat i Aight Hate agi oa Pet ped On Pe PICS é saree gta a yh ts a cae i a i aunt Me ul ni na te ssi} A i Hi a ; acer ht rer eee re RTE why Hult, TT at FPS ar tats PUM Ht RE tees PCr Sr at aia RHE narneia ui ae ia ai Hale Meira t ( ia siatictd iting + ea a net ta a, ae = arn nae ts a t an i us a rani itd it tel ue it eu ey oe i ie hee ut cag bs ssid fe (3 list ene fy ra annie a is oH ai soe pias Hh ei i a is ht nt PURSUIT pies Sty athe ate o proealy oe tes * i ue sais ne Ce fa ove tide HaMtihaebe 2) tis eit iis Ht} Ane teat fi ie Oa vie SOO ; Anat wee a Aaa ts is Me daitint ae tae een “ lt ie ¢ ‘igi AYE a My pre ‘ae ae ideale me: ae fat 1 Ay “¢ us Y , a a fae Bi eh OT) ix) jest ve re ae hae ran ale oa Heide 2, tn ety ea be See a ab 3 a aiseiahs iets ry iH 4 ay Y 7. ms ca ea fhe aie ae ay et Pay re bests eedadetigns * ry 4 Fi writiite test pase) tat te ettiesth ie , vite = Sate Seracgnbeeylaorretea anerg ti tes ti rf patti a i att yhetay eaitcernesys iy ant i tt i +t ita ane % at Aut he i A! vette ables iy ‘fut is sti abt BH ait alates ‘ iii wits: . ag tae Asie: ats nie ae agp sais rewrrere grr ’ ite tele awe LSS . “en 3 if nu es 49ftj%3 a ayy ited oy ah: a ; . ia eee ses, on fae ia " sant “ ie ie oo £8 = ee a ital ee iB ; ary ity ge “the eee aes of , 2 oes i + + a ie ty . - : ; i spt ee are P "wee TT ae: pt I aN uN fh i ay | wate pub pytectess ¥ tte . ; iu fl ‘ * int + 1 P Leah elo 5 ty, 1. i) * AY terb g tars ® ° pealss Patel { ; aenre ay UE at at ; : ; ries ht ‘e / e mbt an Be . HY MT ats ; ate ist sae at ; : ' ; ; piel baat hf Sa ee aciletee we a ‘ | Ha ial i J itt Bere rete “bi ata ‘ ee ororere ye : ee Hee ef bs shia BR 34.5" «boo .Looo Bigg, Charles, 1840-1908. the Ghristtan Platonisets: of Alexandria Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2008 with funding from Microsoft Corporation httos://archive.org/details/christianplatoni00bigg Pile CHRISTIAN PLATONISIS OF ALEXANDRIA BGG. Pew YXork MACIMELAN: AND; CO: 112, FOURTH AVENUE PibeCikisliAN, PLATONISTS OF ALEXANDRIA PIC LECTURES PREACHED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD IN THE YEAR 1886 y ON THE FOUNDATION OF THE LATE REV. JOHN BAMPTON, M.A. CANON OF SALISBURY BY CARES = BiGG Dep. Assistant Chaplain of Corpus Christi College, formerly Senior Student of Christ Church, Oxford OXFORD Ai ThE CLARENDON PRESS NEW YORK MACMILLAN AND CO. 1886 [ All rights reserved | 1 7 a sy § CAF = Pf eed el a oh a fh PROM. tHe. LAST WILL, ANDY TESTAMENT OF THE LATE REV. JOHN BAMPTON, CANON OF SALISBURY. “T give and bequeath my Lands and Estates to the ‘Chancellor, Masters, and Scholars of the University of Oxford ‘« for ever, to have and to hold all and singular the said Lands or “Estates upon trust, and to the intents and purposes hereinafter “mentioned ; that is to say, I will and appoint that the Vice- ‘Chancellor of the University of Oxford for the time being shall “take and receive all the rents, issues, and profits thereof, and “(after all taxes, reparations, and necessary deductions made) “that he pay all the remainder to the endowment of eight “Divinity Lecture Sermons, to be established for ever in the ‘said University, and to be performed in the manner following: “T direct and appoint, that, upon the first Tuesday in Easter “ Term, a Lecturer may be yearly chosen by the Heads of Col- “leges only, and by no others, in the room adjoining to the “« Printing-House, between the hours of ten in the morning and “two in the afternoon, to preach eight Divinity Lecture “Sermons, the year following, at St. Mary’s in Oxford, between ‘the commencement of the last month in Lent Term, and the ‘end of the third week in Act Term. vi Extract from the Rev. Fohn Bampton's Will. “ Also I direct and appoint, that the eight Divinity Lecture ‘‘Sermons shall be preached upon either of the following ‘“Subjects—to confirm and establish the Christian Faith, and ‘“‘to confute all heretics and schismatics—upon the divine “authority of the holy Scriptures—upon the authority of the ‘writings of the primitive Fathers, as to the faith and practice ‘‘of the primitive Church—upon the Divinity of our Lord and “Saviour Jesus Christ—upon the Divinity of the Holy Ghost— ‘upon the Articles of the Christian Faith, as comprehended in ‘‘the Apostles’ and Nicene Creed. ‘Also I direct, that thirty copies of the eight Divinity Lec- ‘ture Sermons shall be always printed, within two months after ‘they are preached; and one copy shall be given to the Chan- “cellor of the University, and one copy to the Head of every “College, and one copy to the Mayor of the city of Oxford, and “one copy to be put into the Bodleian Library; and the ‘‘expense of printing them shall be paid out of the revenue of “the Land or Estates given for establishing the Divinity Lecture ‘“Sermons; and the Preacher shall not be paid, nor be entitled ‘to the revenue, before they are printed. ‘Also I direct and appoint, that no person shall be qualified ‘to preach the Divinity Lecture Sermons, unless he hath taken. “the degree of Master of Arts at least, in one of the two Uni- ‘‘versities of Oxford or Cambridge; and that the same person ‘shall never preach the Divinity Lecture Sermons twice.” Poole arn 6208, NOT many words will be necessary by way of Prole- gomena to this book. A glance at the Synopsis will explain what I have undertaken; and the Lectures themselves will prove with what means, in what spirit, and with what success, the undertaking has been achieved. A Bampton Lecturer labours under some peculiar difficulties. His eight discourses—eight Szromateis or Carpet Bags, if I may use the quaint phrase of Clement —will not pack away more than a limited, if somewhat elastic, number of articles. I have preferred to omit what could not comfortably be included, rather than force things in, to the destruction of their proper shape and utility. It is better to travel expedztus than to carry about a mere collection of samples. But then it becomes necessary to keep to the main lines of country, and not wander off into every tempting nook, or down each shadowy lane. The voyager may do this with safety, if he makes careful note of the finger-posts and by-roads, which others with more leisure and ampler means may wish to investigate. I trust I have given such landmarks as may enable the reader to check my own aberrations from the king’s highway, and to gather for himself any further information that he may desire. Vili Preface. The accomplished student will notice other deficiencies of a more serious kind ; and here again the high-sounding title of Bampton Lecturer entails a penalty. Quid dignum tanto feret hic promissor hiatu? I wish I could take for my motto the words of Clement (S¢vomm. i. 1. 17),‘No book can be so fortunate, but that some will find fault; and that may be reckoned to have fared not ill, which none can with justice censure.’ It was a wise as well as a graceful practice of older times to begin every preface with the address Lectorz Benevolo. All I can hope is that my shortcomings are not due to slack- ness or indolence, to want of consideration for my readers, or of reverence for those bright stars of holiness, of wisdom, of erudition, whose, names occur in the following pages. Here I may observe that the Bishop of Durham’s monumental work on Ignatius did not come into my hands till too late to be of much service. I had deferred the perusal till the completion of my own task should have set me at freedom once more to become a learner, not anticipating (as I ought to have done) that it would in so many ways shed light upon my theme. It is necessary to mention this, lest the reader should suspect me, On one or two points, of a desire to controvert, with- out reason given, the opinion of so illustrious a scholar. One such point arises out of a passage in the Epistle of Ignatius to the Romans (chap. 7): (év yap ypddw tyiv EpOv TO aToOavelv. O Eos Epws EoTa’pwral, Kal OK EoTLY ev Euol Top PiAdvaAor, Vdwp O€ (Gv Kat Aadoby Ev enol, ErwOEV por déyov’ Acdpo zpos tov marépa. Origen (see Lecture V. p. 188) translated the words 6 éyuos épws éaratvpwrar Vo) 1X ‘Meus autem Amor crucifixus est.’ Dr. Zahn objects to this; ‘Non Christum, quem solum amet, crucifixum esse dicit Ignatius, quemadmodum plerique post Origenem intellexerunt, nec vero eum, qui crucifixus est amorem suum vocavit, sicuti graecorum verborum ignari nonnulli halucinati sunt, sed suam rerum terrestrium cupiditatem quasi crucifixam esse profitetur (cf. Gal. vi. 14). It did not appear to me that a comment, which attributed ignorance of Greek to Origen, called for special notice. But as Dr. Zahn’s conclusion has been adopted and supported by the high authority of the Bishop of Durham, it is no longer safe or respectful to pass over the matter in silence. It is not indeed a necessary part of my task to consider whether Origen was right or wrong. Nevertheless as the Commentary on the Song of Songs fostered, if it did not initiate, a remarkable change in the expression of Christian love, it is of interest to trace this change as near the fountain-head as possible. I do not quite understand the point of Dr. Zahn’s assertion that Origen’s rendering is bad Greek. He may mean that épws ought not to be confounded with ayarmyn. Or he may mean that épws, which signifies the passion of love, or the god by whom the passion was supposed to be inspired, does not signify the object of the passion, the darling or beloved one. To the first question it is almost sufficient to reply, that whether the confusion of épws and dydzn ought to have been made or not, it certainly was made, not only by Origen but by Clement (6 épaords of Christ, Strom. vi. 9. 72). And if by them why not by Ignatius? Origen, a x Preface. good Greek scholar pace Dr. Zahn, asserts that Ignatius employed this hyperbole in the present passage. And what other sense can the words convey? Can épas, when used without limiting additions, signify ‘ earthly passions, ‘carnal appetites?’ Like our ‘love,’ of which it is almost an exact equivalent, it may be applied to base uses, but it is not, like ému9vpia,a base word. From the time of Parmenides it had been capable of the most exalted signification; it is introduced here by the participle €pév in the sense of ardent spiritual desire; it is opposed in true Platonic fashion to zip diddvaAov (we have other Platonic phrases in this same Epistle: chap. Ili, ovdev awvdpevov kadov : Chap. vi, nde DAn KoAakevonre). The second point is but a trivial one. It has been remarked that €pws is almost an exact equivalent of ‘love. The exception is that in classical Greek it perhaps never signifies ‘the beloved.’ Yet it may be urged that all words indicative of strong feeling may be used to denote the person by whom the feeling is aroused—my life, my joy, my dread, and so on—and it certainly would not be a very hazardous stroke to employ €épws in the same manner, though the usual term is 6 epeémevos Or 0 €paotds. Thus Fritzsche explains Theoc. li, 151, al€v Epwtos axpdtw eémexeiro, and, even if this instance is dubious, phrases like that of Meleager, Anthol. Pal. v. 166, 7 véos GdXos Epws, véa maiyria, or that of Euripides, Qed. frag. 551, Dind., évos & epwros évtos ov pl? 7dovn, show how difficult it is to keep the senses apart. Again, we have the closely allied words épérvaos (Theoc. iii. 7), épwris (Theoc. iv. 59), and the common Preface. XI proper names Erotion (Plautus, J/en. i. 2. 60; Martial, yoro4- 94720. Orjtand: Eros (Martial, x. 80; . other instances in Pape and Benseler), all blending in the same way the ideas of ‘ love,’ ‘ Cupid,’ ‘ darling ;’ and the latter at least denoting not sexual passion but the love of parent for child (cp. Eurip. Zrech. frag. 360, Dind., épare ynrpds, Taldes, MS OVK eoT Epws ToLOdTOs GAAos Satis Hdlwv €par). Lastly, in Alciphron, “fp. 1. 34, we have the very phrase of which we are in quest, 6 €uos Epws Evdvdnue. If then there is any violation of usage in the expression of Ignatius (on the supposition that Origen is right), it is but slight, and cannot cause surprise in the case of a writer who treats grammar like a slave. The Bishop of Durham does not, as I understand him, deny that Origen’s rendering is admissible as a question of Greek, but maintains that it ‘tears the clause out of the context. But is this so? What is Ignatius saying? ‘For I that write unto you am living, but in love with death. My Love is crucified, and in me there is no earth-fed fire, but living water speaking in my heart and saying Come hither to the Father. Why is he in love with death? Because Christ, his Beloved, is crucified, and perfect union with Him will be attained by death, a martyr death like His. Because, his heart being with Christ, there is no fire of sin to drown the voice that calls him. If we translate as proposed by Dr. Zahn and the Bishop of Durham, we not only do great violence to the word épws, but lose an impassioned phrase quite in harmony with the general colour of this highly figurative and enthusiastic passage. xi Preface. Origen rarely misunderstands, except where some strong prepossession deflects his judgment, and here his mind was biassed rather in the other direction. Not- withstanding the difference of time he was a strong con- servative precisely where Ignatius was a bold innovator, but in this one instance he sanctioned the new modes of expression, which, as Liicke pointed out, were brought into vogue largely through the influence of the martyrs, and of Ignatius above all. It remains only to express my gratitude to those who have helped me on my way; to the authorities of the Bodleian ; to Corpus Christi College (my alma nutrix to whom I am indebted not merely for the loan of books but for the will and power to profit by them); to the Librarian of Christ Church, whose iron discipline has been relaxed in my behalf; and to many friends whose advice, assistance and sympathy have been of supreme value to me. One there is in particular, of a communion, alas, that is not my own, on whose patience and erudition I have been suffered to make prodigal drafts. To him I could have wished to dedicate this book, Quicquid hoc libellt Qualecunque, did I not know too surely that there is much in it of which he cannot approve, and that I should vex the modesty, which veils learning that would grace a professed theologian, by adding his name. CHARLES BIGG: OxFoRD: Sept. 18, 1886. meovORSts OF: CONTENTS, EECIURE. I. INTRODUCTION. PHILO AND THE GNOSTICS. PAGE THE MUSEUM OF ALEXANDRIA . : ‘ I Influence of the Pagan University upon Christian tonal only distant and indirect ‘ THE EGYPTIAN JEWS were the active mediators bebyieen European and Oriental ideas : : : - ‘ : 2 Their wealth, numbers, and privileges . : : 2 The Septuagint and consequent outbreak of literary eaves Propaganda. ; : ‘ ; : A : ; 4 Hellenism ; : : ‘ ; ; : ; Aristeas . : ‘ : : : ; 6 Aristobulus P Greek Philosophy ‘ cn” a the Tee i Logos Doctrine before Philo eat LO ° : : Opposition to detheoneriorpleet ‘ 7 Negative Conception of Deity : ; : 8 Limitation of the Analytic Method i in Philo ‘ : ; 9 Evil of Matter : II Hence Creation and Erevidence pleased to Sabalites Powers : Relation of Powers oe oes econ Hieaes Bemmane F 12 The Two Powers of GOODNESS and JUSTICE Their indistinct Personality . P F . : : 13 Relation to earlier Jewish speculations. : : 14 The Locos : : : : History of the Toran ‘ 2 : : 15 Relation of the Locos to GOD Wisdom . : , ; : : ; : , P 16 Intelligible World . . XIV Synopsis of Contents. PAGE Schechinah Eldest Son : ‘ ; 2 : , : : Second God . : ; : ; : 17 Relation of the Locos to the Tw O eae ERS Book of Creation King’s Architect Charioteer Relation of the LoGos to the Ww Gila Seal. Divider. Bond High Priest’s Vesture Creator . 5 : ; : : , : 18 Helmsman, Pilot of Greution Vicegerent of God Relation of the Locos to Man Heavenly Man : ‘ : , ; : Mediator as Prophet and Law : : : : . : 19 as High Priest and Atoner The Two LIVEs, cones endine to the Gianelion eee GOD and the Locos . : F - 21 Faith and Wisdom. The Sensible ane wh Teal The Three Paths . : E : : : 22 Vision, Ecstasy ; Relation of Philonism to eon Faeer , : : : 23 Relation of Philonism to the Christian Church ; : : 24 Facilitated the definition of the Trinity. : ; ‘ 25 Impeded the understanding of the Atonement Intellectualism—its good and evil . 3 : ‘ : 26 METE GNOSTICS* . . : Subordinate interest of Grose Mca thyeic! : : ; 27 Their predominant Ethical motive . : : : ‘ ; 2 Plutarch and the Heathen Gnostics : : : 29 The Christian Gnostics : : 3 Their Dualism : ; A : : d : : 30 Their Exegesis Their Theory of Salesdion : : : : : Christology of Theodotus . ; : : : : 31 The Three Natures of Man : : : : 2 Eschatology . : : : ; : ; a8 Relation of Gnosticism to Pieroni : ; 34 Mazdeism Ebionitism St. Paul General Character and Effects of Gnosticism . ; 4 / 35 Synopsis of Contents. LECTURE If. CLEMENT. THE ALEXANDRINE CHURCH Founded according to tradition by St. Mark F Its wealth and importance at the end of the arena century Its conservatism in ritual and discipline . Changes effected by Demetrius The College of Presbyters The Suffragan Bishops The CATECHETICAL SCHOOL Object of the Institution . Course of Instruction The first Master Bere RACOnAs @) PANTAENUS LT. FLAVIUS CLEMENS His Life His Character and Attecurnents His Love of Literature And of PHILOSOPHY Unity of Truth Science a Covenant of God Apologists not unfriendly to Bhilososhye : Philosophy brought into discredit by the Gnostics Clement proclaims its necessity to the Church His position on one side Rationalist, on another Mystic . The CANON OF SCRIPTURE . How far settled in Clement’s time ‘ Paulinism’ The Unity of Scapiare : Denied on moral grounds by the Bi oaiees and by the Gnostics P Clement defends the Moral Law by maintaining the essential identity of Justice and Goodness And the Sacrificial Law on the ground of its per- manent doctrinal value ALLEGORISM the Key to the Unity of Sa iptite General character of Alexandrine Allegorism . Opposition to popular Theology Reserve ° AV XVI Synopsis of Contents. TIPE MHOLY AERINTIT Y's : Universal admission of the doctrine in some sine or ther : 59 Previous Speculation on the subject. Emanationism. Modalism Difference between the Philonic and oe Christian Logos Doctrine. 4 : ; : ; : : ‘ ‘ 60 The Prophoric Logos. : ; . 5 . : : 61 THE FATHER s Method of Clement F The Revelation of Scripture . : : : : : 62 Analysis or Elimination . : 4 : : i The Monad . : : : ; . : 63 The Son the Coveiormnee of God . ; ; ; : 64 Relation of Clement to Neo-Platonism ; 5 , Futility of his Method . : - . ; : : 65 THE SON .. ; : ‘ His Peteonaliey Gocquality. Scene : : ; 66 Terminology of Clement . : : : : : : 67 Use of Philonic phraseology : Clement rejects the term ‘ Prophoric Logos’ . : 5 68 Subordinationism strictly secondary in Clement : : 69 TE TIOLY SPIRIT : 3 p : His Personality not yet sae defined : é : ‘ 70 How far explained by Clement Office of the Holy Spirit . Jealousy of Pantheism . ; : 5 : WI THE INCARNATION AND REDEMPTION The Human Soul of Jesus Semi-Docetism The Passion of Jesus andesigned = Goad F : : : a2 Christ the Light of the World : 3 Hellenism in Clement’s view of Redemption . ‘ ; ; 73 The Ransom . Forgiveness : Reconciliation and Propiiacon : ; : : : : 74 Clement’s Typology - Manifestation of Christ as Mane in the fore Life, as Phyeicien, Shepherd, Tutor, Lawgiver : ° : In the higher Life as God, as Light, Truth, Life : eva 75 7 As High Priest. . : - ‘ . Redemption the Semon of fhe spiritual development af mankind . . - ° ? : . , . Synopsis of Contents. EEG UURE : ILL. CLEMENT. CREATION Denial of Pre-existence and of keri af Mattes The Six Days allegorised The Soul of Man THE ORIGIN OF EVIL Opposition to Gnosticism THE FREEDOM OF THE WILL Departure from Plato and St. Paul Rejection of Determinism Indifferentism . Doctrine of ORIGINAL SIN Lees to iceman : Adam potentially not actually perfect The Soul does not descend from Adam Allegorism of the Fall Infant Baptism not the rule at Avianca FAITH AND GRACE : THE BAPTISM OF REGENERATION THE Two LIVEs Historical Conditions of Clee Ss view . Gnosticism and Paulinism Legalism Necessity of Teualine Sihaneedt be the aint expansion of the Church Social, moral, spiritual aaqaaney ahieneet the br etn g Distinction between Visible and Invisible Church not yet _ familiar Documentary sources of ne view Heathen Philosophy Apostolic Fathers Scripture Characteristic Notes of ite Two ae es Faith, Fear, Holiness Knowledge, Love, ee The Compromise between the Church and the W orld Criticism of this VIA MEDIA . How different from Gnosticism Breach of continuity between the Two Ties Egotism . - Clement’s treatment of Faith : And of Hope . And of Fear XVII J *J Oo © 80 SI 82 83 88 XVIil Synopsis of Contents. THE LOWER LIFE as described in the Pedagogue . Stoicism . Aristotelianism THE HIGHER LIFE Described in terms hentwed fork the Grea Me cteies Knowledge. Gnosis. The true Gnostic ; Indefectibility of Knowledge Object of Knowledge 5 Holiness the indispensable condition of Knowledge ; Connection with Allegorism Necessity of mental cultivation Love : : Relation to Kaowieiee . : How affected by Stoicism and Piatonisin:. Apathy : Disinterested Love . : Relation of Clemeni’s view to Mysticism Stress laid upon Holiness And upon Righteousness . : And upon due use of the Means of Grace Silent Prayer The indefectibility of Gnosis excludes Bedioy Connection of Christian Mysticism with the Song of Songs THE CHURCH One Holy The Priesthood ; The Gnostic the only iaecey Sacrifice. Altar. Incense Penance . : Spiritual Direction . The Eucharist : Not separate at Alcea Gok fhe eae The Public Agape The Aoxn The House-Supper . The Eucharistic Grace It is Gnosis ESCHATOLOGY Resurrection : Pagan doctrine be niente Variety of opinion in the Church PAGE go gt g2 I0o IOI 102 103 105 108 Synopsis of Contents. Resurrection of ‘this flesh’ Chiliasm . E Belief in the nearness a ihe End of ihe World : Various opinions as to Rewards and Punishments Prayers for the Dead Clement’s own view The glorified body The double office of Fire . Punishments A Spiritual in nature . The prayers of the Saints Possibility of Repentance till the ree Day The State of the Blessed ; : All purged by Fire . The Seven Heavens . The Ogdoad of Rest The Poena Damni . The Beatific Vision . LECTURE, Fy: ORIGEN. His LIFE AND CHARACTER His WorKsS . Textual Criticism : The New Testament The Hexapla . Origen’s knowledge of Hebrew The Controversy with Africanus Exegesis The Scholia The Homilies . Church-buildings, Litmey, Chama of the Gangre: gation . : : ° ; . Origen as a Beales The Commentaries . Their general plan Origen’ S services as an Bavositer of the eal sense al Scripture ALLEGORISM . General difference faeces Gledeit and Orcs b 2 X1x PAGE 10g IIo IIE 112 Il3 114 TI5-123 E23; 125 126 127 128 129 13! 134 XX Synopsis of Contents. The Law of Correspondence The Three Senses of Scripture How distinguished The Negative use of Allegorism - Denial of the Literal Sense Reasons for this : Biographical interest of Origen’s view The Positive use of Allegorism The Discovery of Mysteries Economy or Reserve ‘ The Two Lives in Origen . : Scope and Purpose of Alexandrine Reems Erroneous inferences that have been drawn from it . How far capable of defence Objections to the Alexandrine method of Anteeonem It is seen at its worst on its Apologetic side May be charged with dishonesty Reasons for modifying this judgment Its Positive use : Differing judgments . In application to the Old ae eemen it seontoune: symbol with proof ~/ In application to the Church if the coer it is tie ‘expression of spiritual freedom and enlightenment . In application to the Church of the Future it is open to the charge of presumption But this may be extenuated LECTURE WW. ORIGEN. The Regula Fidei . Anxiety of Origen to en within ae Ganon His teaching always Scriptural The Three Methods of Pagan Theology . The Christian Method ; : THE NATORE OF GOD. The Negative Attributes The Positive Attributes . God not Impassible Our knowledge of Him inadequate eat true PAGE 136 137 138 139 I41 148 154 155 Synopsis of Contents. God is Perfect, not Absolute . Limitation of Creation Eternity of Creation Optimism Divine Power Ronditioned by eouitess and Wisdom RHE HOLY, TRINITY; Theodotus The Noetians . : : : Hypostasis. Ousia. Person. Substance The Mystery of the Economy . THE FATHER THE SON . His Hypostasis Coeternity. @acqualiey. Epinoiai of the Son Essential— Wisdom, woul Tight, Truth. Accidental—Propitiation, Redemption, Mediation In what sense the office of Mediation ceases LAPT ROLY SEIKIL His Relation to the other Persons Hee The title ‘God’ Coeternity and Hae His Office . DHE UNLT VIN: TRINITY . The Translations of Rufinus Persons numerically but not locally distinct The Allegorism of the Shew Bread . The Eternal Generation ’ Rejection of the terms ‘ Projection,’ ‘ Prophoric’ UNITY OF PERFECT HARMONY UNITY OF SUBSTANCE . The term Homoousios UNITY OF DERIVATION Subordinationism Origen’s view Serine, not Metaphy neal His object is to restrict the ancient idea of Subordina- tion and expand that of the Equality of the Persons Prayer to the Son How limited by Grigen Conservatism of his language Influence of his Commentary on the Ss of Songs Xx1 PAGE E59 160 161 162 163 166 167 168 169 170 17 P72 173 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 186 188 xo Synopsis of Contents. THE INCARNATION The God-Man The Human Soul of ane The Flesh of Jesus . P The last trace of Doretign The Humanity of Jesus eternal | RECUR VT: ORIGEN. CREATION The Etemity batons ana sfter this World. Disorder of Creation Injustice, Inequality Pre-existence The First Heaven and ein Free Will. The Fall The Visible Heaven and Earth The Soul of Man . Philosophical objections to @nzen’ s Mheory Scriptural objections Predestination . Grace Original Sin Origen did not at meee hold this | tenet Grounds of his later belief . Infant Baptism Law of Purification 2 ‘Families’ in earth and Heaven ‘Seed of Abraham’ Fall of Adam Descent of Sinless Souls The ‘ Reign of Death’ Sense of Guilt stronger in Origen dines in Giewem THE FouR REVELATIONS THE NATURAL LAW: Position of the Gentiles THE LAW OF MOSES Not the cause of Sin : : : Idea of Development not so Tee in Origen as in Clement PAGE 189 Igo Igl 192 ASN. 200 201 292 203 204 205 206 209 208 Synopsis of Contents. THE GOSPEL The Two Lives Faith and Wisdom The object of Faith. ‘ jesus my Lord and Saviour ’. The Epinoiai in their subjective aspect Leyitical Typology Ransom. Redemption Propitiation The Duplex Hostia The Church One and Garba The Promise to Peter. Rome The Clergy Symbolised by ae Mone Eueraiclie: The Dominion of Grace Confession . : Penance. Absolution History of the Question Origen’s View The Eucharist . ‘ : : Growing sense of reverence and reigateny In what sense the Eucharist is a Mystery The Presence of Christ, in what sense Real THE ETERNAL GOSPEL The Spiritual Church : Meaning and scope of the Eternal eee Hades and Paradise The Day of Judgment : The Resurrection of the Flesh . The ‘ Germinative Principle’ Details of his View The Aeons to Come Enduring Freedom Rise and Fall of the Soul . Uncertainty of Origen’s opinion The ‘ Refiner’s Fire’ Punishment, its — and iaiseeh General Principles of Origen Scriptural basis . The word ‘ Eternal’ The voice of Scripture Vacillation of Origen. The Wedding Guest The Demons . XXill PAGE XXIV Synopsis of Contents. The Consummation of All Things The Beatific Vision . The Poena Damnit PECTURE Vil. THE REFORMED PAGANISM. The Second Century an Age of Revival . ORIENTAL HENOTHEISM MITHRA : Previous nistony of Mame sens Redemption Atonement : The Taurobolium. Reseierction The Mithraic Messiah Mithraic Eschatology Hierarchy. Sacraments . SARAPIS Connection with mpionitier and Walentinianiem And with Christianity MIE OPHILOSOPHERS, . : The Belief in the Immortality of the Seat THE PYTHAGOREANS . Their General Character . Their Rivalry with Christianity THE LIFE OF APOLLONIUS Its Origin and Purpose Outline of the Book The Imperial Eirenicon THE TRINITARIAN PLATONISTS History of the Platonic Trinity . The Platonic Letters . Platonic Monotheism, Ditheism, Tritheism NUMENIUS OF APAMEA His Trinity ‘ His Obligation to Philo And to Christianity His relation to Plotinus PAGE 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 Synopsis of Contents. THE UNITARIAN PLATONISTS CELSUS ~ The Zrue Word Origen’s Reply Celsus not an Epicurean , His character, attainments, and temper ; Legal position of Christianity at this time . His criticism of the Gospel and the Law . The One God . The Demons Special Providence : Mediation. Revelation. Miracles The Two Lives Chief Points in the Debate Knowledge of God in Christ. The Incarnation A Priori Objections of Celsus Answer of Origen : Historical Objections of ee : Answer of Origen. Christian Evidences The Word of God Miracles Prophecy Sufferings of the nctles Nature and Origin of Evil . Resurrection of the Body Celsus’ attempt at Reconciliation Why not serve Two Masters? : The real difficulty ; Form and Matter LECT Wii SUMMARY. CLEMENT. : His after History The Index of Geleids Photius Neglect of Gisnene S Witting. Clement VIII erases his name from the Maliolory F Benedict XIV defends and maintains the erasure Is Clement a Saint? . 269 270 271 272 XXVI Synopsis of Contents. ORIGEN His books coaderaned by ainepehilue and ‘Epiphariue And by Pope Anastasius and others Condemnations of the Home Synod and the Fifth Gonten Treatment of his Name : Importance of the Historical point of view ALEXANDRINE EXEGESTIS In what sense it survived . Neo Ae DOCTRINES . PRE-EXISTENCE PAULINISM How far understood the fiewnattes - FREE WILL AND GRACE Doctrine of the Alexandrines Doctrine of Augustine Confusions of Augustine’s treatment i the Ww al Superiority of his view of Grace Errors arising out of the Face Ripatbility of Augustine’s doctrine of Grace with his general ecclesiastical theory REDEMPTION . Doctrine of Origen of Augustine of Anselm . RESURRECTION RESTITUTION . Clement and Geese not riety ean Universe In what sense Punishment is Eternal Other opinions on the subject The Monks of Egypt and Palestine Diodorus and Theodore The two Gregories Jerome ; The Doctrine of Pareatory In the Greek Church In the Roman Church : Distinction between the Doctrine of Paraaten? aad the speculations of Origen Relation of Origenism to our own belief Morality of the Alexandrine speculations . PAGE 273 275 276 277 279 281 282 518) Synopsis of Contents. XXVIi PAGE QUIETISM ; é : : : Relation of the Quietists to Clement : : 300 Substantial justice of their condemnation . : 301 GENERAL MERITS OF THE ALEXANDRINES . : 302 Reasonableness : : 5 2 : : Services against Gnosticism, Chiliasm, and Montanism . 303 Their Preaching of the Fatherhood of God LEBEL URE.. f. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.—ST. JOHN i. I. I PROPOSE to offer in the Lectures, which I am to have the privilege of delivering, a contribution towards the history of Alexandrine Platonism in the Christian Church. It will be my endeavour to sketch the con- ditions out of which it arose in the teaching of Philo and the Gnostics, to describe its full development in Clement and Origen, to’ measure its reflex action’ on Pagan religion and philosophy, and in conclusion to estimate the value.of its results, to ascertain, as far as may be, the services it was enabled to render to the Church and to humanity. It is not possible within the limited time at my command to reap the whole harvest of a, field so large and so fruitful. But I shall be able at any rate to show what profit is to be looked for. And though we can only follow the main outlines of the subject, we shall succeed perhaps in gaining a just conception of a great crisis in the history of the Church, and of the great men who played a conspicuous part in it. It was not without reason that the first systematic attempt to harmonise the tradition of faith with the free conclusions of human intellect was made neither , at Rome nor at Athens, but in Egypt. Yet it is not to the famous University that we must look for its B 2 The Pagan University. [ Lect. source’. Alexandria still possessed its three great royal foundations, the Museum, the Serapeum, and the Sebastion; its three libraries, its clerical heads, its well-endowed staff of professors and sinecure fellows. Nor did these misuse their advantages. Though the hope of imperial favour drew the more ambitious teachers of philosophy and rhetoric irresistibly towards Rome, letters were still cultivated, and the exact sciences flourished as nowhere else by the banks of the Nile. But the influence of the Pagan University upon Christian thought was distant and indirect. The Greek professor, throned beneath the busts of Homer and Plato, regarded himself as an apostle of Hellenic culture in the midst of an alien and barbarous race; and though a few, like Chaeremon?, may have bestowed serious attention upon the monuments of the Pharaohs, the impulse would scarcely have passed the limits of a learned curiosity had it acted upon the Greeks alone. It was in the mind of the Jew that Eastern and Western ideas were first blended in fruitful union, » The Jews of Egypt, if we may credit Philo, numbered not less than a million souls. In no city of the Empire were they so wealthy or so powerful as at Alexandria. Of the five regions of the town two were almost entirely given up to them, and they swarmed in the other three. 1 The history of the Alexandrine University may be read in Matter, Histoire de ? Ecole d’ Alexandrie, 2nd ed., Paris, 1840, or in Parthey’s excellent little book, Das Alexandrinische Museum, Berlin, 1838. There is some interesting information in Mommsen’s fifth volume. The ‘ sinecure fellows’ are the dreAeis giAdcopor. Hadrian gave one of those places to a successful athlete; see Parthey, p. 94. I infer that the Sebastion or Claudianum had a clerical Head: there is no doubt that it was so in the case of the Museum or the Serapeum; cp. Mommsen, v. 569, 579. * According to Mommsen, v. 579, Chaeremon was an Egyptian. See Miller, -rag. Hist. Graec. iii. 495. lay Lhe Alexandrine Fews. 2 Many dwelt in the country districts also, and the con- vents of their Therapeutae were to be found in every nome!. They had their own senate and magistrates. who apportioned the taxation and settled the disputes of the community. They enjoyed the rights of iso- polity ?, standing on an equal footing with the Greek burgesses, and possessing immunities denied to the native Copts. It is probable that the great corn-trade offered them facilities which, with the commercial genius of their race, they were not slow in turning to profit. In more than one respect their position offers a striking resemblance to that afterwards enjoyed by their country- men in Spain. For our present purpose the first great event in their history is the translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek. In whatever way this most ancient and famous of all Versions came into existence, whether it grew up gradually out of the interpretation of the daily lessons, or was made by the order, and under the patronage of Ptolemy °, it gave the signal for a remarkable outbreak 1 Philo, De Vita Cont. 3. * As to isopolity, see Dahne, i. p. 19. Egypt was governed by the Emperor as a crown colony, and the dignity of all citizens was lower there than in other provinces. But the Jews possessed the same privileges as the Greeks. Burgesses were scourged when necessary by different officers, with a different kind of rod, from the Coptic non-burgesses. Philo complains bitterly that Flaccus had ordered eminent Jews to be flogged like Copts, and not Tats éAevOepiwrépais Kat modiTiKwrépas protiéiv. Tiberius Julius Alexander, a Jew and nephew of Philo, aitained to the equestrian dignity and was made governor of Egypt by Nero, though at the cost of apostasy. A vivid picture of the numbers, wealth, privileges, and unpopularity of the Jews in Egypt will be found in Philo, Zz Flaccum. See Siegfried, Phz/o, p. 5; Dahne, Geschichtliche Darstellung der jiidisch-alexandrinischen Ke- ligions-philosophie, i. 16 sqq. For the magnificence of the Onias Temple at Leontopolis and the great Synagogue at Alexandria, see Delitzsch, Za Gesch. der jiidischen Poeste, pp. 25 sqq. * The story of Aristeas has long been given up. Even that of Aristo- B 2 4 The Alexandrine Fews. [ Lect. of literary activity. So far as this was apologetic and propagandist, a branch of that new-born zeal which com- passed sea and land to make one proselyte, its history, character, and effect on pagan life and literature, interest- ing as they are, lie beyond our scope’. But side by side with this outward aggressive movement ran another and a different one, the object of which was to appro- priate, and to justify the appropriation, of Greek wisdom, to reconcile Judaism with the culture of the Western world. Even before the completion of the Septuagint this tendency was at work. Platonism is discoverable in the Pentateuch, Stoicism in the Apocrypha?. It is bulus appears to be now generally rejected. According to the latter the translation of the Law was made by the order and at the expense of Ptolemy Philadelphus, whose instigator and agent was Demetrius Phalereus; Eus. Pracp. Ev. xiii. 12. 2. But, as Scaliger first pointed out, Hermippus, a writer of very good note, relates that Demetrius Phalereus was banished by Philadelphus, whose succession to the throne he had endeavoured to prevent. This error discredits the whole statement of Aristobulus, and it is accordingly more than doubtful whether the translation of the Pentateuch was in any way encouraged by Philadelphus, though such a work suits very well with his general character as a magnificent patron of literature. _Hence by some the translation is supposed to have grown up gradually out of a custom introduced by Ezra. By the side of the reader of the Law stood an interpreter (Meturgeman) who translated the lesson from Hebrew into the vernacular tongue. See Delitzsch, Zur Geschichte der jiidischen Poesie, p. 19; Redepenning, Origenes, ii. 158, 217; Siegfried, Phzlo, p. 7. It is certain that the Septuagint Version was made at different times by different hands. The Pentateuch, the oldest portion, dates from the first half of the third century B.c.; the Hagiographa, the most recent portion, was in existence about I50 B.c. Schiirer (Geschichte des juid. Volkes, zweit. Theil, 1886, pp. 697 sqq.), says nothing about the Meturgeman, but regards it as clear that the translation was originally a private work, and gradually acquired official recognition. Tischendorf, Proleg. in Vetus Test., leaves the question of Ptolemy’s co-operation undecided. Dr. Edersheim, Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, vol. i. p. 26 sq., accepts the account of Aristobulus as substantially correct, and thinks that the whole transla- tion was completed by 221 B.C. at latest. 1 The student will find full information in Schiirer. 2 The extent to which the translation of the Hebrew books is coloured 1: ] The Alexandrine Fews. yi: probable that every school of Greek philosophy, except / the ‘godless Epicurean,’ had its representatives among the Alexandrine Jews. But the favourite was Platonism as it was then understood, Platonism that is to say hardened into a system, filled up and rounded off, in its theology with Peripateticism, in its ethics with Stoicism. The myths of the poet-philosopher have become dogmas, and the central point of the whole is the enigmatical Timaeus. But in yielding thus to the fascinations of Greek wisdom the Jew stumbled on many difficulties. His own Scriptures he had been taught to regard as divine and sufficient. If the doctrines of the Academy were true, they were true only in so far as they coincided with the word of God. Thus it became incumbent on the party of the new learning for the satisfaction of their own conscience to find Plato in the Law, and for the satisfac- tion of their more scrupulous countrymen to find the Law in Plato. These objects, though to some degree facilitated by the Septuagint translators themselves, could only be fully secured by violent means. Hence by Greek philosophy is matter of doubt. Déahne, ii. 11 sqq., and Gfrorer, Urchristenthum, ii. 8-18, find many traces of adaptation which are disal- lowed by Frankel, Zeller, and Siegfried. But Siegfried admits that in Gen. i. 2, % 5¢ yh tv dédparos Kal dxatacxnevaoTos, there is an unmistakeable reference to the «dcpos vontés. The difficulty of decision arises in part out of the fact that many ideas were common to the Rabbinical and the Hellen- istic schools. But the statement in the text that the work of the latter was -facilitated by the LXX translators is amply borne out by the way in which the latter (i) avoid anthropomorphic phrases—thus the ‘repentance of God,’ Gen. vi. 6, disappears; (ii) substitute @eds and «vpios for the Tetragram ; (iii) introduce the later doctrine of Guardian Angels, Deut. xxxii. 8. This verse in its Septuagint form became in fact the foundation of the doctrine which, if Rabbinical, is also certainly Platonic. The influence of Platonism and Stoicism on the Book of Wisdom and Mace. iv. is unquestioned. See Siegfried, Piz/0, pp. 6 sqq.; Schiirer. 6 The Alexandrine F ews. [Lect. the fable of Aristeas, which, transferring to the Greek text the literal inspiration claimed for the Hebrew, rendered possible the application of those modes of interpretation, by which any language could be forced | to yield any sense desired. Hence again the fiction of Aristobulus1, which asserted the existence of a previous and much older translation of the Law. By this means it was possible to argue that Plato was but ‘an Attic Moses”, and a swarm of treatises on Plagiarism solaced the weaker brethren with ample proof that all the best sayings of all the Greek philosophers were ‘stolen’ from the Jew, and might lawfully be reclaimed. Thus fortified the Hellenising party moved steadily onward in the development of those ideas, which we now associate with the name of Philo, because he is to us their sole expo- nent. But in truth even the Logos doctrine, the key- stone of the whole structure, was already in place when /he took up the work °. 1 Eus. Pracp. Ev. xiii. 12. This positive statement is a pure fiction (see Ewald, Gesch. des V. Z., iv. 337, ed. 1864), made for the purpose of supporting his assertion that the peripatetic philosophy was based upon the Law and the Prophets. Clem. S¢vom. v.14. 97. For the character and influence of Aristobulus, see Valckenar, Déatribe; Diahne, ii. 73 sqq.; Ewald; Zeller, iii. 2. 219 sqq. Schiirer defends Aristobulus against the charge of forgery, maintaining that he was himself deceived by the adulterated passages which he quotes. Cobet holds the same view; see Preface to Dindorf’s edition of Clement, xxv. But there is no ground for it. * The phrase is ascribed to Numenius by Clement, S¢vom. i. 22. 150. Eusebius, Praep. Lv. xi. 10. 14, only says that it is with good reason attri- buted to Numenius. But Clement’s language is so clear and positive (Novpnvios ... avrixpus pape) that Schiirer (p. 830) cannot be right in doubting whether that philosopher was really the author of the phrase. * Siegfried, p. 223 : ‘ Dass er auch hierin Vorginger hatte, deutet er selbst an. So erwahnt er de som. i. 19 (i. 638) eine altere Auslegung von Gen. xxviii. 11, welche den rémos auf den Logos bezog.’ Zeller, iii. p. 628, insists upon the remarkable passage in de Cherudim, g (i. 143) where Philo speaks of both doctrines, that of the Two Powers and that of the Logos, as given to LJ Philo. | 7 It is only in a peculiar sense that Philo is to be called a philosopher’. His works form a discursive commentary upon the Law, taking up point after point, not in their natural order, but as they spring out of the text before him. And his object is not to investigate but to har- monise. The idealism of Plato is to be discovered in the history of the Patriarchs and the precepts of the Law, and amalgamated with the products of Rabbinical speculation. The religious interest is with Philo the predominant ; hence he starts not with the analysis of the act of knowledge, but with the definition of God. On this theme two very divergent views were entertained. Some of the Rabbis, relying upon those passages of the older Scriptures, where the Deity is spoken of as wearing the form and actuated by the feelings of humanity, were Anthropomorphists *, and expressed this opinion in the simplest and most direct fashion. Others, following the him by special revelation. Philo, however, may mean only that the convic- tion of their truth and the sense of their full import were imparted to him in a divine ecstasy, asthe knowledge of Christ was given to St. Paul in the same way. * My guides to the understanding of the text of Philo have been Dihne, Geschichtliche Darstellung der jiidisch-alexandrinischen Religions-philosophie, Halle, 1834; Grossmann, Quaestiones Philoneae ; Zeller ; and Siegfried, Piz/o von Alexandria, Jena, 1875. ‘The last is excellent and indispensable. All other authorities on the subject will be found in Siegfried or in Schiirer, by whom the list of German literature is continued down to the present year. I have seen also the French writers Réville, Soulier, Vacherot, Simon. For the relation between Philo and Rabbinical speculation, a point on which I cannot pretend to form an independent judgment, I have relied implicitly on Siegfried, with some assistance from Gfrérer and Maybaum. I may refer the reader also to Dr. Edersheim’s forthcoming article in the Dictionary of Christian Biography, the proof-sheets of which I have been enabled to use by the kindness of the learned author. Zeller rates him higher than Dahne; iii. p. 594, ed. 1852: ‘ Was den Philo von seinen Vorgangern unterscheidet ist die Vollsténdigkeit und Folgerichtigkeit, mit der er ihren Standpunkt zum System ausgefiihrt hat.’ 2 See Gfrérer, Das Jahrhundert des Heils, Stuttgart, 1838, i. p. 276 sqq. 8 Philo. [ Lect. lead of the Prophets, and developing the conception of the Ineffable Name, refused to think or speak of Jehovah except as a pure spirit. ‘God sees,’ said one, ‘and is not seen; so the soul sees and is not seen 1.’ For the Hellenist truth lay wholly in the latter con- ception, which was maintained by the Peripatetic Aristo- bulus, and developed by the Platonist Philo. In one remarkable passage he comments upon the words ‘it repented God that He had made man*.’ To accept such language in its literal sense is impiety greater than any that was drowned in the Flood. In truth God is not as man, is not as the world, is not as heaven. He is above space, being Himself Space and Place, inasmuch as He embraces all things and is embraced of none; above time, for time is but the register of the fluctuations of the world, and God when He made the world made time also. His Life is Eternity, the everlasting Now, wherein is neither past, present, nor future. He is unchanging, for the Best can change only by becoming worse, which is inconceivable. Change, again, is the shifting of rela- tions, the flux of attributes, and God has neither relations Hor attributes. Hence He has no name.” Manin his weakness is ever striving to find some title for the Supreme. But, says Philo, ‘names are symbols of created things, seek them not for Him who is uncreated.’ Even the venerable and scriptural titles of God and Lord are inadequate, must be understood as metaphors, and used with reserve. The phrases that Philo himself PLcemeeoremploy ate “the Onc, “He thatws amuse. 1 Gfrorer, Das Jahrhundert des Heils, i. p. 289. 2 Quod Deus Immutabilis, 5 (i. 275) sqq. But I need not give detailed references for this section. See Siegfried, 199 sqq.; Dahne, i. 118 sqq. LJ The Deity. 9 From all this it follows that God is incomprehensible. We know that He is, to know what He is transcends the powers vouchsafed to man. Thus in the extravagance of his recoil from materialism Philo transformed the good Father and Lord of the Bible into the Eternal Negation of dialectics. But Philo, though he marked out the way for later transcenden- talism, does not himself push his argument to its extreme conclusion. He does not mean all that he appears to say'. The analytic method is Aristotelian rather than Platonic, and the influences of the 7zmaeus, of Stoicism, of the Bible, all combine as yet to modify its rigour. When Philo tells us that God has no qualities, we are to understand that He is immaterial, and can therefore experience none of those passions that attach to the body?. Hence again He cannot be said to possess any of those virtues, that depend upon the regulation of the passions by the reason. But reason itself He possesses in the same sense as man®. If He has no relations, this * Dahne, i. p. 127 sqq., regards Philo’s conception of God as practical Atheism. ‘Er philosophirte aber auch gar nicht (wenigstens nicht zuerst) im Interesse des menschlichen Geschlechts, dem er freilich auf diese Weise seinen Gott raubte, sondern lediglich im Interesse dieses Gottesselbst’ (p. 136). Siegfried too thinks that he was only able to save religion by a want of philosophic perspicacity, which enabled him to mix up the Stoic doctrine of the Immanence of God with this theory of the Absolute without perceiving that the two were irreconcileable. It is certain that Philo often speaks in Stoic language of God, advancing at times to the very verge of Pantheism ; Siegfried, p. 204; Dihne, i. 280 sqq. But he never for a moment ceases to think of God in Platonic fashion as pure Spirit opposed to Matter. Whereas to the Stoic Matter and Spirit were at bottom the same thing; all is ulti- mately resolved into Matter; Zeller, vol. iii. p. 77, ed. 1852. On the side of theology Philo was no more really Stoic than St. Paul, who also did not hesitate to use the language of Aratus. Those who wish to see what theology becomes in the hands of a Stoic should read the Homilies. * See especially Quod Deus Imm. 11 (i. 280). * See especially Quod Deus Imm. 6 (i. 276). God is changeless, not because IO Philo. [ Lect. merely means that He wants nothing, and depends on nothing, because He is perfect and the source of all that ist. Philo does not intend to exclude the relation of subject and object like Plotinus, who denies that God can be said to think”. Again, if God is One, is incom- prehensible, so too is the human mind. Of this also, though it is our self, we know only that it is®. ‘God,’ says Philo, ‘ possesses not intelligence only but reasoning, and using these powers He ever surveys all that He has made, suffering nothing to transgress its appointed order*.’ Neo-Platonism is already in view, but between Plotinus and Philo there are several stages to be passed. One of these is marked by the name of Basilides, another by that of Clement. It is evident that Philo was not prevented by any metaphysical bar from attributing the work of Provi- dence, or even of Creation, to the Deity. There was however a grave moral difficulty. For the world was He isa blank, but because He is perfect. ‘ Since then the soul of man by the soft breezes of science and wisdom calms the surge and seething, roused by the sudden bursting of the fierce blast of vice, and allaying the swelling billows reposes in sunny and windless calm, canst thou doubt that the In- corrupt and Blessed, He who has girded Himself with the might of the virtues and perfection itself and happiness, suffers no change of mind?’ He is by no means the Aristotelian Deity who ‘thinks Himself... . ‘It is clear then that the father must know his children, the artist his works, the steward his charge, and God is in truth Father, Artist, Steward of all that is in heaven or in the world.’ Consciousness of the external does not in Philo’s view imply change in God, who sees not as man sees in time, but in eternity. 1 The idea of Relation is defined De mutatione Nominum, 4 (i. 583). Si il. 3. 3 Legis Alleg. i. 30 (i. 62): eixdTws ody 6 “Adap, TovTéoTiv 6 vous, TA GAA évopalav Kal karadAapBavev EavT® bvopa ove EmriOnow Ort EavTov ayvoe Kal thy idiay pyow. De mut. Nom. 2 (i. 579): Kal Ti Oavpacroy, ci 70 dv dvOpw- Tos GkaTaAnmTov, OmdTE Kal 6 ev ExdoTw Vos AyvwoTos Hutv €oTL; Tis Pux7s ovotav €ldev ; 4 Quod Deus Immut. 7 (i. 277). 1 The Powers. | ct created out of pre-existing matter. And matter, though eternal, was evil—‘lifeless, erroneous, divisible, un- equab=! | It seemed impossible to bring the Perfect Being into direct contact with the senseless and cor- ruptible?. Hence when Philo speaks of the royal or fatherly operations of the Deity, he is generally to be understood as referring not to God Himself but to His Powers or Ministers. ‘Though throned above Creation He nevertheless fills His world, for by His power, reach- ing to the utmost verge, He binds together each to each by the words of harmony.’ Here the meaning is so obscure that it might pass without detection, but the language that follows is more explicit: ‘Though He be far off, yet is He very near, keeping touch by means of His creative and regulative Powers, which are close to all, though He has banished the things that have birth far away from His essential nature *.’ What are these Powers? On one side they are the Angels, on whom a world of curious ingenuity had been expended in the Jewish schools. On the other they are 1 Quis rer. div. haeres. 32(i.495). The idea that Matter is Evil, which exer- cises so important an influence on the whole system of Philo, rests especially on his explanation of Gen. i. 31, ‘ God saw everything that He had made, and behold it was very good.’ But He had not made Matter, and spoke no praise of this. The belief in the pre-existence of Matter had found acceptance among the Jews before Philo; Siegfried, p. 230. 2 De vict. offer. 13 (ii.261): od yap Hv Opus amelpov Kal Tepuppevys vAns Pavey ... cov. De confus. ling. 3,4 (1.431): xpetos pev yap ovbervds éotw 6 TOU TavTOs maTnp, ws Selaau Tis ap erépwv ei EOéAOL Snpoupyjnoar’ TO 5é mpETOv Opwy EavT@ Te Kal Tois y.wopevors Tais Umnxdos Suvdpecty CoTw & SiamAatrew edpTKev. Another more tender and certainly more beautiful way of expressing the same thing is found in passages like De mundi op. 6 (i. 5), where it is said that God’s goodness is bounded by the receptivity of His creatures. A full revelation, an unlimited gift, would undo us. Compare p. 13, below. Even God’s Powers must divest themselves of their ‘fire’ before they can touch our weak and tainted nature without consuming it. 3 De post, Caint, 5 (i. 229). 12 Philo. [ Lect. the Logoi of the Stoic, the Ideas of the Platonist, the thoughts of God, the heavenly models of things upon earth, the types which, imprinted upon matter like a seal upon wax, give to it life, reality, durability’. The Ideas, again, could be identified with the discrowned gods of Olympus, the heroes and demons, who in the Platonic religion play a part analogous to that of the angels’. In either aspect they are innumerable®. But considered as types they may be summed up in two great master- types, considered as Angels they are ruled by two great Archangels, representing one the Goodness, the other the 1 They are idéa, dpxérumo: id€ar, TUTOL, péTpAa, oOppayides. ‘These are Platonic terms denoting the Essence or Form, the principle of reality. Again, Adyou, Adyou omeppatixkol, oréppata Kal pilar KabeBetcar bd Tov Oeov. These are Stoic terms denoting, not the Essence which to the Stoic was matter, but the principle of Life, Force, the particle of divine spirit inherent in things. Again, they are duvapers, dowparor Suvapers, Sopupdpor Svvapers, adyyero, xapites. These are Jewish terms. See Grossmann, Quaest. Phil. p- 23; Dahne, i. 205 sqq., 253 sqq. What the student has most to be afraid of is the giving to Philo more consis- tence and system than he really possesses. In a rapid account it is impossible to avoid this fault. What I have said in the text is I believe in the main correct, but everything is floating and hazy. Thus De conf. ling. 34 (i. 431) the Powers are distinct from the Ideas which they create, and apparently from the Angels. They are certainly distinct from the Angels, De A/on. ii. I (ii. 222). But De Aon. i. 6 (ii. 218, 219) they are the Ideas. Nor can I find that the Powers are anywhere expressly identified with the Angels, though Siegfried, p. 211, says that they are. The Angels and the Logoi are identified, De Somzts,i.19 (1. 638): dBavaras Adyos ovs KaAELY EBs a@yyéAous. And when we consider the close affinity of Adyos and idéa, and the fact that sre Logos is the Sum of the Powers, it is very difficult to see how the Angels can be kept apart. 2 De gigantibus, 2 (i. 263); De somnits,i. 22 (1.642): Tavras daipovas pev of dAAot pidcaodot, 6 5é iepds Adyos ayyéAous elwOe Kadrety. * As Ideas certainly: see note above. Zeller, p.619. De profugis, 18 (i. 560) Philo counts six powers corresponding in number to the Cities of Refuge. His enumeration is: (1) Oefos Adyos; (2) 4 Torii Sdvapus ; (3) 9 Baowrurn ; (4) 7 tAews ; (5) % vopoberinn ; (6) 6 Kdcpos vonTds. 2 and 4 belong to Goodness, 3 and 5 to Justice, 6 is a mere etcetera=all the Ideas. hi] | | Lhe Powers. 13 Justice of the Eternal’. The former, the older and stronger Power, is generally intended in Scripture by the word God, the latter by the word Lord, which Philo apparently did not understand to be used merely as a substitute for the Ineffable Name’. If it be asked whether the Powers are persons or not, it is difficult to find a satisfactory reply. In one point of view they are mere abstractions. But in the mind of the Jew these scholastic entities tend inevitably to become things, living beings. The Powers are ideas, but then again they are God's agents, who create the ideas, and stamp them on matter. They are the two Cherubim* who keep the gates of Paradise, the two Angels who entered Sodom*. Yet Philo never for a moment regards them as existing apart from their source. They are the breath of God’s mouth. They are as rays of the sun, which at first are pure, and as incomprehensible as their source, but, as they shoot down through the dim air, lose their fire while retain- ing their light. Otherwise they would destroy what their mission is to cherish and preserve °. ' The names vary. The First, the better and elder, is Oeds, 4 mounrixn, ayaborns, xapioTich, evepyetis ; the Second is Kvpios, 7 Bacidixn, apxn,éfovcia, 9 vopobeTiKH, KoAaoTLKn. Siegfried, p. 213; Dahne, i. 231. ? Siegfried, p. 203. * De Cherub. g (i. 144). * De Abr. 24.25 (ii. 19). In Gen. xvii. 1 the words &p6n kvpios are explained to mean that the Baodcxr Svvayis appeared to Abraham. In Gen. xviii. 2 the three men are 6 O¢€0s Sopuvpopovpevos tnd Svely TOY dvwrarw duvdpewy, Gpxjs Te ad Kal aya0dTnTOos, but the following words again seem to destroy the personality of the Powers, eis dv 6 pécos tpiTTds payTacias éverpyacero TH dpatixn Yuxn, de SS. Abelis et Caint, 15 (i. 173). ° Leg. Alleg. i. 13 (i. 51); Quod Deus Im. 17 (i. 284); Sieg. p. 216. A point which makes against the personality of the Powers is the way in which they can be broken up and combined; see Dihne, i. p. 242 sqq.; 14 Philo, [ Lect. In all this Philo was following in the track of earlier Jewish speculation’. The Rabbis of Palestine had made many efforts to penetrate the mystery of the creatures who in Ezekiel’s vision sustain the chariot- throne of the Almighty, and found in them a symbol of the divine justice and goodness. The subject was treated as a profound mystery, and there was a party which discouraged all attempts to pry into it. Only four men, it was said, had penetrated this magic garden, and one only, the great Akiba, had returned in safety. But the Hellenists of Alexandria were more audacious. They had ‘eaten too much honey,’ and intoxicated by the sweets, of which they had rifled the hives of the Greeks, they dared to speak of the Powers in a way that seemed to impair the unity of God. They had ventured even farther. The duality of Persons did not satisfy their craving for philosophic completeness. Behind this pair of persons, or personifications, there must be one more puissant Being, one more compre- hensive generalisation. This was the Logos, a term which Philo found already in use. Logos* is a phrase of the Hellenic schools. It has a Gfrorer, Phzlo, p. 239. The fact is that Philo wavers between the one mode of conception and the other. .This applies to the Logos also. See Zeller, iii. 626. For this section see Siegfried, p. 211 sq. 2 An excellent account of those Jewish speculations which paved the way for the Alexandrine Logos theory will be found in Siegfried, pp. 219 sqq. The actual title Logos comes to Philo in a direct line from the Greek Pantheists Heraklitus and the Stoics. The reason why he preferred this title to that of Idea is to be found in the Biblical ‘ Word of God.’ To the Stoic the Adyos xowvds, the Adyos orepparixds is the Divine Force, the Azzma Mundi of which Virgil sings—Aen. vi. 724: ‘ Principio caelum ac terras..’ Spiritus intus alit, totamque infusa per artus Mens agitat molem et magno se corpore miscet.’ It is resolvable ultimately into the Divine Matter. ‘ Es durfte nur dieser stoischen Logoslehre durch die Unterscheidung des Logos ny The Logos. rs long history, and had already gathered round itself many associations, that fitted it for the new part it was now to assume. \ It denotes with equal facility the uttered word, the reasoning mind, or again a plan, scheme, system. It is the Platonic Idea of Good, the Stoic World-Spirit, or Reason of God, immanent in creation which it fosters and sustains. Round this heathen stem clustered a number of ideas that were floating in solution in the schools of the Jews—the Shechinah, the Name of God, the Ten Words of Creation that might perhaps be One, the great Archangel and chief of the Chariot-bearers, Metatron, the Heavenly Man, the High Priest. Philo has gathered together from East and West every thought, every divination, that could help to mould his sublime con- ception of a Vicegerent of God, a Mediator between the Eternal and the ephemeral. His Logos reflects light from countless facets. It is one of those creative phrases, struck out in the crisis of projection, which mark an epoch in the development of thought. What the Logos became in. the hands of Philo we shall see most clearly by considering him in his fourfold relation—to God—to the Powers—to the World—and to Man. In his relation to God he is first of all Wisdom’. von der Gottheit ihr pantheistisches, durch seine Unterscheidung von dem gebildeten Stoff ihr materialistisches Geprage abgestreift werden, und der Philonische Logos war fertig’ (Zeller, iii. 630). The word is emptied, that is to say, of its trye Stoic significance, and becomes partly the Idea, partly the Agent by whom the idea is impressed upon matter. 1 The precise relation of Wisdom to the Logos is by no means without difficulty, for here as everywhere Philo’s language fluctuates. Some have maintained that they are identical. Dihne, i. p. 221, thinks that Sophia is a ‘theilkraft’ of the Logos; so that Logos may always be used for Sophia, but not the reverse. But Siegfried points out (p. 222, cp. p. 215) that Sophia is sometimes spoken of as the higher principle, the Fountain or 16 Philo. [ Lect. Already, in the Book of Proverbs’, Wisdom appears as the eternal Assessor of the Most High—‘ When He prepared the heavens I was there.’ In the Alexandrine Book of Wisdom”, written probably under Stoic influ- ences, this Power assumes new titles and significance. He is ‘the loving Spirit of the Lord that filleth the earth, holy, only-begotten, ‘the brightness of the ever- lasting light, the unspotted mirror of the Power of God, the image of His Goodness.’ Philo is but translating this hymn of praise into scientific terminology, when he calls the Word the Intelligible World, that is the sum of the thoughts of God, or again the Idea of Ideas, which imparts reality to all lower ideas, as they in turn to all sensible kinds. The Word is the whole mind of God, considered as travelling outside itself, and expressing itself in act. Hence he is styled its Impress, its Like- ness, its House. This is his abstract Greek side. In his more realistic Hebrew aspect he is the Schechinah or glory of God; or again, as that glory falls upon our sight only veiled and dimmed, he is the Shadow of God. And Mother, of the Logos. The differing gender of the two words in Greek, the one being feminine and the other masculine, was a difficulty. This Philo endeavoured to solve in the curious allegorism on the name of Bethuel, De Prof. 9 (i. 553). Bethuel signifies ‘daughter of God,’ that is, Wisdom. But this virgin daughter is father of Rebecca, that is, Patience. So all the virtues have feminine names (in Greek), because’ in relation to God they are derivative and receptive. But in relation to us they are mas- culine. Hence we may say that Wisdom, the daughter of God, is a man and a father, begetting in the soul knowledge, understanding, and all good and praiseworthy actions. The drift of this passage is no doubt to blend the Logos with Sophia. The confusion of gender with sex offers a curious instance of the tendency of Philo’s mind to turn abstractions into things. A ryAilei7 ani NOT Vil22 Sqq; $ De Mundi Ofif. © (i. 5). For the numerous other passages referred to in this account of the Logos it is sufficient to refer generally to Siegfried and Grossmann. ay The Logos. 17 growing ever more definite and personal, he is the Son, the Eldest Son, the Firstborn of God. Many of the divine titles are his by right. He too is the Sun, the Darkness, the Monad, God 14, the Second God. In his relation to the other Powers, again, there is the same graduated ascent from the abstract to the real. If the Powers are Ideas, the Word is their Sum. He is the Book of Creation, in which all the subordinate Essences .ate words. = But, again, he: is: their Creatog, the King’s Architect, in whose brain the plan of the royal city is formed. He stands between them divid- ing, yet uniting, like the fiery sword between the Gherubimyat the gates of; Edens He tis their leader, their Captain, their Charioteer, the Archangel of many names. As regards the world he is on the one side the Arche- typal Seal, the great Pattern according to which all is made. He is the Divider, in so far as he differentiates, and makes each thing what it is. He is the Bond, in so far as all existence depends on the permanence of form. Hence in him both worlds, the intelligible and the sen- sible, form one great whole, a figure of which is the vesture of the High Priest. On the head is the plate of gold with its legend ‘ Holiness to the Lord;’ the blue, the purple, the scarlet of the robe are the rainbow web of Nature; the bells about the feet, whose silver sound is heard when Aaron goeth into the Holy Place, signify the rapt joy of the human spirit when it penetrates into the divine mysteries. The robe is woven of one piece, and may not be rent, because the Word binds all 1 @eds, but not 6 Oeds, De Somn. 39 (i. 655); the distinction recurs in Origen. C 18 Philo. [ Lect. together in life and harmony’. So far we are still breathing Greek air. But then again the Word is the Instrumental Cause, the Organ of Creation. He is the Creator, the Helmsman, and Pilot of the universe. ‘God with justice and law leads His great flock, the four elements and all that is shaped thereof, the circlings of sun and moon, the rhythmic dances of the stars, having set over them His upright Word, His Firstborn Son, who will receive the charge of this holy flock as a Vicegerent of the Great King’. Here Philo is thinking, not of Wisdom, but of the mighty ‘God said’ of the Book of Genesis. The word is, not the Spirit only, or the Mind, but the Will of God °. But the crowning interest of these speculations depends on their relation to human life. What is this Son of God to us? The answer is given by the peculiar position of the Logos, who stands between God and Man partaking of both natures. For Man, as regards his reason, is the image of the Logos, as the Logos is the image of God. Hence the Logos is the Mediator, the Heavenly Man *, who represents in the eyes of God the whole family upon earth. He is not indeed the point of union, because we may rise above him. The knowledge which 1 See the beautiful passage in De migrat. Abr. 18 (i. 452). Cp. De Vita Mos. iii. 14 (ii. 155). 2 De Agric. 12 (i. 308). * Canon Westcott (Jutrod. to the Gosfel of St. John, p. xvi) maintains that the Logos of St. John is derived, not from Philo, but from the Palestinian Schools, mainly on the ground that in Philo Logos is Reason and not Will. But to a Platonist like Philo there is no difference between Reason and Will. And the passages referred to in the text are sufficient to show that the Logos of Philo is conceived of as ‘a divine Will sensibly manifested in personal action.’ * Siegfried, p. 221. i} The Logos. 19 he gives is a lower knowledge, the knowledge of God in Nature, and our allegiance to him is therefore but temporary and provisional. But he is necessary as the door, through which we must pass to direct communion with his Father. Here Philo could borrow no light from the Greeks, to whom the idea of Mediation was foreign; though, as we shall see, there were elements in the current Platonism, which were readily adapted to this end}. The Logos then is first the Prophet of the Most High, the Man whose name is the Dayspring, the Eternal Law. He is the Giver of the divine Light and / therefore the Saviour, for to the Platonist sin is dark- ness. But it is not enough that our eyes should be opened. For the visual ray within us is weakened or quenched by vice, our rebellions have alienated us from God. We need therefore an Atonement. Still more do we need strength and sustenance. All these requirements are satisfied by the Logos. For his atoning function Philo found a fitting symbol ready to hand in the High Priest”, who since the days of the Exile, in the abeyance of the throne, had risen in Jewish eyes to a dignity almost superhuman. His vesture, as we have seen, was the type of the whole world, for which he interceded with its Maker. He alone 1 See the doctrine of the Demons in Lecture vii. ? See Siegfried, p. 221. The four prayers uttered by the High Priest on the Day of Atonement, ‘most precious fragments of the Liturgy of the Old Testament Temple worship,’ will be found in Delitzsch (Zar Geschachte der Jiid. Poesie, pp. 184 sqq.). The first three, pronounced by the High Priest with his hand on the head of the sin offering, were (i) for himself and family ; (ii) for the sons of Aaron; (iii) for the whole people. The fourth was uttered immediately on leaving the Holy of Holies. In each the Inefiable Name was pronounced three times. C2 20 Philo. | [ Lect. might pronounce the Ineffable Name. He alone might enter into the Holy of Holies, behold the glory of God, and yet live. He held this high prerogative, because when he entered into the sanctuary he was, says Philo with an audacious perversion of the text, ‘not a man.’ The true High Priest is sinless; if he needs to make an offering and utter prayer for himself, it is only because he participates in the guilt of the people, whom he represents. Thus the Word is the Supplicator, the Paraclete, the Priest who presents the soul of man ‘with head uncovered’ before God”. He is figured by Aaron, who stands with burning censer between the living and the dead. ‘I stand,’ Philo makes him say, ‘between the Lord and you, I who am neither un- created like God nor created like you, but a mean between the two extremes, a hostage to either side ®.’ And as he teaches, as he atones, so he feeds and sus- tains his people, falling upon every soul as the manna fell like dew upon the whole earth. In this sense he is Melchisedech, priest of the Most High God, King of Salem, that is of peace, who met Abraham returning from his victory over the four. kings, and refreshed him with the mystic Bread and Wine?*. * De Somn. ii. 28. (i. 684): 6tav yap, pnoty, icin eis TA Ayia TaY ayiwv 6 dpxvepevs, avOpwmos ovx eota (Lev. xvi. 17). Tis ovv ei pr avOpwros ; dpa ye Oeds ; Pree her. 6 (i. TA1): > Quis Rerum Div. Her. 42 (i. 502). * Ammon (= Sense) and Moab (=the Intellect divorced from God) refused Israel bread and water. ‘ But let Melchisedec give wine instead of water, and réfresh the soul with pure juice of the grape, that it may be possessed by divine intoxication, more sober than sobriety itself. For he is the Priest Word,’ Leg. Alleg. iii. 26 (i. 103). id. 56 (4. 119) Philo goes on to explain what is this heavenly food of the soul. It is Light, true Education, the knowledge of God, which is given by the Word. The passage is referred to by Clement, S¢rom. iv. 26. 161. 1 Lhe Two Lives. oI Such a division in the divine nature leads to a corresponding distinction in the moral and spiritual life. To know God in His Powers is one thing, to know Him in Himself is another and a higher. The first is the life of Faith, Hope, Discipline, Effort, the second is that of Wisdom, Vision, Peace. Those who are still struggling upwards in obedience to the Word are servants, whose proper food is milk; those who have emerged into the full light are grown men, the friends of God, the seeing Israel’. ‘How terrible is this place,’ cried Jacob awaking from his dream, ‘ this is none other than the House of God.’ So the soul starting up from the sleep of indifference 1 Philo divides men into two great classes, in each of which there are several subdivisions. I. The godless, the non-moral, the Fool. His guide is the lower intelligence; see De A@igr. Abr. 12 (i. 446): mopeverar 5é 6 appwyv 5 dyporépwy, Ovpov Te Kal émOvpias dei, pndéva Siarelnwv xpovor, Tov Hvioxov kat BpaBevriv Adyov GmoBadwv. His highest faculty is lost or debased ; he has nothing but the vovs yivos, pikocwparos, didotabns. To this class belong the Sensualist, such as Ham (= Oépyy, Fever); the vain Sophist, such as the ‘archer’ Ishmael; the Sceptic, such as Cain; the self- seeking politician, such as Joseph. II. The Moral, Spiritual Life. This has two stages—that of the Babe, that of the Perfect. De Afigr. Abr. 9g (i. 443): €repos vntiwv Kal Erepos TeAciwy xGpds éotiv, 6 piv dvopaCdpevos dornots, 6 5 Kadovpevos copia. Their food is vymia kal yadaxTwodns: zbid. 6 (i. 440). The Lower Stage has three subdivisions—doxnois, padnoss, gua: De Som.i. 27 (i. 646). The consummation—the Higher Stage— whether attained by moral discipline, intellectual training, or natural development, is Wisdom, Perfection. See Siegfried, pp. 249 sqq-; Dahne, pp. 341 sqq. The two stages are the Bios mpaxtixés, the Bios Oewpytixds of the Greek philosophers; the mpokxomn and codia of the later Stoics; but with this difference, that in Philo both stages are religious. The three avenues to perfection are given by Aristotle, Diog. Laert. v. 18: tpi@v épn Setv tmadeiay picews pabnoews doxnoews. But Philo regards them as characteristic of three distinct classes of learners, while the pagan philosopher regarded them as means of im- provement which must be employed in combination by every learner. Hence the three classes of Proficients in Seneca, #/zs¢/e 75, answer to different degrees of progress, not to different lines of progress. This, as will be seen, is nearly Clement’s view. 22 Philo. [ Lect. learns with a shock of amazement, that the world is, not a tavern, but a temple. Wherefore it exclaims, ‘ It is not as I fancied, for the Lord is in this place.’ This sensible world is indeed the House of God, the gate of Heaven. For the spiritual world of ideas can be comprehended only by climbing upwards from what we see and feel. ‘Those who wish to survey the beauty of a city must enter in at the gate; so those who would contemplate the ideas must be led by the hand by the impressions of the senses'.’ We must know God as He is manifested to us in the experience of life, first by fear of His Justice, then by love of His Goodness, before we can attain to Jerusalem, the Vision of Peace. But the Powers are summed up in the Word. Hence the In- terpreter Word is the God of those that are imperfect, but of the wise and perfect the First God is King”. The knowledge of the Most High is Vision, the direct personal communion of a soul that no longer reasons but feels and knows. It was reached by Abraham through learning, by ‘the wrestler’ Jacob through moral effort, by Isaac, ‘the laughter of the soul,’ through the natural development of a sweet and gracious spirit. It is attainable, if not by all, yet by the purest and keenest sighted, if not in permanence, yet frequently. ‘I will not be ashamed to relate, says Philo, ‘what has hap- pened to myself a thousand times. Often when I have come to write out the doctrines of philosophy, though I well knew what I ought to say, I have found my mind 1 De Somn. 32 (i. 649). 2 Leg. Alleg. iii. 73 (i. 128) : ot Tos yap Hudv trav aredA@yv av ein Oeds, THY SE copay Kal TeAciwv 6 mp@ros. The difference between the knowledge of God in His works and the knowledge of God in Himself (the latter Philo calls the Great Mysteries) is explained in the sublime passage beginning Leg. Alleg. iii, 31 (i. 106). 1 Ecstasy. 23 dry and barren, and renounced the task in despair. At other times, though I came empty, I was suddenly filled with thoughts showered upon me from above like snow- flakes or seed, so that in the heat of divine possession I knew not the place, or the company, or myself, what I said, or what I wrote!’ Here then, but still in a singularly cool and tem- perate form, we have the second great doctrine of Neo- Platonism — Ecstasy, the logical correlative of the Absolute God. As held by Numenius and his fol- lowers it is certainly derived from Philo, though here again there was in Paganism a germ, which only needed fertilisation. The idea of a personal Revelation comes to Philo from the Prophetic Vision of the Old Testa- ment. It is already found in Plutarch?, by whom it is connected with the frenzy of the Pythoness or the Corybant. But its later systematic form and scientific grounding are historically connected with the specula- tions of the Alexandrine Jew. Such was the teaching of Philo so far as it falls within our present scope. We need not dwell upon its rela- tion to historic Judaism. Philo remained to the last a devout and trusted Jew. Yet he placed a new re- ligion, a Greek philosophic system, above the faith of ' De Migr. Abr. 7 (i. 441). See also the account of the ‘divine in- toxication ’ of Samuel’s mother, De Zdrietate, 36 (i. 380); Quzs Rerum Div. Heres. 14 (i. 482). De Vita Contemp. 2, 3 (ii. 473, 475) actual vision seems to have been enjoyed by the Therapeutae only in dreams. De Cher. 9 (i. 144) Philo says that he had learned the significance of the two Cherubim and the fiery sword : mapa Yuyijs éuts ciwvias TA TOAAG PeodAnmTEtaAat. 2 See De Pythiae Orac. 21,22; De def. Orac. 48; Amatorius, xvi. 4. Plutarch recognises only the official ecstasy of priest and prophetess. His attitude is apologetic; he has to explain how it is that the revelation is sometimes imperfect, deceitful, impure. Enthusiasm is a part of his religion, but not of his philosophy. See Zeller, vol. iii. 24 Philo. [ Lect. his fathers. He retained the Law as the worship of the Logos; high over this stands the free spiritual worship of the Eternal. The one is but the preparation, and in its ancient national form not even a necessary preparation, for the other. It will be obvious how this facilitated the task of the Christian teacher '. But what concerns us at present is his direct influence upon the Church. This falls into two branches, for it is probable that Philonism coloured the New Testament itself, and it is certain that it largely affected the after development of Christian doctrine. The first conse- quence is no doubt capable of exaggeration. The ideas of the purely Palestinian schools coincided in many points with those of the Alexandrines, of which they formed the basis, and it is perhaps by this fact rather than by any immediate contact that we should explain the resemblances of St. Paul, St. James, and even of the Epistle to the Hebrews, with Philo, But there can be little doubt that St. John acquired from Alexandria that conception of the Word, which first brought Christian theology within the sphere of metaphysics”. 1 Siegfried, pp. 157 sqq. 2 Not necessarily from Philo, if, as seems probable, the Logos doctrine is somewhat older than Philo’s time. The question turns mainly upon (i) the exact significance and (ii) the date of the Memra of the Targums. May- baum, Die Anthropomorphien und Anthropathien bet Onkelos, Breslau, 1870, maintains that in Onkelos ‘Word of God’ is a mere periphrasis for God, and is never regarded as having a hypostatic existence. Gfrorer, Jahrhundert des Hetls, i. 310 sqq., maintains the opposite, but regards the idea as unquestionably Alexandrine in origin. With this agrees the view of Dr. Edersheim, Zzfe and Times of Jesus the Messiah, vol. i. pp. 46, 56. Siegfried (p. 317) asserts that ‘it is universally acknowledged that John borrowed from Philo the name of Logos to express the manifestation of God. Herefers to Ballenstedt, Dahne, Gfrorer, Liicke, de Wette-Briickner, Dorner, Neander, Tholuck, Lutterbeck. Nevertheless his language is too peremptory. Ewald (v. 153 sqq.; vi. 277) holds that the doctrine of the 1] Influence of his Teaching. 35 -Philo’s influence upon the mind of post-apostolic times was partly helpful, partly detrimental. It was given to the Alexandrine Jew to divine the possibility and the mode of an eternal distinction in the Divine Unity, and in this respect the magnitude of our debt can hardly be overestimated. How large it is we may measure in part by the fact that the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, which has no place in his system, remained for a long time meagre, inarticulate, and uncertain. But the Logos is not Christ, is not the Messiah’. Far less is he Jesus, for from the Platonic point of view the Incar- nation is an impossibility. Hence though Philo supplied the categories, under which the work of Jesus continued to be regarded, his influence on this side was upon the Word grew up among the Jews and had become an article of the popular belief as well as a tenet of the schools. And that the book of Enoch shows that before the beginning of the second century B.c. the Word was~ identified with the Messiah. (Other authorities however regard the Book of Enoch as, in part at any rate, Christian.) Harnack, Dogmengeschichte, p- 79, note, says, ‘ Die Auffassung des Verhaltnisses von Gott und Welt im vierten Evangelium ist nicht die Philonische. . Daher ist auch die Logos- lehre dort im wesentlichen nicht die Philo’s.’ This is maintained at length by Dr. Westcott, Ztvoduction to the Gospel of St. John, pp. xv. sqq., and by Schanz,a recent Roman Catholic editor of thesame Gospel. But the difference, while sufficient to show that St. John is applying a partially heathen phrase to a wholly Christian conception, is byno means such as toexclude the possibility of connection, and in any case very little weight can be attached to this line of argument in default of proof that a homegrown Logos doctrine existed in Palestine before the time of St. John. Some importance is perhaps to be attached to the fact that in the Pseudo-Clementine Homdlies, a work whicgh seemsto be built upon a Palestinian system, we have God and the Two Powers but not the Logos. Yet the writer was acquainted with St. John, and would surely have given this title to the Son if he had found it current in the Palestinian schools. 1 The traces of a Messianic hope in Philo are very indistinct. De Zxecr. 9 (ii. 436) the dispersed of Israel shall return from exile: Eevaryovpevor mpos Tivos OeoTépas 4} Kata piow avOpwrivys (we should surely read dvOpwrivny) pews. Siegfried (p. 222) refers this to the Logos. Dine, p. 437, thinks it not improbable that the Logos is meant. 26 Influence of Philo. [Lect. whole hurtful. To Philo religion is the emancipation of the intelligence from the dominion of sense. In such a scheme knowledge is more than Faith}, For- giveness has no real place, and Vicarious Suffering no meaning. Such words as Atonement, Mediator, High Priest, could not mean to the Platonist what they must mean to the Christian, and down to the time of Clement Philo’s great name stood between the Church and a clear understanding of their real signification. Other parts of his legacy were more questionable - still—his vicious Allegorism, his theory of the Absolute God. But upon these we ‘shall be compelled to dwell at some length further on, and therefore need speak no more in the present place. Let us only add that ‘ Alexandrine intellectualism, though it leads to an over- estimate of human effort and to a self-centred concep- tion of virtue, has yet the great merit of finding blessed- ness in the soul itself. The Kingdom of God is within us, even in this life. Thus it affords the means for rectifying a tendency very prevalent in the early Church, that of looking for happiness only in another world as a compensation for suffering in this. Its * Philo speaks of Faith—the most perfect of virtues, the queen of virtues —in very splendid terms. See especially De Abrahamo, 46 (ii. 39); Quds Rerum Div. Heres. 18 (i. 486). But in section 21 of the last-named treatise it appears to be distinguished from codia in the same way as by Clement, as tlie cause of obedience, as the characteristic of the lower stage of the spiritual life. This indeed is a consequence of his system. But Philo has a clearer view that spiritual health is the one thing desirable, and is not hampered by the question that pressed heavily on Clement—what is the minimum condition of salvation? Hence his conception of Faith is nobler, it may be said more Pauline, than Clement’s. So again, not being troubled by the problem of Responsibility, he uses much stronger and grander language on the subject of Grace. See Siegfried, p. 307; Denis, Philosophie d’ Origtne, p. 222. I.] The Gnostics. 27 reward is holiness, the vision of God; its punishment is that of being what sinners are. Thus it is directly opposed in principle, if not always in practice, to the vulgar paradise of Chiliasm, and even to Asceticism. For Asceticism, as distinguished from temperance, rests, not upon the antithesis of spirit and matter, but upon ‘other-worldliness, the delusion that heaven can be purchased by self-torture in this life. Our view of the conditions out of which Christian Platonism sprung would be incomplete without a brief notice of Gnosticism’. It will be needless to enter into the confused details of the so-called Gnostic systems. The Aecons of Valentinus and others are but the Ideas of Plato seen through the fog of an Egyptian or Syrian mind. They were not understood to affect the unity of God, and, except as guardian Angels, play no practical part. Clement and Origen scarcely ever allude to them, and they have no place at all in the systems of Marcion and Basilides*. For us they have mainly this interest, 1 The standard authorities on the subject of Gnosticism are—Neander, Church History, vol. 2; Baur, Die Christliche Gnosis, Tiibingen, 1835 ; Matter, Westocre Critique du Gnosticisme, 2nd edition, Strasbourg and Faris, 1843; Lipsius, article Grostictsmus in Ersch and Gruber, Leipzig, 1860 ; Mansel, Grostic Heresies,1875. All except the last two are anterior in date to the publication in 1851 of six additional books of the Phzlosophumena which have given an entirely new view of Basilides. We are concerned entirely with what Lipsius counts as the second or Alexandrian stage of Gnosticism. The view taken in the following pages rests mainly on the Gnostic fragments which will be found colf€ctedin Stieren’s edition of Irenaeus, on the Excerpta ex Theodoto, and the general impression left on the mind by the study of Clement, Origen, and the Pseudo-Clementine Homz/ies. 2 To Valentinus the Aeons were simply the ideas, the thoughts of God. Tertullian, Adv. Valentin. iv: ‘Eam postmodum Ptolemaeus intravit, nominibus et numeris Aeonum distinctis in personales substantias, sed extra deum determinatas, quas Valentinus in ipsa summa divini- tatis ut sensus et affectus motus incluserat.’ This is confirmed by a striking extract from an Epistle of Valentinus given by Clement, S¢vom. ii. 20. 114; 28 _ Lhe Gnostics. [ Lect. that they complete the work of the Philonic analysis. God is finally separated from His attributes, the Acons of Reason and Truth, and becomes the Eternal Silence of Valentinus, the Non-existent God of Basilides?. It is a mistake to approach the Gnostics on the meta- physical side. There is a certain wild poetical force in Valentinus, but otherwise their world- philosophy is purely grotesque. The ordinary Christian controver- sialist felt that he had nothing to do but set out at unsparing length their tedious pedigrees, in the well- grounded confidence that no one would care to peruse them a second time. The interest, the meaning, of Gnosticism rest entirely upon its ethical motive. It was an attempt, a serious attempt, to fathom the dread mystery of sorrow and pain, to answer that spectral doubt, which is mostly crushed down by force—Can the world as we know it have been made by God? ‘Cease, says Basilides, ‘from idle and curious variety, and let us rather discuss the opinions, which even bar- barians have held, on the subject. of good and evil?’ ‘J will say anything, rather than admit that Providence is wicked?’ Valentinus describes in the strain of an ancient prophet the woes that afflict mankind. ‘I durst Stieren, /rezaeus, p.9g10. ut the same thing is probably true of Ptolemy and of Heracleon. The use of the word aeon by the Gnostic writers them- selves is obscure. I find it used to denote, (i) God; Heracleon afud Origen zz Joan. ii. 8 (Lomm, i. 117), Tov aigva 7 Ta ev TH ai@m. Hence 5 év aia, ibid. xiii. 19 (Lomm, ii. 33), is Jesus: (ii) Aeons=Ideas? =Emanations? Exc. ex Theod. 23, thid. 32, Exaotos Tav aiwvwy ibiov Exe TAnpwpa, Tiyv ovcuyiay ; (iii) Angels; Ac. ex Theod. 25, the Valentinians A€yovat Tos aidvas 6pwvipws TH Adyw Adyous, Here Acon=Adyos = Angels =Stars. So in section 7, dyvworos ovtv 6 natip ay 0éAncev yvwoOHvat Tots ai@ow : cp. St. Paul, Eph. ii. 7. As to the Guardian Angels, see below, p. 33. 1 Philos. vii. 21 : oTws ovK Ov eds emoinoe Kécpov ovK GvTa é€ OvK OYTwY. * Stieren’s /renaeus, p. 90. 2 % Stieren’s Zrenacus, p. 903 ; Clem. Strom. iv. 12. 82. 1] Thar Ethical Motzve. 29 not affirm, he concludes, ‘that God is the author of all this?” So Tertullian says of Marcion, ‘like many men of our time, and especially the heretics, he is bewildered by the question of evil”. They approach the problem from a non-Christian point of view, and arrive therefore at a non-Christian solution. Yet the effort is one that must command our respect, and the solution is one that a great writer of our own time thought not untenable®. Many of them, especially the later sectaries, accepted the whole Chris- tian Creed*, but always with reserve. The teaching ‘of the Church thus became in their eyes a popular exoteric confession, beneath their own Gnosis, or Know- ledge, which was a Mystery, jealously guarded from all but the chosen few. They have been called the first Christian theologians. We may call them rather the first Freemasons. There is no better example of the cultivated Gnostic than Plutarch. Perplexed by the nightmare of physical and moral evil this amiable scholar could see no light except in the dualism of Zoroaster®. The world was created by Ormuzd, the spirit of Good, but Ahriman, the dark and wicked, had broken in and corrupted all. 1 From the remarkable fragment of the Dissertation on the Origin of Evil, Stieren’s /renaeus, p. 912. 2 Adv, Marcion. i. 2. 3 See J. S. Mill, Zhree Essays on Religion, ed. 1874, pp. 25,37, 58. Mr. Mill himself rejected the Dualistic solution; zdzd. p. 185. * Basilides accepted the whole of the Gospel narrative, P/z/os. vii. 27. So did Theodotus. Tertullian, Adv. Val. 1: ‘Si subtiliter tentes per ambiguitates bilingues communem fidem adfirmant.’ Irenaeus, Preface; 2: ods puddccey maphyyedkey tucv Kipios époia pev Aadoovtas, avdpuowa 5é ppovotvras. See the accounts of Cerdon, Irenaeus, iii. 4. 3, and Apelles, Eusebius, %. Z. v. 13 ; Harnack, Dogmengesch. p. 186. ° De Iside et Ostride, 45 sqq. 30 Guostic E-xegests. [Lect. From Plutarch sprang a succession of purely heathen . Gnostics, against whom, more than a century later, Plotinus felt it necessary to take up the pen’. Between these and the Gnostics known to Christian controversy there is no essential difference. Both start from the same terrible problem, both arrive at the same conclu- sion, the existence of a second and imperfect God. They identified this Being with the Creator or: Demi- urge, and ascribed to him the authorship of the whole, or the greater part, of the Old Testament. For, though they allegorised the New Testament, the Gnostics did not, in any of their voluminous commentaries, apply this solvent to the Hebrew Scriptures. These they criticised with a freedom learned from the Essenes?. They found there, side by side with the eternal spiritual law, the code of an imperfect and transient morality ; worse than all, they found there passion, revenge, and cruelty ascribed to the Most High. It is not possible to read the remarkable letter of Ptolemy to Flora, without perceiving that Old Testament exegesis was the real strength of Gnosticism. It was so power- ful because it was so true. On this one point they retained their advantage to the last. The facts were in the main as they alleged, and the right explanation depended on principles equally foreign, at that time, to Gnostic and to orthodox. Their views of religion, of salvation, were as various as their strange and perplexing cosmogonies. We may 1 Porph. Vita Plotinz, 16. * Compare the exegesis of the Pseudo-Clementine Homzlies with that of Ptolemy’s Zfzstle to Flora. ‘The author of the Homzlzes considered that he was refuting Gnosticism, but there was certainly a historical connection between his views and those of the Valentinians. See below, p. 34, I.] Guostic Christology. 31 leave out of sight the Paulinism of Marcion, and take as a type the system of Theodotus, a leader of the Eastern Valentinians, with whose writings Clement had an in- timate acquaintance’. Christ came, he taught, not for our redemption alone, but to heal the disorders of the whole universe. For Earth, and Heaven, and even God Himself, were diseased by the revolt of Wisdom, who in blind presumption had given birth to she knew not what. But for man’s sake Christ became Man 2, taking * It is doubtful what the Axcerpta ex Theodoto really are. ‘ Descripta videntur ex libris Hypotyposeon,’ says Valesius on Eus. H. Z. v. It. 2. Zahn, Forschungen zur Gesch. des N. T. Kanons, Erlangen, 1884, vol. iii. p. 122, thinks that they are a collection of extracts from the eighth book of the Stromateis. Renan, MJarc-Auréle, p. 118, regards them as a collection of extracts from the writings of the Valentinian Theodotus made by Clement for his own use, and this seems the best view. It is doubtful again who Theodotus was. Neander and Dorner think him the same as Theodotus the money-changer. Zahn inclines, rather fancifully, to identify him with the Theodas (if that is the right name; the reading is doubtful) of Strom. vii. 17. 106, the disciple of Paul and teacher of Valentinus, and thinks that there may have been a book bearing the name of this supposed pupil of the Apostle. It should be added that Theodotus is referred to by name only five times, and that much of the information for which Clement refers vaguely to ‘the Valentinians ’ may come from some other source. The text is ex- ceedingly obscure and corrupt. Bunsen, Anal. Ante-Nic. vol. i, gives the conjectural emendations and Latin translation of Bernays. The accusations brought by Photius against the orthodoxy of Clement mayrest in part upon a misunderstanding of this curious and difficult treatise. See also Dr. West- cott’s article, Clement of Alexandria, in the Dictionary of Christian Biography. ? The Christology of Theodotus differs somewhat from that ascribed to Valentinus by the author of the Phzlosophumena. (i) The Only-Begotten God (§ 6; this is I suppose the earliest authority for this reading in John i. 18), Nous, Aletheia, Logos, Zoe appear to be only different names for the Spirit of Knowledge, the zpoBod7, or externalised thought of God. (ii) Christ is a mpoBoAyH of exiled Wisdom who returns to the mAnpwpa to beg aid for his mother, is detained there, and apparently united to the Only-Begotten; §§ 23, 39, 44. (iii) Jesus the mpoBoAy of all the Aeons is sent forth to comfort Wisdom; § 23. (iv) Jesus is never separated from the Only-Begotten ; §§ 7,.43. (v) Jesus descends to the world through the realm of Space, that is the Demiurge, and takes to himself the Psychic 32 Lhe Gnostics. The Three Natures. [ULect. upon Him our threefold nature, body, soul, and spirit, though His body was spiritual, not gross as ours. Yet He is not the Saviour of all, but of those only who can receive Him, and in so far as they can receive Him}. Some there are who cannot know Him, these are they who have flesh but not soul, who perish like the beasts. Some again, the spiritual, are predestined to life eternal’. They are akin to the light, knowledge once given leads them on inevitably to perfection, annihil- ating all their earthly passions. Between these hover ‘the psychic, the feminine souls, to whom faith is granted, but not knowledge. Before the coming of Christ these were creatures of destiny, the sport of evil angels, whom they could not resist ®. But the Incarna- tion and Baptism of our Lord broke their bonds, and by faith and discipline they become capable of eternal ie =. In that future existence the soul needs no body, for Christ, § 59, the mpoBod7 of the Demiurge, § 47—that is to say, his vovs assumes a ~ux7j—and.weaves for Himself a body €x ris adavovs Yuyxixts ovotas, § 59. (vi) He was born of the Holy Ghost and the Virgin; § 23. The whole of the Gospel narrative then follows. 1 § 7: 6 5@ abrés éoTt ToLOVTOS BY ExAOTw oios KexwpHoOa SiuaTat. 2 § 56: TO pe ovy mvevpatikoy pice cwCopevov, TO 5é YuyxiKdv adTEefova.ov dv émTndedtnTa €xe mpds Te TioTW Kal apOapaiay Kal mpds admortiay Kal pOopav Kata TH oikeiav aipecw, TO Se bAtKoy g¥oe amddAAvTA. The Spiritual, the Elect, are masculine, children of Adam; the Psychic, the Called, are feminine, children of Eve; § 21. This idea is found in the Homilies. The Spiritual must be ‘shaped’ by knowledge; §§ 57, 59: the Psychic must be ‘ grafted on to the fruitful olive;’ § 56, ‘ changed’ from slavery into freedom, from feminine into masculine, §§ 57, 79. Unless they become spiritual they are burnt up in the fire, § 52, body and soul perish in Gehenna (proved by Matt. x. 28), § 51, that is to say before they rise to Paradise the fourth heaven, which earthly flesh may not enter, § 51: this last idea is based upon 2 Cor. xii. 2. > §§ 69-75. * §§ 76-78. a5] Gnostic Eschatology. 52 it is" itself aw body, as the Stoics taught’. It is im- mortal and for ever blessed. But there are degrees of felicity. The spiritual soar up at once through the seven planetary orbits to the Ogdoad, the region of the fixed stars, where is no more labour nor change. There they await the consummation, when Christ, the great High Priest, shall lay aside His soul, and enter through the Cross—that is the upper Firmament— into the Holy of Holies, taking with Him His children, now become pure Words like Himself. The Psychic are cleansed by fire, the sensible and the intellectual fire”, the pangs of sense, the stings of remorse. Aided and comforted by guardian angels?, who were ‘ baptised for them,’ while yet they were ‘dead in trespasses and 1 § 14, GdAa Kal H Yvx7) o@pa. For how, the author asks, can the souls who are chastised feel their punishments if they are not bodies? Corporeal also, though in an ever-ascending scale of fineness, are the demons, the angels, archangels and Protoctists, the Only-Begotten, and apparently even the Father; §§ Io, 11. 2 §' Si. 3 Theodotus appears to distinguish two classes of Angels ; those created by the Demiurge, who like all his works are imperfect copies of the existences of the spiritual world, § 47, and the ‘male angels,’ the creation of the Only-Begotten, § 21. It is by union with these that the ‘ female soul’ becomes masculine and capable of entering the Pleroma. It is these angels that are ‘baptised for the dead’ (1 Cor. xv. 29). Hence the Valentinian was baptised eis AvUrpwow dyyeArKnv, in the same Name in which his guardian Angel had previously been baptised; § 22. The male Angels came down with Jesus for our salvation, § 44, and ‘ pray for our forgiveness that we may enter in with them. For they may be said to have need of us that they may enter in, for without us this is not permitted to them ;’ § 35. Similar ideas will be found in the religion of Mithra, see below, Lecture vii, and in the Homilies, ix. 9 sqq. (though here the union is between the bad man and his demon). So Heracleon says (apud Origen 72 Joan. xiii. 11) that the Samaritan woman’s husband is her Pleroma. Cp. also Irenaeus, iii. 15. 2: ‘ est inflatus iste talis, neque in caelo neque in terra putat se esse, sed intra Pleroma introisse et com- plexum iam angelum suum.’ Also the Valentinian epitaph quoted by Renan, Jarc-Auréle, p. 147. D 24 Gnostic Eschatology. (Lect. sins, who love them, and yearn for them as their spiritual brides, they rise, through three ‘mansions’ or stages of discipline, to the Ogdoad their final home, their Rest’. Thus spirit, soul, and body, the com- mingling of which is the cause of all evil and suffering, are finally separated into their appointed places, and the healing work of Christ is achieved. It is not diffi- cult to trace here a barbaric Platonism, mingled with Mazdeism, coloured by the influence of the Ebionites, and strangely refracted echoes of St. Paul*. . St. Paul 1 Jesus in his descent puts on the Psychic Christ in 7ézos, Space, the realm of the Demiurge; § 59. It was the Psychic Christ, that is the Human Nature, that died, § 61, and now sits on the right hand of the Demiurge, § 62, till the Restitution, ‘in order that he may pacify Space and guarantee a safe passage for the Seed into the Pleroma,’ § 38. Then He lays aside ~uxyn and o@pa and passes through the Veil, § 27, taking ‘with him His children, His Body, the Church, § 42. Till then the elect await Him in the Ogdoad, the eighth heaven, the changeless region of the fixed stars, §§ 26, 63, becoming Words, Intelligent Aeons, Adyor, ai@ves voepol, §§ 27, 64. At the same time the Psychic rise from the Kingdom of the Demiurge to the Ogdoad, § 63. * The barbaric cast of their Philosophy may be seen in the grotesque character assumed by the ‘Logoi or Aeons in the popular systems, in the crude description of the Non-Existent Ged by Basilides, and generally in the Gnostic incapacity for abstract ideas. Thus the inner Veil which divides the Ogdoad from the Pleroma, the world of Ideas, is Heaven. But one derivation given for the word ovpaydés is dpos, a boundary or division. Horos might mean a pole, such as Greeks employed to mark the limits of a field, Hence the upper firmament might be called =raupés, the Cross which divides believers from unbelievers; Axcerfta, § 42. The passions were conceived of in Stoic fashion as actual bodies hanging on to the soul, the mpocaprjpata or mpoopuns yuxn. Man thus becomes, says Clement, a kind of Trojan Horse; Strom. ii. 20. 112 sqq. As to the Mazdeism, there is clear historical proof of the connection of Gnosticism with the system of Zoroaster ; cp. Lect. vii, the passages referred to above from Plutarch and Porphyry, Duncker, vol. v. pp. 53 sqq. of the English translation. As to Ebionitism, I notice the following points of resemblance between Theodotus and the //omz/es—Anthropomorphism—the Syzygies— the antitheses of Male and Female, Fire and Light, Right and Left—the union of the soul with its Angel—the idea that the Water of Baptism quenches the fire of sin, suggesting or suggested by the ancient reading in I.] — Results of Gnosticism. 35 was held in high esteem by these sectaries, and to their sinister admiration is largely due the neglect of his special teaching in the early Church. This Dualism, this Fatalism, for the three natures are a modified fatalism, are vain and worse than vain. They belong to a lower stage of religious life, above polytheism, yet far below Christianity. From this semi-barbarism spring all the faults of Gnosticism, its conceit, its uncertain morality, its chimeras, its peremp- tory solutions of the insoluble. Like all half-truths it perished self-convicted, melting away like Spenser's woman of snow in presence of the living Florimell. It left a certain mark upon Catholicism, and partly by shaking the older faiths, partly by preparing men’s minds for a better belief, partly by compelling the leaders of the Church to ask what they believed and why they believed it, aided not inconsiderably in the triumph of the Gospel, and in the development of the Creed!. But in the second century, while it was yet living and aggressive, it constituted a danger greater than the Arian controversy, greater than any peril that has ever menaced the existence of the Faith. Matt. iii. 15, which tells how a fire shone in the Jordan at the baptism of Jesus. Lastly, the doctrine of several Incarnations of Jesus is found in the Excerpta, § 19. Zahn is therefore mistaken in saying (p. 123) that there is no trace of Ebionitism in the Christology of Clement’s Theodotus. * The first philosophical statement of the Real Presence is to bé found Excerpta, § 82. To Gnostics ‘is due the importation of the words ovcia, imdatagis, dpoovoros into theology. They held the Virgin in high honour ; Renan, J/arc-Auréle, p.145. They were the first to speculate on the date of the Nativity, S¢vom. i. 21. 145, and to attempt the portraiture of Christ ; Tren. i. 25.6. Beyond this I see nothing but the influence of antagonism. See however Harnack, Dogmengeschichte, pp. 185 sqq. er Wa de That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.—ST. JOHN i. 9. ACCORDING to the earliest tradition, that which is preserved in the Pseudo-Clementine Homilies, Chris- tianity was first preached in the streets of Alexandria by Barnabas?. But for ages the Egyptians have attri- buted the foundation of their Church to St. Mark, the interpreter of St. Peter. Ata later date the Patriarchs of Alexandria were elected beside the tomb of the Evangelist in the great church of Baucalis, the most ancient ecclesiastical edifice in the city, in close prox- imity to the wharves and corn-magazines of the crowded harbour. At the close of the second century the Church of Alexandria was already a wealthy and flourishing com- munity. Its warfare is said to have been comparatively bloodless. Three times within a hundred years Egypt had endured all the horrors of unsuccessful rebellion, and once a sanguinary riot had been occasioned by the dis- 1 Hom.i. 8 sqq. The claims of Mark find no support from Clement. But Bishop Lightfoot thinks there is no reason to doubt the tradition ; Philippians, p. 223, ed. 1873. See Redepenning, Origenes, i. p. 185, note. The sources employed for this sketch of the history of the Alexandrine Church are Contextio Gemmarum sive Eutychii Patr. Alex. Annales, Pocock, Oxford, 1656; Eutychii Orzgznes Eccl. Alex., Selden, London, 1642; Le Quien, Oriens Christianus ; Renaudot, Historia Patriarcharum Alex. Jacobitarum; Neale, Holy Eastern Church. Some information is to be gathered from the Ovacula Sibyllina, see Excur. in Alexandre’s ed., and much from Clement. Origen’s church was that of Palestine. The letter of Hadrian to Servianus in Vopiscus, Vzta Saturnint, is regarded as a forgery by Mommsen, vy. p. 579 note. The A lexandrine Church. EW; covery of the Apis bull’. Amid scenes like these the Christians no doubt bore their full share of suffering. But down to the time of Severus there appears to have been no definite persecution of the faith*. The execu- tion of Christians was in general a concession to the mob, and it is probable that in Alexandria in ordinary times the populace was held down by a much more severe restraint than elsewhere, the Emperors being always nervously apprehensive of any disturbance by which the supply of corn might be interrupted. Under these favouring circumstances the Church had spread with great rapidity. Already the house-church of the first age had been replaced by buildings specially con- structed for the purposes of Christian worship %, and it would seem therefore that the right of holding land was enjoyed, perhaps under some legal fiction, by the Alexandrine, as it certainly was by the African and Roman communities*. In other matters the Egyptian 1 In 115 the Jews of Egypt and Cyrene revolted, and were quelled by Marcius Turbo. The rebellion of Barcochba extended to Egypt, and in the reign of Marcus occurred the insurrection of the Bucoli; see Mommsen, v. 581. The Apis sedition is recorded in Spartian’s Life of Hadrian, 12. 2 Clement says (Strom. ii. 20. 125), july 5€ apOovae paptipav mnyai ExdoTns Huepas év GPOadpois Hu@y Oewpovpevar TapoTTwpévav avacKivdvAEVvO- Hevwv Tas Kepadds amoTeuvopévwy. He may be speaking of sufferings in other countries, or Christian blood may have been shed in Alexandria before the official commencement of the persecution of Severus. See Aubé, Les Chrétiens dans ’ Empire Romain, pp.117sqq. Nevertheless persecution was always going on more or less in every province where the governor happened to be weak or hostile. Since the discovery of the Greek text of the Acts of the Scillitan martyrs, this tragedy is known to have occurred in 180, a time otherwise of peace: see Gorres, Jahrd. fiir Prot. Theol. 1884, parts ii and iil. ’ Clement speaks of ‘ coming from church’ just as we do, Paed. ii. 10. 96, pndé &€ éxxAnotas, pépe, 7) dyopas Hxovra, but does not like Origen refer to the arrangements of the building. See on this subject Probst, Azvchleche Disciplin, pp. 181 sqq. * «Areae Christianorum’ are mentioned by Tertullian, dd Scapulam, 3. 38 The Alexandrine Church. [ Lect. Church seems to have moved less rapidly than its neigh- bours. The traces of a written liturgy in Clement are scanty and vague!. The Eucharist was not yet disjoined from the Agape. Infant Baptism was not yet the rule. Discipline was not so severe as elsewhere. The Bishop was not yet sharply distinguished from the Presbyter, nor the Presbyter and Deacon from the lay-brother. The fidelity, with which the Alexandrines adhered to the ancient democratic model, may be due in part to the social standing and intelligence of the congregation. The same reason may account for their immunity from many of the ecclesiastical storms of the time. Gnosti- cism indeed was rampant in this focus of East and West. But of Noetianism, of the Easter controversy, of Montanism hardly a sound is to be heard ”. About the same time Callistus was overseer of the cemetery at Rome; Philos. ix. 12. + Probst (Zzturgie, p. 9) gives reasons for supposing that the first sketch of a written Liturgy existed in the middle of the second century, and (zdzd. pp- 135 sqq.) finds in Clement traces of a Liturgy resembling in its main out- lines that given in the eighth book of the Apostolical Constitutions. It is most difficult to say what precise facts underlie Clement’s allusive phrases. The only passages, so far as I know, in which written formularies may be re- ferred to are Strom. vii. 12. 80, where Ta (@a Ta SofdAoya Ta Sia “Hoaiov ad- Anyooovpeva seem to allude to the Trisagion uttered by the Cherubim and Seraphim (Renaudot, Lzturgiarum Orient. Collectio,i. p. 46), and Protrep. , Xl. 111, where the ‘ outstretched hands of Christ’ may be explained by a phrase in the ancient Alexandrine Liturgy translated by Ludolfus, from the Ethiopic (in Bunsen, W7zpfolytus, iv. p. 242), ‘ut impleret voluntatem tuam et populum tibi efficeret expandendo manus suas.’ For the Agape and Infant Baptism, see next Lecture. ? Of Noetianism Clement does not speak. He wrote a treatise epi tov maoxa, in which he considered the relation of St. John’s narrative to that of the Synoptists ; see the Fragments, the best account is that of Zahn, Forsch- ungen, iii. p. 32); and the Kava éxxAno.acrikds 7 mpds Tovs tovdaiCovTas may have been directed against the Quartodecimans (see Zahn, 22d. p. 35). The Treatises (Sermons, Zahn thinks) on Fasting and the promised but not written treatise on Prophecy were certainly aimed at the Montanists, whom he mentions with forbearance, Strom. iv. 13. 93; vi. 8. 66. But II.] The Alexandrine Church. “<3 Nevertheless wealth and numbers brought dangers of their own, and Alexandria was driven along the same road which other Churches were already pursuing. The lowering of the average tone of piety and morals among the laity threw into stronger relief the virtues of the clergy, and enabled them with a good show of justice and necessity to claim exclusive possession of powers, which had originally been shared by all male members of the Church. We can still trace the incidents, by which this mo- mentous change was effected. The most interesting feature in the Alexandrine Church was its College of twelve Presbyters, who enjoyed the singular privilege of electing from among themselves, and of consecrating, their own Patriarch!. They were the rectors of the twelve city parishes, which included certain districts he does not seem to have been troubled at home by either Montanism or Judaism. ' Contextio Gemmarum, p. 331: ‘ Constituit autem Evangelista Marcus, una cum Hanania Patriarcha, duodecim Presbyteros, quinempe cum Patriarcha manerent, adeo ut cum vacaret Patriarchatus unum e duodecim Presbyteris eligerent, cujus capiti reliqui undecim manus imponentes ipsi benedicerent et Patriarcham crearent ; deinde virum aliquem insignem eligerent quem secum Presbyterum constituerent loco eius qui factus est Patriarcha, ut ita semper extarent duodecim. Neque desiit Alexandriae institutum hoc de Presbyteris, ut scilicet Patriarchas crearent ex Presbyteris duodecim, usque ad tempora Alexandri Patriarchae Alexandrini qui fuit ex numero illo cccxvillI. Is autem vetuit ne deinceps Patriarcham Presbyteri crearent et decrevit ut mortuo Patriarcha convenirent Episcopi qui Patriarcham ordinarent... . Atque ita evanuit institutum illud antiquius.’ In Selden, p. xxxi. Cp. Jerome, Ep. 146 (in Migne), 4d Evangelum: ‘Nam et Alexandriae a Marco Evangelista usque ad Heraclam et Dionysium Episcopos Presbyteri semper unum ex se electum in excelsiori gradu collocatum Episcopum nominabant: quomodo si exercitus Imperatorem faciat.’ Eutychius also tells us that Demetrius was the first to appoint Suffragans. See Bishop Lightfoot, Phzdzppians, Excursus on the Christian Ministry. The inference that there was a prolonged struggle between the two orders is Ritschl’s Exntstehung der Altk. Kirche, 2nd ed. p. 432. 40° The Alexandrine Church. [ Lect. outside the walls. Even in the time of Epiphanius they exercised a sort of episcopal jurisdiction’. They formed a chapter, of which the Patriarch was President, and to this chapter all provincial letters were addressed. But towards the close of the second century their chief and distinguishing prerogative had been lost. While the Patriarch Julian lay upon his death-bed, he was warned by an angel in a vision, that the man, who next day should bring him a present of grapes, was destined to be his successor. The sign was fulfilled by Deme- trius, an unlettered rustic, and, what to later ages seemed even more extraordinary, a married man. In obedience to the divine warning Demetrius was seated almost by force in. the throne of St) Mark. ile proved) asters and enterprising ruler. He stripped the people of one of their few remaining privileges by the censure, which he pronounced on Origen for preaching while yet a layman, and he broke the power of the Presbyteral College by the appointment of a number of Suffragan Bishops, whom he afterwards persuaded to pass sentence of degradation upon Origen, a sentence which the Pres- byters had refused to sanction*. From this time the Chapter never succeeded in regaining its prerogative, though the struggle appears to have been protracted till the incumbency of the Patriarch Alexander. Thus was finally abolished this most interesting relic of a time, when there was no essential difference between Bishop and Priest, and of a later but still early time, when the Bishop was chairman or life-president of a i Epiphe ax, I. 2 Redepenning, Orzgenes, i. p. 412; Huet, Ovigenzana,i. 2. 12 (Lomm. xxil. 44); Photius, cod. cxviil. IL] The Catechetical School. AI council of Priests, by whom the affairs of a great city- church were administered in common. A large and rich community, existing in the bosom of a great University town, could not long submit to exclu- sion from the paramount interests of the place. Their most promising young men attended the lectures of the heathen professors. Some like Ammonius relapsed into Hellenism, some drifted into Gnosticism like Ambrosius, some like Heraclas passed safely through the ordeal, and as Christian priests still wore the pallium, or philoso- pher’s cloak, the doctor’s gown we may call it of the pagan Academy. Learned professors like Celsus, like Porphyry, began to study the Christian Scriptures with a cool interest in this latest development of religious thought, and pointed out with the acumen of trained critics the scientific difficulties of the Older Testament and the contradictions of the New. It was necessary to recognise, and if possible to profit by, the growing con- nection between the church and the _ lecture-room. Hence the catechetical instruction, which in most other communities continued to be given in an unsystematic way by Bishop or Priest, had in Alexandria developed about the middle of the century into a regular institu- tion. b This was the famous Catechetical School’. It still continued to provide instruction for those desirous of admission into the Church, but with this humble routine it combined a higher and more ambitious function. It was partly a propaganda, partly we may regard it asa 1 Schools of a similar description existed at Antioch, Athens, Edessa, Nisibis; Guerike, De Schola Alex. p. 2; Harnack, Dogmengeschichte, 50% sqq. 42 The Catechetical School. [Lect. denominational college by the side of a secular univer- sity. There were no buildings appropriated to the purpose. The master received his pupils in his own house, and Origen was often engaged till late at night in teaching his classes or giving private advice or in- struction to those who needed it. The students were of both sexes, of very different ages. Some were con- verts preparing for baptism, some idolaters seeking for light, some Christians reading as we should say for orders or for the cultivation of their understandings. There was as yet no rigid system, no definite classifica- tion of Catechumens, such as that which grew up a century later. The teacher was left free to deal with his task, as the circumstances of his pupils or his own genius led him. But the general course of instruction pursued in the Alexandrine school we are fortunately _ able to discover with great accuracy and fulness of detail. Those who were not capable of anything more were taught the facts of the Creed, with such comment and explanation as seemed desirable. Others, Origen tells us, were taught dialectically. The meaning of this phrase is interpreted for us by Gregory Thaumaturgus, one of the most illustrious and attached of Origen’s disciples. At the outset the student’s powers of reasoning and exact observation were strengthened by a thorough course of scientific study, embracing geometry, physiology, and astronomy. After science came philosophy. The writ- ings of all the theological poets, and of all the philoso- phers except the ‘godless Epicureans,’ were read and expounded. The object of the teacher was no doubt in part controversial. He endeavoured to prove the need of revelation by dwelling on the contradictions and imper- HW. The Catechetical School. 423 ) fections of all human systems, or he pointed out how the partial light vouchsafed to Plato or Aristotle was but an earnest of the dayspring from on high. But the attitude of Clement or Origen towards Greek thought was not controversial in any petty or ignoble sense. They looked up to the great master-minds of the Hellenic schools with a generous admiration, and infused the same spirit into their disciples. Philosophy culminated in Ethics, and at this point began the dialectic training properly so called. The student was called upon for a definition of one of those words that lie at the root of all morality, Good or Evil, Justice or Law; and his definition became the theme of a close discussion conducted in the form of question and answer. In the course of these eager systematic con- versations every prejudice was dragged to light, every confusion unravelled, every error convicted, the shame of ignorance was intensified, the love of truth kindled into a passion. So far the course pursued did not differ essentially from that familiar to the heathen schools. But at this point the characteristic features of the Chris- tian seminary come into view. We find them in the consistency and power, with which virtue was represented as a subject not merely for speculation but for practice —in the sympathy and magnetic personal attraction of the teacher—but above all in the Theology, to which all other subjects of thought were treated as ancillary '. It may be doubted whether any nobler scheme of Christian education has ever been projected than this, 1 The materials for this account will be found in Guerike and the Panegyric of Gregory Thaumaturgus (in Lomm. xxv. 339). Gregory is describing the teaching of Origen as he had profited by it in Caesarea. But the description will hold good of his earlier work at Alexandria. AA Clement. [Lect. which we find in actual working at Alexandria at the end of the second century after Christ. I have dwelt upon it at some length, partly because of the light it throws upon the speculations of the great Alexandrine divines, partly in view of the charges of ignorance and credulity so often levelled at the early Christians. The truth is, that so far as the Church differed from the rest of society it differed for the better. Whatever treasures of knowledge belonged to the ancient world lay at its command, and were freely employed in its service, and it possessed besides the inestimable advantage of purer morals and a more reasonable creed. The first master of the Alexandrine school is said to have been the Apologist Athenagoras. But the state- ment rests upon evidence so insufficient that we may be permitted to disregard it’. The teacher, under whom the institution first attains to a place in history, is Pantaenus, a converted Stoic philosopher’, who in the course of a mission journey to India is said to have discovered a Hebrew version of the Gospel of St. Mat- thew. He was an author of some eminence, but all that we possess of his writings is a fragment of some half-dozen lines, containing however a sensible and valuable remark on the relations of the Greek and the Hebrew verb. His pupil and successor was the more famous Clement. Titus Flavius Clemens was a Greek, and probably an Athenian®. He was born about the middle of the 1 The name of Athenagoras is found first in the list of masters of the Alexandrine school given by Philippus Sidetes in a fragment discovered by Dodwell. Guerike inclines to accept the statement. Redepenning, i. 63, regards it as' highly doubtful. See also Otto, Proleg. to Athenagoras, Pp. Xt. 2 See Guerike, Routh. * Epiph. xxxii. 6: KAnpns bv pact tives “AAcéavdpéa Erepor St AOnvatov. It II.] PLS Life. | 45 second century, and inherited his name in all likelihood from an ancestor enfranchised by Vespasian or his son. He was the child apparently of heathen parents}, and Eleusis and the Schools had been to him the vestibule of the Church. Like many another ardent spirit in that restless age he wandered far and wide in quest of truth, till at last in Egypt he ‘caught’ Pantaenus, ‘that true Sicilian bee,’ hidden away in modest obscurity, and in his lessons found satisfaction alike for soul and mind. Here at Alexandria he made his home. He received priestly orders *, and was appointed master of the Cate- chetical School, at first probably as assistant to Pan- taenus. He appears to have fled from the persecution of Severus in 203, and did not return to Egypt. After this date we catch but one uncertain glimpse of him °, and it would seem that he died about 213. It is not an eventful biography. Clement was essen- tially a man of letters, and his genial contemplative seems a natural inference from the account of his wanderings in Strom. i. I. 11 that he was not a native Alexandrine, and that his starting-point was Hellas. The statement that he was an Athenian is rendered probable by the character of his style, which is deeply tinged with Homeric phrases and bears a strong resemblance to that of Philostratus and the Sophists whom Philostratus describes, and again by his familiarity with Attic usage. see ior tiis*last pomt Pacd.1. 4. FX; 5. 145 il, 1%. 1175-12. 122. “But Dindorf, Preface, p. xxvii, tries to make him more Attic than he is. For the special bibliography of Clement the reader may consult Guerike, Dr. Westcott in Dictionary of Christian Biography, Jacobi’s article in Herzog, and Dr. Harnack’s Dogmengeschichte. 1 Eus. Praep. Ev. ii. 2.64, wavtov pev bid weipas edAOav dvnp, Oarrdv ye piv THs tAdyns avavevoas. We may perhaps infer from the knowledge of the Mysteries displayed in Protref. ii. that he had been initiated. But the teachers to whom he expresses his obligations in Strom. i. 1. 11 were all Christians. See the note in Heinichen’s Eusebius, ZH. £Z. v. 11. 3. SEE , ’ Heinichen’s Eus. H. £. vi. 11.6. For further information as to the life of Clement see Guerike or Dr. Westcott’s article in Dictionary of Christian Biography. 46 Clement. [ Lect. temper rendered him averse to direct controversy and the bustle of practical life. His writings are the faithful mirror of his studies and thoughts, but tell us little of incident. In later times he was considered a marvel of learning. Nor was this estimate ill-grounded, for the range of his acquaintance with Greek literature, eccle- siastical !, Gnostic, and classical, was varied and extensive. ~ There are indeed deductions to be made. His citations are often taken at second-hand from dubious sources, and he did not sift his acquisitions with the scholar’s in- stinct?. He passes many a sharp remark on the rhetori- 1 Clement was acquainted with Barnabas, Hermas, Clemens Romanus, with Melito, Irenaeus (Eus. H. Z. vi. 13.9; compare Strom. vii. 18. 109 with Irenaeus v: 8, and perhaps Protr. xi. 111 with Irenaeus iii. 22. 4; in both Adam is created as a child, and Eve is at first his playmate), possibly with Papias (but the povai moixikae may come from Irenaeus v. ad fin. or elsewhere ; see Routh, Papias, frag. 5) and Tatian. With Justin (or the author of the Cohort. ad Gentiles and de Mon.) and Athenagoras he has certain quotations in common. These however are probably drawn by all three from Hecataeus; cp. Strom. v. 14.113. He has no knowledge of Ignatius or Tertullian. Of other books quoted I may name the Gospels according to the Hebrews and Egyptians, the Revelation of Peter, the Preaching of Peter, _the Preaching of Paul .(a distinct book), the Acts of Peter(?), the Assumption of Moses (Adumb. p. 1008), the Syllogisms of Misael, the Maréiov mapaddcers, Doctrina Apostolorum, Duae Viae, Enoch (Adumé. 1008), Sophonias (S¢vom. v. 11. 77). Others, the prophecies of Ham, Nicolaus, Parchor, &c., seem to be distinctively Gnostic. References will be found in editions of the Pp. App., Hilgenfeld, Bryennius, &c. I think it probable that he had read the Homilies. See Lardner, Credibility, vol. 2. A list of quotations from unknown Apocryphal sources will be found in Bishop Kaye. ~ : * On the dxpicia of Clement see Dindorf, Preface, xxii. Even when he quotes kata Aééw there can be no doubt that he is generally following some secondary authority, often dishonest Jews, Hecataeus or Aristobulus. Anthologies abounded at Alexandria, and often bore fanciful names, such as Aecpwy, EALKwWY, KNplov, TéMAOS, Tapddecos (Strom. vi. I. 2). A mere refer- ence to the indices will show that Clement’s knowledge of the dramatists is not to be compared with that of Athenaeus. The lengthy passage begin- ning Strom. i. 21, with all its imposing array of authorities, is compiled from Tatian and Casianus. Lastly, though Clement refers to Varro and to Roman 1.] fits Learning and Character. 47 cians !, but at bottom he is himself a member of their cuild, cloudy, turgid, and verbose. But Theology had not yet driven out the Muses. His love of letters is sincere, and the great classics of Greece are his friends and coun- sellors. Even the comic poets are often by his side. If we look at his swelling periods, at his benignity and liberality and the limitations of his liberality, at his quaint and multifarious learning, at his rare blending of gentle piety and racy humour, we shall find in him a striking counterpart to our own author of the Liberty of Prophesying. | Clement is not a great preacher, for he has neither acted nor witnessed such a soul’s tragedy as that dis- closed by Augustine in his Confessions. He is no such comforter for the doubting and perplexed as the fearless Origen. Still less is he one of those dialecticians who solace the logical mind with the neatness and precision of their statements. He is above all things a Mis- sionary. For one thus minded the path of success lies in the skill, with which he can avail himself of the good, that lies ready to his hand. He must graft the fruitful olive on to the wild stem, and aim at producing, not a new character, but a richer development of the old. This is his guiding principle. The Gospel in his view is not a fresh departure, but the meeting-point of two customs and history in four or five places, he seems to have been almost wholly ignorant of the West. ' They are ‘a river of words, a drop of sense,’ or like old boots of which all but the tongue is worn out (Strom. 1. 3. 22), full of quibbles and disputes about shadows (S¢vom. vi. 18. 182 ; Strom. i. 5.29). Clement says of those who give themselves up to Rhetoric, ‘as most do,’ that they have fallen in love with the handmaid and neglect the mistress. This last figure is from Philo, De Congr. Erud. Grat. 27: the handmaid is Hagar, secular knowledge ; the mistress Sarah, divine philosophy. He disparages style, Strom, i. 10. 483 ii. 1. 3. 48 Clement. [Lect. converging lines of progress, of Hellenism and Judaism. To him all history is one, because all truth is one. ‘There is one river of Truth, he says, ‘but many streams fall into it on this side and on that’. Among Christian writers none till very recent times, not even Origen, has so clear and grand a conception of the development of spiritual life. The civilisation of the old world had indeed led to idolatry. But idolatry, shameful and abominable as it was, must be regarded as a fall, a corruption’. The fruits of Reason are to be judged not in the ignorant and sensual, but in Hera- clitus, in Sophocles, in Plato. For such as these Science had been a covenant of God, it had justified them as the Law justified the Jew*. He still repeats the old 1 Strom. i. 5.29. So a drachma is one and the same, but if you give it to a ship-captain it is called ‘ fare,’ if to a revenue officer ‘ tax,’ if to a land- lord ‘ rent,’ if to a schoolmaster ‘ fee,’ if to a shopkeeper ‘ price ;’ Stvom. i. 20.97, 98. Truth is like the body of Pentheus, torn asunder by fanatics, each seizes a limb and thinks he has the whole; Strom. i. 13.57. This last famous simile is borrowed from Numenius, Eus. Praep. Ev. xiv. 5. 7. ? It was a corruption of Star-worship which God gave to the Gentiles as a stepping-stone to a purer religion; Stvom. vi. 14. 110 sq. This idea, which is also found in Origen (Redepenning, ii. 27), is based partly on a mis- interpretation of Deut. iv. 19 (see Potter’s Note), partly on the history of Abraham as told by Philo. The origin of Mythology Clement has analysed with considerable skill; Protrep. ii. 26. But in general he hovers between the two views prevalent in the early Church. Sometimes he speaks of the gods, with Euemerus, as ‘ dead men,’ sometimes as ‘ demons.’ Athenagoras, Tertullian, Minucius Felix combine these two beliefs and represent the gods as dead men whose temples, images, and tombs were haunted by the demons for the sake of the steam and blood of the sacrifices. 3 Strom. vi. 8. 67. ; * Strom. 1.5. 283; vi. 5.42sqq. Philosophy is an imperfect gift bestowed ov mponyoupevws GAAA KaT’ émakodovOnua, z.e. not by special revelation but as a natural consequence of the possession of reason. Hence its right- eousness is imperfect and preparatory, and cannot avail those who deli- berately reject the Gospel; S¢vom.i. 7. 38. It justified the Philosopher when it led him to renounce idolatry, vi. 6. 44, and carry his principles into practice, vi. 7.55. But dicaros dixatov a0 Sixaids éorw ov Siapepet, vi. 6. 47. II.] Value of Philosophy. AQ delusion that the Greek philosopher had ‘stolen’ his best ideas from the books of Moses?. But his real. belief is seen in the many passages where he maintains that Philosophy is a gift not of devils? but of God through the Logos, whose light ever beams upon his earthly image, the intelligence of man. ‘Like the burning glass, its power of kindling is borrowed from the sun °.’ It was not only a wise but a courageous view. The Apologists had not as a rule been hostile to secular learning, but they made little use of it. Pleading for toleration, for life, to educated men they laboured to prove that the Christian doctrines of God, the Word, Virtue, Immortality, are those of all true philosophy, that Revelation is the perfection of Common Sense *. But they did not go beyond this; their object was not to set out the whole of Christian teaching, still less to coordinate it. The Gnostics alone had attempted this. But the Gnostics endeavoured to combine the Evan- gelical theory with wholly alien beliefs. Hence, rejecting the Old Testament, they denied what all Christians Christ preached in Hades not only to Jews but to Greeks ; it would be ‘ very unfair,’ mAcovegias od THs TUXOVONs Epyov, that the latter should be condemned for ignorance of what they could not know. See for other quotations, Guerike, Redepenning, Ovigenes, i. 139 sqq.- * Clement refers to the Greek Philosophers the words.of our Lord, John x. 8. Yet all their knowledge was not ‘stolen;’ Stvom.i.17.87. But he maintains the hypothesis of ‘ theft’ at great length, v. 14. 89 sqq. * Here too Clement vacillates. Strom. v. 1. 10 he adopts the doctrine of the Homilies (or Enoch?) that the fallen angels betrayed the secrets of heaven to their earthly wives. Elsewhere philosophy is a fruit of the in- dwelling of the divine spirit, the éu@vonua, Protr. vi. 68 ; Strom. v. 13. 87. Its doctrines are évavopard twa Tod Adyou, Protr. vii. 74. Or it is given by the good Angels, Strom. vi. 17. 156 sqq. 3 Strom. Vi. 17.149. Strom. i. 5. 37 it is finely compared to God’s rain which falls upon all kinds of soil and causes all kinds of plants to grow. * See Hammack, Dogmengeschichte, pp. 379 sqq. E 50 Clement. [Lect. regarded as the principal evidence of the Divinity of Christ, their Docetism reduced Redemption to a purely moral and intellectual process, their Dualism cut away the testimony of Scripture and of experience to the existence and character of God!. There arose a violent reaction. Irenaeus maintains that God has given to us two infallible criteria, our own senses and Scripture, and that all beyond is superfluous and fallacious. Tatian inveighs against the Schools with fierce derision. Her- mias and Tertullian? assert with the Book of Enoch that Greek Science is the invention of devils, the bridal cift of the fallen Angels to the daughters of men. This opinion was strongly represented. at Alexandria, which was indeed the hotbed of Gnosticism. The ruling party there was that of the Orthodoxasts, whose watchword was ‘Only believe, who took their stand upon the Creed and refused to move one step beyond *. Even in that age and place Clement saw and dared to proclaim, that the cure of error is not less knowledge but more. Hence he strenuously asserted not only the merits of Philosophy in the past but its continuous_ necessity in the Church*. Not merely does learning 1 This argument against Dualism is nowhere so forcibly expressed as by the ingenious editor of the Recognztions, ii. 52: ‘Aperinobis ... quomodo tu ex lege didiceris deum quem lex ipsa nescit.’ /dz¢d.60: ‘Da ergo nobis ... sensum aliquem novum per quem novum quem dicis deum possimus agnoscere ; isti enim quinque sensus, quos nobis dedit creator deus, creatori suo fidem servant.’ Simon Magus replies that the sixth sense required is Ecstasy, and Peter in answer finely exposes the vanity of such a source of knowledge. ? See Irenaeus, ii. 26, 27; Tert. Apol 35; De Idol.g; Hermias, ad init. (cp. Otto’s Prolegomena, pp. xliii. sqq.); Tatian, 25 sqq. 5 The dp0od0facrai, Strom.i. 9.45. Hecalls them also fireyxaAnpoves, Wopodecis, They demand Wry tiv riot, i. 1.18; 9. 43. For a lively but malicious picture of this party by the hand of a clever unbeliever, see Origen, Contra Celsum, ili. 44-78. 2 STT0UE: Me ye 28: II.] | Value of Philosophy. af grace the preacher, not merely does it impart clearness, security, elevation to the convictions, but it is essential to conduct. For Christianity is a reasonable service. The virtue of Justice in particular is impossible without intelligence. Science is the correlative of Duty. And though Scripture is the all-sufficient guide, even here the Christian must borrow assistance from the Schools. For Philosophy is necessary to Exegesis. ‘Even in the Scriptures the distinction of names and things breeds great light in the soul,’ Thus, however much the field of enquiry is limited by Authority, learning is still indispensable as the art of expression, as logic, as ethics, as sociology, as philology. But the Alexandrines went further. They professed and exhibited the most entire loyalty to the Creed. But outside the circle of Apostolical dogma they held themselves free. They agreed with the Orthodoxasts that Scripture was inspired. But their great Platonic maxim, that ‘nothing is to be believed which is un- worthy of God,’ makes reason the judge of Revelation”. They held that this maxim was a part of the Aposto- lical tradition, and accordingly they put the letter of the Bible in effect on one side, wherever, as in the account of Creation or of the Fall, it appeared to conflict with the teaching of Science. But though there is in them a 1 Strom. i. 2. 19, 20; 20. 99, 100; ‘vi: 6 sqg., 10 sqq. The Lord an- swered Satan with a play upon the word ‘ bread,’ i. g. 44, ‘and I fail to see how Satan, if he were, as some consider, the inventor of philosophy and dialectics, could be baffled by the well-known figure of amphiboly.’ For the relation of Science to Duty see especially Strom. i. 9. 43; 10. 46; for its service to Exegesis, i. 9. 44 sq.; vi. 10. 82. 2 This maxim is enunciated by Clement, S¢vom. vi. 15. 124; vii. 16. 196, and lies at the root of Allegorism. It is the guiding priaciple also of the Homilies (ii. 40, nav AexOev h ypapev Kata Tod Geod Wevdds Eoriv), and of the Gnostics. E 2 52 Clement. , [Lect. strong vein of Common Sense or Rationalism, they were not less sensible of the mystic supernatural side of the religious life than Irenaeus. The difference is, that with them the mystical grows out of the rational, that they think always less of the historical fact than of the idea, less of the outward sign than of the inner truth. Their object is to show, not that Common Sense is enough for salvation, but that neither Faith without Reason nor Reason without Faith can bring forth its noblest fruits, that full communion with God, the highest aim of human effort, can be attained only by those who in Christ have grown to the stature of the perfect man, in whom the saint and the thinker are blended together in the unity of the Divine Love. Hence they represent on one side the revolt of Pro- testantism against Catholicism, on the other that of Mysticism against Gnosticism. And their great service to the Church is, that they endeavoured faithfully to combine the two great factors of the spiritual life. The Canon of Scripture had already assumed very neatly its permanent form!. Gradually, with infinite care and discussion, those documents, which could be 1 See Dr. Westcott, On the Canon, pp. 354 sqq., ed. 1881: ‘Clement it appears recognised as Canonical all the books of the New Testament except the Epistle of St. James, the second Epistle of St. Peter, and the third Epistle of St. John. And his silence as to these can prove ne more than that he was not acquainted with them.’ Most of the references to James given in the Index are doubtful. But in Strom. vi. 18. 164 there seems to be a clear allusion to the ‘royal law’ of love. And the mention of James with Peter, John, and Paul as the founders of Christian Gnosis, Strom. i. 1. 113 vi. 9.68, would be very remarkable unless James were known to Clement as a Canonical writer. Again, Eusebius (7. Z. vi. 14) and Cassiodorius both testify that James was commented upon in the //yfoty- poses. On the authority attributed by Clement to Barnabas and the Revelation of Peter (both were included in the Hyfotyposes), see Dr. West- cott, App. B. II. The Canon. 53 recarded as possessed of Apostolical authority, had been set apart to form the New Testament. And as the circle was drawn closer, as the living voice of Prophecy died away, so the reverence for the canonical books grew higher, till they were regarded as inspired in the same sense as the older Scriptures. But, as soon as men began to read the New Testament as a divinely given whole, they could not fail to be struck by the violent contrast between the teaching of St. Paul and the whole system of the existing Church. Down to this time no trace of ‘Paulinism’ is to be found, except among the Gnostics. Even Clement apologises for treating ‘the noble Apostle?,’ as he calls him, with the same deference as the Twelve. But he does so without hesitation, and the working of the new leaven is seen at once in his view of Knowledge, of the Resurrection, of Retribution. Indeed, we may characterise this period as the first of those Pauline reactions, which mark the critical epochs of theology. It is the age of Irenaeus and the Alexandrines. But while the leading motive of the former is the Incarna- tion, the mystical saving work of Christ, the guiding principles of the latter are the goodness of God and the freedom of Man. Hence Paulinism assumed very 1°O dméaTodos, 6 Kadds, Oeomeowos, yyevvatos améatodos. The passage referred to is Strom. iv. 21.134, “Ioréov pévtor 61, ef kal 6 TavaAos Tots xpovors veder edOds peTa THY TOU KUpioU avdAny akpdoas, GAAA ody 7 ypapy avuT@ €x THS TaAdaas HpTnTaL SiaOneKns ExeiBev avamvéovoa Kal AaAovoa. Clement maintains against the Ebionites that St. Paul is in complete accordance with the Jewish Scriptures. At the same time he regards him, like Origen, as one of the chief authorities for the use of Allegorism. On the terms ‘Judaism,’ ‘Jewish Christian, ‘Paulinism,’ see Dr. Harnack’s excellent remarks (Dogmengeschichte, pp. 215 sqq.). Dr. Harnack also sets the Simon Magus myth in a true historical light (¢d¢d. p. 179). It is cheering to notice the dying away of the wilful Tiibingen theories, on which so much erudition and ingenuity have been wasted. 54 Clement. [Lect different shapes in the Western and the Eastern doctors 1. In the former the antithesis of the First and the Second Adam is already pointing the way to the Augustinian doctrine of Grace, in the latter the vision of the great day, when Christ shall deliver up the kingdom to His Father, leads on to Universalism. The second great question arising out of the com- pletion of the Canon was that of the Unity of Scripture. This the Catholic strenuously asserted, the Gnostic denied or admitted only with large reservations. What is'the relation of the Old Testament ‘fo -the New? What is that Law which Jesus came not to destroy but to fulfil? The Ebionites replied that it was the Spiritual Law, that is to say the Moral Law, with the addition of certain positive precepts—circumcision, the sabbath, abstention from blood”. The general body 1 Harnack, Dogmengeschichte, pp. 424 sqq. 2 T refer to the Homzlies. Circumcision is there regarded as of eternal obligation; thus in the Efzstle of Peter and The Contestation it is ordered that the sacred books of the sect shall be entrusted to none but a circumcised believer. In the body of the work this condition is not insisted upon. But Clement had become a Jew at Rome; iv. 22. The observation of the Sabbath, again, is not insisted upon, but it underlies the EBdouddos puoripiov of xvii. 10. The precepts of the Spiritual Law are given in vii.4. Abstention from blood was the law of the whole Church (see Ov. Szbyllina, ii. 965 viii. woz, Wusebits, 77. 2.v. 1.26; Tert. Apol. 9; Clement, acd. i. 1. 17 Origen, /7 Rom. ii. 13, Lom. vi. 128). It was falling into desuetude in the time of Augustine; see note in Heinichen on Euseb. H. &. v. 1. 26. The Sabbath was kept as a holy day; see Bingham, xiii. 9. 3. It was still necessary to argue the higher sanctity of the Lord’s Day, the eighth day. Hence the earnest iteration with which Clement dwells on the ’O-ydoddos puotnpiov, Strom. iv. 17. 109; v.6. 36; 14.106; vi. 14. 108; 16. 138. In the last passage he argues that Light was created on the first day, then follow six days of creative work, then the eighth a repetition of the first. I may notice here that in one passage (Strom. v. 11. 74) Clement speaks of the Law as actually forbidding Sacrifice. This is the view of the Homzlies, of Barnabas, ii. 9, of the Zprstle to Diognetus, iii. iv, and of the Praedicatio Petri apud Strom. vi. 5.41. It is a good instance of Clement’s erudite uncertainty. I1.] Unity of Scripture. 55 of the Church differed from this definition only in so far as they rejected the rite of circumcision. But the Ebion- ites went on to declare, that the whole of the Old Testa- ment, so far as it was not in strict agreement with this standard, is a forgery of the Evil Spirit. They involved in one sweeping condemnation the Temple ritual, the history of the wars, and the Monarchy, and a large part of the prophetic writings’. This was in substance the view of the Gnostics also. These maintained that the Author of the Old Testament is described sometimes as evil, sometimes as imperfect, commanding fierce wars of extermination, caring for sacrifice, governing by pay- ment and punishment. He is Just, they said, at best, but surely not OEE matic, did aoe grasp ‘the whole range an the pee before 1 him. He leaves for Origen the task of dealing with those passages, in which, as the Gnostics affirmed, the Scriptures attribute direct immorality to Jehovah, and confines himself to the proposition that goodness is not inconsistent with severity, that He who teaches must also threaten, and He who saves correct. Justice, he insists, is the reverse side of Love. ‘ He, who is Good for His own sake, is Just for ours, and Just because He is Good?.’ The moral Law then, though inferior to the Gospel Law, because it works by fear and not by love, and reveals God as Lord but not as Father, is yet one 1 Not all the prophets; see the references in Lagarde’s edition of the Hlomilies. In particular, Is. vii. 6, ix. 6 are applied to Christ, /Yo7. xvi. 14, from which it would seem that the first chapter of Matthew was not omitted by the Ebionites. This was quite consistent with a denial of Christ’s Divinity, as in the case of Theodotus of Byzantium ; Phz/os. vii. 35. ? Paed. i. 10. 88; the theme is dwelt upon at great length in this book from chap. 8 onwards. Cp. Strom. i. 27.171; ii. 7. 32 Sqq.3 1V. 3. 9- 56 Clement. [ Lect. with it in the way of development, as a needful prepara- tory discipline, as a step in the divine education of the world, or of the individual!. The rest of the Old Testa- ment, though in one sense transient, has yet an eternal significance as the shadow of good things to come, as revealing Christ throughout, though but in riddles and symbols. It has therefore a high doctrinal value for those who can read it aright. Already the Sacrificial Law was looked upon as the charter of the Christian hierarchy”. But this opinion, so pregnant of conse- quences in later times, Clement deliberately rejects. In this point he differs from Origen, by whom the Priest and Levite are regarded as types of the Christian Presbyter and Deacon, though even he does not carry the parallel so far as was afterwards done. i The method by which this inner harmony is discover- | able, the key to the riddles of the Old Testament, is Alle- gorism. What this singular system effected in the hands of the Alexandrine Jew, we have already seen. By the . Christian it was adapted to fresh purposes—the explana- tion of Prophecy and of the New Testament itself. It was in universal use, and was regarded by all as one of the articles of the Ecclesiastical Canon or Tradition °. ' For the unity of Inspiration, and so of all Scripture, see Strom. WG, 29); ii. 11. 76; iv. 21. 132; iv. 22. 135 ;,vi: 13. 1OOG Vi. FS. 1aRs yak 16.95; vii. 18.107. The Law is inferior to the Gospel as teaching only abstinence from evil, yet this is the way to the Gospel and to well-doing ; iv. 21.130. The Law and Prophets taught in riddles what the Gospel teaches clearly; vi. 7. 58; 15.123. The Law governs by fear, ii. 6. 30, and reveals God as Lord, i. 27. 173, a very Philonic passage. * In the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs. See Lightfoot, Phz/pszans, Pp. 252 sqq. * Origen, De Princ., Preface, 8. Clement appears to distinguish between two traditions, the Ecclesiastical and the Gnostic, the cavav THs éxxAnoias, Strom.1.1.15; 19.96; vii. 15.90; 16.95, 104, and the yrworiKy napddoars, II.) — Allegorism. 57 We shall be compelled to revert to this topic at a later period, and it will be sufficient here to notice, that the Alexandrines differed from their contemporaries in three important points. They regarded Allegorism as having been handed down from Christ and a few chosen Apostles, through a succession, not of Bishops, but of Teachers?. They employed it boldly, as Philo had done before them, for the reconciliation of Greek culture with the Hebrew Scriptures. And lastly they applied it to the New Testa- ment,not merely for the purpose of fanciful edification, but _with the serious object of correcting the literal, mechanical, hierarchical tendencies of the day*. This is in truth the noblest side of Allegorism, for here it deals with cases, where the antithesis of letter and spirit is most real and Strom. i. 1.15, or yv@ous, iv. 15. 97. The latter was communicated by Christ to James, Peter, John, Paul, and the other Apostles, vi. 8. 68, but only to the Four, i. 1. 12; cp. iv. 15.97. The former is the Little, the latter the Great Mysteries. The former gives the facts of the Creed, and Faith and Obedience, being ‘ watered’ by Greek philosophy, lead up to the spiritual interpretation of the facts. See the opening of Strom. i. generally. The Gnostic tradition is secret in so far as all Christians do not as a matter of fact understand it, yet not secret in so far as all ought to understand it. Hence Clement, aed. i. 6. 33, denies that the Church has 6:daydas GAAas aroppyntous, while he yet speaks of 70 ris yywpns amdppnrov, Quzs Dives Salvus, 5; Strom. i. 1. 13. The difference between this teaching and Origen’s is merely verbal. 1 See Som. 1, I. 11;. vi. 9. 68. ? I may notice here that Clement s L_ speaks of Four Senses_of Scripture. The MS. reading rerpax@s in Szrom. i. 28.\179 is quite right, in spite of the doubts of Bishop Potter and =e « Compare § 176, 4 pv ody Kara Mwvaéa pidocopia TeTpaxh Téuverat, that is to say into History, Legislation (= Ethics), Sacrifice (= Physics), and Theology or Epopteia (= Dialectic or Metaphysics). Here the three higher divisions answer to the branches of Philosophy as taught in the Greek schools. In § 179 Clement repeats this: ‘ We must interpret the law in four ways as giving a type, or a moral command or a prophecy.’ The literal sense is omitted. The identification of Sacrificial Typology with Physics is very arbitrary. Theodotus, Zx- cerpta, § 66, speaks of Three Senses, the Literal, the Parabolic, and the Mystical, just like Origen, but finds them only in the New Testament. 5 8 Clement. [ Lect. vital. Yet it was this crowning merit of the Alexandrines that led to one of their most serious errors. On many points—the explanation of those much-contested words, Priest, Altar, Sacrifice, the Body and Blood of Christ, the Power of the Keys, Eternal Life, Eternal Death— they were at variance with the spirit of the age. Hence they were driven to what is_known as Reserve. The belief of the enlightened Christian becomes a mystery, that may not be revealed to the simpler brother, for whom the letter is enough. They strove to justify them- selves in this by texts of Scripture, but their Reserve is in fact the ‘medicinal lie!’ of Plato, the freemasonry of the Gnostics, and their best defence is that in practice it is little more than a figure of speech. From the Unity of Truth flows the necessity of Reve- lation. For all knowledge must rest ultimately on the same small group of Axioms, which cannot be proved, as the Greek understood proof’. There is then no third term between a self-communication of the Divine and absolute _ scepticism. The ultimate and therefore, strictly speaking, only in- demonstrable axiom of religious philosophy is that, which concerns the Being and the Nature of God. By the grace of the Logos He has been known though imper- fectly in all ages and climes to those, who diligently sought Him. But to us He is revealed in the New Testament as a Triad ?—Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. * Strom. Vil. 9. 53, of the Gnostic: dAn6% Te yap ppovel Gua Kai GdnOevet, mAnV €i fy TOTE ev Oepareias pepe, KaOdTEP iaTpos mpos VooodYTAS éml GwTnpia Tov KapvovTay WeiceTat 7) PEvSos Epel KaTAa TOds GoduioTas. SCO. MA. 13; Vi. 7. 57 Sq. * Strom. v.14. 103. The word is used by Theophilus, 4d Azwtol. ii. 15. But it is doubtful whether Theophilus was the first to employ it. Cp. Lxcerpta ex Theod. § 80, where it is said that the believer &:d Tpi@y dvopatwv II.] The Trinity. 59 What is the exact signification of these titles? What is the precise relation to one another and to us of the Entities they denote? The answer to these questions was the first and most difficult task of Christian Theology. From the very outset all Christian sects baptised and pronounced the benediction in the Triple Name. Even those, who could not understand, did not venture to abjure this authoritative formula, and the problems agitated, serious as they undoubtedly were, turned solely upon the manner of its explanation. Some like the author of the Homilies, and the Gnostics generally, tried to fit it on, by the most violent methods, to opinions derived from external sources’. Others endeavoured to recon- cile the One with the Three, by what is known as Emanationism. The Son, the Holy Spirit, were occa- sional expansions of the Divine Nature, shooting forth like rays from a torch, and again absorbed into the parent flame*. Others, again, regarded the Three Names as three phases, or manifestations, of the One Divine \Activity =. But the main body of the Church asserted maons Ths ev pOapa Tpiados amndAdAadyn. The form of the antithesis seems to imply that the Three Names were already spoken of as a Trias. 1 The MHomzlies afford perhaps the most striking of all external proofs of the authenticity of the Baptismal Formula. The Son, one of the two powers of God, is emphatically ‘not God.’ The Holy Spirit is a mere occasional emanation, ‘a hand put forth’ for the purpose of creation and then ‘ drawn back again,’ xvi. 12; 15; xx. 8. Yet the sect which adhered to this Jewish ante-Philonic system baptised in the Triple Name, ix. 19, and used the doxology, iii. 72. The point is urged by Dorner, vol. i. p. 168 of the English translation. A widely different view is maintained by Harnack, Dogmengeschichte, p. 56; Scholten, Die Taufformed. * The Son, Justin, 77yfho, 128 (p. 458 in Otto’s ed.). This passage is wrongly referred to by Bishop Potter, and apparently by Siegfried, p. 334, as giving Justin’s own opinion. The Holy Spirit, Athenagoras, p. 48 of Otto’s ed. * Perhaps the Alogi, see Dorner; but Dr. Schaff (Dict. of Christian Biog., Alogians) doubts this. The Monarchians, Neander, ii. p. 295 of the English 60 Clement. [Lect. the Deity and Personality of the Son, and, though with less unanimity, those also of the Holy Ghost, and spoke of the Three as united in Power or in Spirit. The Christian doctrine differed from that of Philo in many important features. In the latter, as we have seen, a certain doubt hangs over the number and even the existence of the Powers. They are a divination, a poet’s vision of what may be, of what must be, but hardly more. And, because they form an indefinite series, the Powers are essentially inferior to their source. The Divine Energy is degraded as it approaches the sphere of material existence, the Logos has the light but not the fire of God. It is because he is inferior that he is the Demiurge, the Eternal Himself may not be brought into contact with evil. But the Christian held that God made the world out of nothing, and made it good. Hence the concrete is no longer polluted, and creation is a mark rather of the exaltation than of the inferiority of its Agent. ‘In Him was Life. Thus there remains no other difference between the Father and the Logos than that between the One and the Many, an eternal antithesis, which in Clement’s view implies the mutual necessity of the two terms, in that of Origen, who lays more stress upon the idea of causation, a distinction of dignity but not of nature. This mode of thought was immensely strengthened by the Incarnation, by which translation. Monarchianism was especially strong in Rome, Eus. 1. £. v. 28; Philos. ix; Tert. Adv. Prax. It is to be regarded neither as the pre- vailing view of the Roman Church, nor as a heresy introduced at a late date, but as an ancient opinion which had always existed side by side with the belief in a Personal Trinity. The incompatibility of the two modes of conception was not distinctly realised till towards the end of the second century. The chronology and details of the history of Monarchianism are very obscure. See Harnack, 564 sqq. ; II. ] Previous Speculations. 61 humanity is taken up into the bosom of the Divine, and the deepest humiliation becomes a gauge of the Love and Wisdom that prompted it. Again in Philo there is scarcely a trace of any Messianic hope, while, in the belief of the Christian, Christ is at once the Giver, the Sum, and the Accomplisher of all Revelation. Other functions, that especially enhance the distinction between the two points of view, are those of Pardon and of Judgment. On the other hand, in one remarkable point the ideal of Christianity was in danger of falling below that of Philo. For there was a tendency in less philosophical minds to distinguish between the unspoken and the spoken Word, to conceive of the Son, the Divine Reason or Logos, as at first immanent in the mind of the Father and assuming hypostasis for the purpose of Creation‘. It is at this point that Clement takes up the thread. But it must be observed, that he is never controversial nor even historical in his method. His horizon is limited by the Eastern world. He never glances at Monarch- ianism, which was already perhaps the subject of fierce debate in Rome. Hence it is difficult to trace the exact relation of his ideas to those of his predecessors or contemporaries. The knowledge of God is necessarily the starting-point of the religious philosopher. But how is God to be known? Philo dwells upon the lessons to be learned from the order and beauty of Creation. These give a true though inadequate picture of Jehovah, and form the 1 Philo does not apply to the Divine Logos the distinction of évdidGeros _and mpogoptds. It is employed by Theophilus, 4d Aut. ii. Io. 22, by Tertullian, Adv. Prax. 5, and the author of the Phz/os. x. 33. Irenaeus rejects these terms as Gnostic, ii. 28. 6. See Baur, Dredecnigkert, pp. 163 sqq.; Lehrb, der Chr. Dogmengesch. p. 105. 62 Clement. [Lect. creed of the lower life, of those who have not risen above the guidance of the Logos. But Clement knows the world only through books, and hardly touches upon this fruitful and persuasive theme’. For him the channels of revelation are only Scripture and abstract reason. He ought on his own principle to have regarded the second as merely ancillary to the first. This however is far from being his real view. Scripture gives us such an idea of God, as is sufficient to start and guide us in our efforts to attain moral purity. But purity is only a negative state, valuable chiefly as the condition of insight. He who has been purified in Baptism and then initiated into the Little Mysteries, has acquired that is to say the habits of self-control and reflection, becomes ripe for the Greater Mysteries”, for Epopteia or Gnosis, the scientific know- ledge of God. From this point he is led on by the 1 He touches upon it, Protrep. i. 5; iv. 63. But we should notice that the Protrepticus is addressed to the unconverted heathen. 2 The three stages are represented loosely by the three surviving treatises of Clement. The Protrefticus is an exhortation to the heathen world to turn to the Word, the Light, and leads up to Baptism. The Paedagogus shows how the baptised Christian is further purified by discipline which eradicates passion =7a@ xaOdpo.a, Ta puxpa pvotHpia. The Stromateis as we have them are a rambling account of the moral side of Gnosis. They describe Book i the relation of Faith to Education; Book ii the definition of Faith and its relation to Knowledge; Book iii the Gnostic virtue of Temperance; Book iv Courage and Love; Book v Relation of Faith to Symbolism ; Book vi Knowledge, Apathy, the use of Philosophy; Book vii description of the Gnostic life. The last two books conclude what he calls the 70:«0s rémos, and were to be followed by an investigation of the dpyai, the Gnosis proper. This he never wrote. The logical treatise which forms Book viii may have been intended as an introduction to the Christian metaphysics. Thus Clement never really reached the peyadAa pvornpia or énonreia, See Strom.i.1.153 Vv. 11. 71; vi. 1.13 vii. 4. 27; Protrep. xii. 118 sqq.; faed. i.1. For a fuller analysis of his writings, see Westcott, Clement of Alexandria, in Dict. of Ch. Biog.; Overbeck, Theol. Lit. Ztg., 1879, No. 203) and 7st. Zischr., N. F., Bd. xii. pp, 455-4725. Zahn; Forschungen. Other information in Fabricius, Dahne, De yvwoe. II.] The Decty. 63 oO method of Analysis or Elimination’. ‘Stripping from concrete existence all physical attributes, taking away from it in the next place the three dimensions of space, we atrive at the conception of a point having position.’ There is yet a further step, for perfect simplicity has not yet been gained. Reject the idea of position, and we have reached the last attainable abstraction, the pure Monad. This is God. We know not what He is, only what He is‘not. He has absolutely no predicates, no genus, no differentia, no species. He is neither unit nor number, He has neither accident nor substance. Names denote either qualities or relations. God has neither. ‘He is formless and nameless, though we sometimes sive Him titles, which are not to be taken in their proper sense, the One, the Good, Intelligence, or Existence, or Father, or God, or Creator, or Lord.’ These are but honourable phrases, which we use, not because they really describe the Eternal, but that our understanding may have something to lean upon. The next step must obviously be to find some means of restoring to the Supreme Being the actuality, of which He has been deprived in this appalling definition. This Clement effects through the doctrine of the Son. ‘The God then, being indemonstrable, is not the object 1 dvadvois, Strom. v. 11. 71, or kata dpaipeowv, Alcinous, chap.10. The same method is applied by Maximus Tyrius, xvii. 5 sqq. See Lecture V ad zn. * The leading passages are Strom. v. 11.71; 12. 81 sq.; vi. 18.166; cp. also ii. 2.6. God is éwéteva Tov Evds Kal imép aitiy povdda, Paed. i. 8.71. But though this really means the same as éméxerva Ths ovcias, Clement avoids the use of this Platonic phrase. God is or has ovoia, Strom. il. 2. 5 ; iv. 26.162; v. 10.66; Fragment of epi mpovoias, Dindorf, iii. 497 ; Zahn, iii. 40. Clement departs from Plato again in applying the term Infinite to God, 64 Clement. [Lect. of knowledge, but the Son is Wisdom, and Knowledge, and Truth, and whatever else is akin to these, and so is capable of demonstration and definition. All the powers of the Divine Nature gathered into one complete the idea of the Son, but He is infinite as regards each of His powers. He is then not absolutely One as Unity, nor Many as divisible, but One as All is One. Hence He is All. For He is a circle, all the powers being orbed and united in Him.’ The Son in this Pythagorean mode of statement is the circle, of which the Father is the central point. He is the ideal Many, the Mind, of which the Father is the principle of identity. He is in fact the consciousness of God |. We are here brought into contact with one of the most pregnant thoughts of the second century. Clement it will be se@n, though Philo is before his eyes, has taken the leap from which Philo recoiled. He has distinguished between the thinker and the thought, be- tween Mind and its unknown foundation, and in so doing has given birth to Neo-Platonism?. 1 Strom. iv. 25.156. If Zahn is right (/orsch. iii. 77) in ascribing to the Hyfotyposes the fragment preserved by Maximus Confessor, Clement expressly denied to God any consciousness of the external world. He sees the object only as mirrored in the Son. This will then be the signification of the words ws tS:a OeAqpata 6 Oeds TA GvTAa YywwoKea. Routh (vol. i. p. 378) with better reason attributes the fragment to Pantaenus. But in any case Clement’s meaning seems to be clear. 2 The doctrine of the Absolute God Clement may have drawn through Basilides or Valentinus from Aristotle. The conception of the Son as the Father’s complement, the vénois which the Father voet, is not, so far as I am aware, to be found in any Gnostic writer. Contrast with Clement’s language Lxcerpta, § 7. The doctrine of Numenius, as I shall endeavour to show in Lecture vii, is quite different. Nor can Clement have been indebted to Ammonius Saccas. For Ammonius would be only about thirty years of age in 290 A.D. Philosophers rarely began to teach before 11.) The Deity. 6s It is essentially a heathen conception, and can be developed consistently only on heathen principles. Clement has gone astray from the first by his mode of approaching the subject. The question as he has posed it is, not what is Spirit? or what is the Idea of Good? but a very different one, what is the simplest thing con- ceivable? And he assumes that this is, and that it is the cause of all that exists. Nothing that is part of the effect can belong to the Cause. Hence, instead of seeking for the Perfect Being, he has fallen upon this futile method of Analysis, which deals with words not with things, and asks, not what is divisible in reality, but what is divisible in logic. The result is a chimera, a bare Force, which neither is nor is not, neither thinks nor thinks not, a Cause divided by an impassable gulf from all its effects. Nor has Clement been at any pains to surround his doctrine with the needful explanations and safeguards. This work he left entirely to Plotinus. Some indeed of the consequences Clement foresaw. Thus he tells us that man may become by virtue like the Son, but not like God?. Others he does not appear to have felt at all. The transcendental God, who is not the object of knowledge, can be approached only by a faculty other than reason, by direct Vision or Ecstasy, that age, and Ammonius, who is said to have been originally a porter, prob- ably did not attain any eminence till even a later period of life. This renegade Christian was most likely himself indebted to Clement. On the relation of Clement to Plotinus, see especially A. Richter, Meu-Platonzsche Studien, Halle, 1867. Also Diahne, De ywou: Vacherot, Histoire de 1’ Ecole d’ Alexandrie. 1 Strom. vi. 14. 114, it is impious to suppose (as the Stoics did) that the virtue of God and that of man are the same. ‘Some Christians,’ however, maintained that man by virtue becomes like God, Strom. ii. 22. 131. See Irenaeus, v. 6; Tert. De Bapt. 5; Recognitions, v. 23; Dahne, De yvwoe, p- 103 note. F 66 Clement. [ Lect. but Clement does not teach this’. He believed in the revelation of God by His Son. But what gospel has revealed this Monad, how could He be revealed, what good would the revelation do us if given, or how could we test the revelation? The true conclusion from Clement’s premisses is the moral paradox, which has been maintained with consummate ability from this very place’, that, as we can know nothing of God, we must accept without question whatever we are told. But he was far from thinking this, and his whole argu- ment against Gnosticism proceeds upon the assumption, that the Goodness and Justice of God are the same in kind as our own. It is true that he sometimes draws a distinction between having virtue and being virtue, from which we might suppose that, like Philo, he regarded the difference between human and divine morality as lying in the mode of its possession. But this merely proves, that in practice he denies, what in theory he asserts, because to the Christian conscience God is, and must be, not the Everlasting No, but the Everlasting Yea”. Clement’s mode of statement is such as to involve necessarily the Unity, Equality, and Eternity of the First and Second Persons *. It has been asserted, that 1 Strom.v.11.74. Direct Vision is granted only in heaven ; the instru- ment of knowledge in this life is Dialectic. See next Lecture. 2 The allusion is to Dean Mansel’s Limits of Religious Thought, the Bampton Lectures for 1858. The reader who is interested in the discussion of the point should refer also to the controversy between Dean Mansel and Mr. Goldwin Smith, and to F. D. Maurice’s What 7s Revelation ? Cambridge, 1859; and Seguel to the Inquiry what 7s of Revelation, Cambridge, 1860, with the Reply of Dean Mansel. 3 The distinction between having virtue and being virtue is applied, not to God but to the Gnostic, Strom. iv. 6. 40; vii. 7.38. God is vous; Pro- trep.x. 98; Strom. iv. 25.155; Vi. 9.72: is good, just, beneficent, omniscient ; Y. fe ebay. 0H. VATS 17. 155. * See passages in Bull, ii. 6. II. ] The Son. 67 he hardly leaves sufficient room for a true distinction of Hypostasis'. But, though he possesses no technical name either for Substance or Person?, there is no doubt that the latter conception was clearly present to his mind. ‘O mystic wonder, he exclaims, ‘ One is the Father of All, One also the Word of All, and the Holy Ghost is One and the same everywhere?.’ His method of developing this proposition is determined partly by language inherited from his predecessors, partly by veins of thought afterwards seized and expanded by Origen. But he differs in a marked degree both from his pupils and his teachers. Many of the phrases which he applies to the Son— the Name, the Face, the House of God, and so on—are borrowed from Philo*. From Christian writers he had learned to speak of Christ as ‘begotten of the Will of * Dorner, vol. i. p. 288 ; Cognat, Clément ad’ Alexandrie, p. 448. * Substance is 70 dppntov, mvevya, piois. But the word ovoia is already emerging into use as the distinctive expression. See note above, p. 63. Strom. vi. 16.138. Person is gvous, Strom. vii. 2.53; Td €v, Paed. i. 6. 42; and even tndotaois, Strom. ii. 18. 96: THs Tpitns 75n wovns (so we should read, not pdvns, as Potter, Klotz, Dind.) cuvarrovons én tiv Tod Kupiou TeTaptnv indotacw. The third ‘mansion’ is Charity, which joining on to the Person of the Lord makes up the rerpas of Virtues. Potter is quite mistaken in explaining this obscure passage so as to make reraptn indataots signify ‘humanam Christi naturam quae cum tribus divinis personis numerata quaternionem quodammodo efficit.’ peidch. 1.0.42 >) lil. L2;10r,; Srom., vi.7: 58. * Name of God, Stvom. v. 6. 38: Face, Paed.i. 7.57; Strom. v. 6. 34: Image, av@pwmos anabyjs, Heavenly Man, Paed. i. 12. 98; Strom. v.14. 94: High Priest, Stvom. v. 6. 32: Charioteer, Paed.iii. 12.101: Pilot (perhaps directly from Numenius), Strom. vii. 2.5: Idea or Sum of Ideas, Strom. v. 3. 16: Sum of the Powers, Paed. i. 8. 74; Strom. iv. 25.156: House of God, Paed. i. 9. 81: Melchisedech, Strom. iv. 25.161: The Mystic Angel, Paed. i. 7. 56 sqq. Ebionite is the identification of Christ with ‘the Beginning,’ Strom. v. 6. 38; vi. 7. 58. Valentinian probably is the Angel of the Great Council, Paed. i. 5. 24, cp. Excerpta, § 43 and the representation of Christ as chief of the Seven Protoctists, Strom. v. 6. 32, 353 Vil. 6. 143. F 2 68 Clement. (Lect. the Father,’ as ‘coming forth for the sake of creation!’ But to Clement such words could only mean, that the difference of Persons is first manifested in their external relations. He rejects the distinction between the Spoken and the Unspoken Word?. There was no doubt in his mind as to the timeless Personality of the Logos. ‘If God is Father,’ he says, ‘ He is at the same time Father of a Son*” Again God is Just from all eternity because the Son is in, yet distinct from, the Father, so that the ‘equipoise’ of knowledge and love between the Two is the first idea of justice +. He does not indeed shrink from giving expression to the ministerial capacity implied in the very name of Son. In a famous passage of the Sztvomateis® all rational existence is figured as a vast and graduated hierarchy, like a chain of iron rings, each sustaining and sustained, each saving and saved, held together by the magnetic force of the Holy Spirit, which is Faith. It is the belief in the solidarity of all that thinks and feels, which was afterwards the master-thought of Origen. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are succeeded by the orders of Angels, and these in their turn by men. If we look upwards, the Son is ‘next to the Almighty, ‘a kind of Energy of the Father. If we look downwards, He is the Great High Priest, in whom all are reconciled 1 Strom. v. 3.16. Similar language is used by Tatian, Ad Graecos, 5; Theophilus, Ad Awt. ii. 22; Tertullian, Adv. Prax. 5. 2 Strom. v.1.6; Nitzsch, Dogmengesch. i. 203; Redepenning, Ovzgenes, i. 112. But Zahn, Forsch, iii. 145 note; Harnack, Dogmengesch. 531 note, explain the passage differently. In Strom. vii. 2. 5, the words ov« dmo- repvopevos imply a rejection of the word mpoBoAn by which the Generation of the Son was sometimes described. ® Sivom.v. 1. I. £ See the three remarkable passages, Paed. i. 8. 71, 743 10. 88. 5 vil, iG. II. ] The Son. 69 to God. But the idea of subordination is strictly secondary in Clement. The text ‘none is good save One’ does not mean to him, what it meant to his scholar’. Always he recurs to the essential Unity of the Father and the Son. He has no scruple about prayer to the latter*. ‘Let us pray to the Word—Be propitious, O Teacher of thy children, Father, Chario- teer of Israel, Son and Father, Lord who art Both.’ So complete is the union, that he does not hesitate to transfer to the Son the peculiar titles of the Father. If the one is ‘ beyond all intelligible, so also is the other, if the one is Almighty, so also is the other, and, following the example of Philo and Justin, Clement applies to the Son passages of the Old Testament, where Lord is employed as the substitute for Jehovah °. I Paed. i. 8: 74. 2 Paed. iii. 12. 101 ; Strom. vii. 12. 72. See also the first Hymn to the Saviour Christ appended to the Pedagogue. It is probably genuine; Rede- penning, i. 121. 3 The Son is éwéxewa Tov vonrov, Strom. v. 6.38. He is mavroxpdarwp, Paed, i. 5. 24; iii. 7. 39; Protrep. viii. 81; Strom. iv. 3. 148 : kvpios, Paed. i. 7. 56, 57: the Father alone is perfect, for in Him is the Son, and in the Son the Father, Paed. i. 7.53. The passages usually quoted as showing Clement’s tendency to Subordinationism are Strom. vil. 1. 2, mpeoBuTepov ev yevéoe; vii. 2. 5, the Father is 6 pdvos mavtoxpatwp ; Strom. v. 1. 6, the Son is a Svvapis, vii. 2. 8 an évépyea, Paed. iii. 1. 2 a Bidkovos of the Father; Protrep. x. 110 He is made equal to the Father; aed. iii. 12. 98 He is the dya0ov BovAnpua of the Father; Strom. vi. 7. 59 Creation runs up to the Father, Redemption to the Son. Rufinus, Zfz/. 2x Afol. Pamphil, Clement sometimes ‘ filium Dei creaturam dicit.’ This must refer to the word aticey used of Wisdom (Prov. viii. 22), Strom. v.14. 89. Even roety might be used, Strom. vi. 7. 58 (in a quotation from the Térpov «njp.), ds adpxiv TaY adnavrwv émoinaev. Cp. Adumb.in 1 Joan. p. 1009, ‘ hae namque primitivae virtutes ac primo creatae’ of the Son and Holy Spirit. On the interpretation of this passage of the Book of Proverbs, see Huet, Origendana, ii. 2. 21 (Lomm. xxii. 176); Rosenmiiller, 7st. /nterp. iii. 216, 229; Baur, Dreieinigheit. Bull and Dorner do not regard Clement as a Subordina- tionist. Huet maintains the opposite view. Redepenning occupies an intermediate position. The statement of Photius that Clement spoke of two 70 Clement. The Holy Spirit. [Lect. Down to this point the expansion of Christian doc- trine had been facilitated by the speculations of Philo. But here the light of philosophy fails. Philo had no Trinity, unless the World be counted as the third term. Hence perhaps it resulted, that a certain doubt hangs over the Personality of the Holy Spirit in Hermas, in Athena- goras, and even in Hippolytus!, not to speak of later times. Clement proposed to enter at length upon the subject in a separate treatise, perhaps with a special view to Montanism?. But the plan was never carried out. Hence, though there is no doubt that he regarded the Spirit as a distinct hypostasis®, we cannot state with precision how he considered the Third Person to be related to the First and Second. Itisthe Holy Spirit, equally with the Logos, who speaks by the Prophets*. It is He, as we have seen, who binds together the Church Visible and Invisible °. It is He whose ‘ dew’ washes away our sins, and sanctifies both soul and body®. Out of this last office of sancti- fication arises the only point, that Clement has deemed it needful to define. The Third Person of the Platonic Trinity is the World Spirit, of which the soul of man is a part or effluence. Clement is jealous of the slightest approach to Pantheism, and takes occasion more than once to warn his readers, that the Holy Spirit, though Logi must rest upon a blunder; see Dr. Westcott, Clement of Alexandria, in Dict. Christ. Biog.; Zahn, Forsch. iii. 144; and Lect. viii. 1 See the commentators on Hermas, Szm.v.6; Athenag. Swpplicatio, 10 ; Hippolytus, Contra Noetum, 14. p. 52, ed. Lagarde. The author of the Philosophumena in the sketch of vital Christian doctrine with which he concludes his work omits all mention of the Holy Spirit. 4°357707. Vo 13. 88. 3 Paed.i. 6. 42; iii. 12. 101; Strom. v. 14. 1033 vii. 2.9; Redepenning, i. 122; Guerike, ii. 134. * Prorrepin. 85 Vill.79; 5 Strom. vii. 2. Q. 6 Outs D. Salvus, 34; Strom. iv. 26. 163. II. ] The I[ncarnation. via said to be breathed into the believer, is present in the soul not as a part of God, not in essence, but in power. What he means he explains by a quotation from the Apostolic Barnabas. ‘Wherefore in us as in a temple God truly dwells. But how? By the word of His faith, by the calling of His promise, by the wisdom of His statutes, by the precepts of His doctrine.’ We have yet to speak of the Incarnation and the redeeming work of Jesus. The Word, the whole Word, took flesh of the Virgin Mary, and became Man. Jesus alone is both God and Man?. He who is God became Man, that we might become gods*. It has been doubted whether Clement ascribed to the Lord a human soul, but without reason, for it is the soul of Jesus that was our Ransom*. But His Flesh was not wholly like ours, inasmuch as it was exempt from all carnal desires and emotions, even the most necessary and innocent®. And as his Platonic dis- a SU7OMin Vil. EA. 87 7 Vi, 10.138); i. 20. 117} V..13. 88: 2 See esp. Strom. iii. 17. 102; Protrep.i. 7; x. 106; Ques D. Salvus, 37. In the last very striking passage the words 76 dppytov avtov marnp, TO dé Apuiy cupmabes yéyove yntnp refer to the Eternal Generation, from which Clement passes on to the Incarnation. 3 Protr. i: 8; cp. Stvom. iv. 23. 1525 Vil. 3. 13; 10. 56; 13. 82, referring to John x. 34. The same strong phrase is used by the author of the P/z/os. X. 34, yéyovas yap Oeds . . . ov yap mTwxever Beds Kal oe Oedy Togoas «is ddfav airov. It is a favourite with Origen also. * Redepenning, i. 401 : ‘Clemens nur von einer Verbindung des Logos mit einem menschlichen Korper ohne Seele weiss.’ But (aed. i. 2. 4, He is dnadys tiv Wuxhv ; cp. zbid. i. 9. 85,6 7 peyotov bmép Huav Thy Yoxjy avrov émédudovs, and Q. D..S. 37. Clement probably held with Origen that the Ransom was specially the Soul and not the Body of Christ. 5 Strom. vi. 9. 71, He was dnatamA@s dra6qs, and ate and drank only to forestall Docetism. Strom. iii. 7.59 the opinion of Valentinus is quoted, apparently with approval. Indeed the view of Clement differs but little from that of Valentinus and Apelles, who held that the Saviour’s body was propriae qualitatis, Tert. de Res. Carnis, 2; Adv. Marc. iii. 11 ; Philos. vii. 72 Clement. [Lect. like of the body has led Clement here, though no Docetist, perilously near to the confines of Docetism, so another Platonic theory, that all suffering is corrective, has induced him to speak of the Passion of Jesus as undesigned by God. ‘We must say then that God did not prevent it, for this alone saves both the providence and the goodness of God.’ But in truth Clement has saved neither. What he has done is to introduce dis- sension into the counsels of the Most High 1. Clement’s Christology is often spoken of as meagre and unsatisfactory. In one aspect this is unjust. For Clement’s idea of the Saviour is larger and nobler—may we say less conventional ?—than that of any other doctor of the Church. Christ is the Light that broods over all history, and lighteth every man that cometh into the world. All that there is upon earth of beauty, truth, goodness, all that distinguishes the civilised man from the savage, the savage from the beasts, is His gift. No later writer has so serene and hopeful a view of human nature as Clement, and though this may seem to depress his estimate of the Redeemer, it surely exalts in the same measure his belief in the fostering bounty of the Eternal Word. Especially is the goodness of Christ manifested towards His Church, to whom He has given a life, and promised a future, which He alone can bestow. But if we ask why the Birth, the Passion, the Cross? why Jesus redeemed us in this way, and no other? Clement has no answer. It may be urged that all 38. This was also the teaching of Theodotus, see above, p. 32. The curious tradition recorded Adumb. in Efist. Joan. i. p. 1009 refers apparently to the flesh of Jesus after the Resurrection, but it is doubtful whether this pas- sage is not an interpolation. See Dr. Zahn’s note. * Strom. iv. 12. 80. II] Redemption. 73 answers are but formal. Or that Clement speaks the language of the whole sub-apostolic age. But this is only partially true. The spirit of Hellenism lies heavier on Clement than on others, and led him to draw a line between the Cross and the Ascension, between the ‘death unto sin’ and the ‘new life unto righteousness, which though it has connections with Scripture, is yet not Scriptural. We shall see farther on how he regards the Passion of our Lord, Redemption, as the source of Fear and Hope, but most strangely not of Love. By His death Christ Ransoms us from the powers of evil!, and bestows upon us Forgiveness, relieving us thereby not merely from the punishment, or guilt, but from the ignorance, which is the power of sin. Forgive- ness was undoubtedly a most difficult idea to the Alex- andrines, who believed firmly in the changelessness of God, and carried their faith in the wholesome necessity of correction so far, that they admitted a quantitative relation between the offence and its chastisement. They held that Pardon can be freely bestowed only in Baptism, and that the Christian should be taught to look, not upon the Crucified, but upon the Risen Lord, the fountain not of pardon, but of life?. Jesus again reconciles us to God. 1 For the Avzpov, see 0. D. S. 37; 42; Paed. i. 5. 23, and elsewhere. Clement does not say expressly to whom the ransom is paid ; see however Protrep. xi. 111. Distinguish from droAvtpwois, complete emancipation from sin, perfected only in the other life, Strom. vii. 10. 56. * The free pardon purchased for us by Christ is expressly limited to actual sin committed before Baptism, Q. D..S. 40, T@v pev ody mpoyeyernuevar Oeds Sidwow apeow Tov St émdvtav abros Exactos Eavtg. Cp. Strom. ii. 14. 58; iv. 24.153; 25.154. Christ, as God, forgives sins, and then disciplines the believer as Man, Paed.i. 3. 7. It should be observed that forgiveness in Clement’s mind signifies not merely the cancelling of a penalty, but the cure of that ignorance which is the cause and strength of sin. Sin done before Baptism, in darkness, does not necessarily imply badness of heart, 7A Clencent. [ Lect. He is our Propitiation, but this word, which, if more than a figure of speech, is so supremely difficult, Clement leaves unexplained!. Notwithstanding his Allegorism Clement quotes few Messianic prophecies, and, in respect of typo- logy, does not venture beyond the track marked out by Philo and Barnabas, except when authorised by the New Testament. Hence the only sacrificial title, which he distinctly applies to our Lord, is that of the Lamb of God *. - To the Christian pilgrim, in the lower life, Christ manifests Himself as Physician, Shepherd, Tutor, Law- giver, calming the fever of passion by gentle words of admonition or bitter roots of fear. This He does as Man, by virtue of His humiliation and perfect obedience hence for this no remedy is necessary except light. In all other cases the penalty is itself the earnest of forgiveness. 1 He rarely touches upon this aspect of Redemption. / aed. iii. 12. 98, kal avTos iAagpds éoTe TEpl TV GpyapTiaV HUaY, ws pno 6 “Iwavyns (i. 2. 2), 6 iwpevos huady Kal o@pa Kal yuoxnv. Protrept. i. 6, viods amebets 5iaddAagat matpl: X. 110, 6 KaOdpotos kal owrnpios Kal pedixios . . . 6 omovdopédpos Kat SiadAantys Kal owrt7np Hu@v Adyos. Laed. ili. I. 2, peaitns yap 6 Adyos. Everywhere the barrier is not God’s wrath, but man’s impurity. 2 Paed.i.5.24, Christ is durvds Tov Oeod in respect of His innocence: Strom. v. 6. 32, He is the Lamb with seven eyes of Rev. v. 6: Stvom.v. 11. 70; vii. 3. 14, He is éAoxdprwpa, in the latter passage tmép judy tepevOévtu : Paed. i. 5. 23, Isaac is iepetoy ws 6 nvpios: Paed.i. 6. 47, the blood of Abel is a type: faed.i. 8.61, Joshua: aed. i. 11.97, Christ is our éepeiov: Protr. xi. 111, the outstretched hands of Moses are a type: aed. ii. 8. 75, the burning bush foreshadows the crown of thorns: aed. ii. 9. 81, Lot the Just: Paed. ili. 12. 85, €AutpwOnpev ... Tipiw aipats ws adpuvov adpwpov Kat domikov Xprorov (Peter i. 1.19): Strom. v. 11. 72, the Tree of Life: v. 1. 8, Abraham, the Elect Father of Sound, is the Logos (from Philo): Strom. vi. 11. 84, the 318 servants of Abraham signify Christ (from Barnabas ; this is the only passage where Clement appears to imply literal inspiration ; 318, in Greek writing TIH, denotes the Cross and the name IHSOYTS): iii. 12. 86, Land of Jacob (from Barnabas; another very forced allegory) : v. 6. 32, the High Priest’s Mitre signifies Christ the Head of the Church (adapted from Philo) : vi. 11. 88, David’s lyre isa type: iv. 25. 161, Melchisedech (from Philo). II.) Redemption. 75 unto death!. Gradually He makes Himself known to us in the higher life as God, feeding us in the Eucharist, or Agape, with His Body and Blood, the sacred food of Gnosis, becoming our Light, our Truth, our Life, bestow- ing upon us the Adoption of Sons, binding us in closest unity with the Spirit, leading us on to the holy mountain, the better Cithaeron, the spiritual Church”. Clement speaks of Jesus as our High Priest, but only in the Philonic sense, as our Representative and Intercessor®. The idea‘ of the ‘Recapitulation’ of all men in Christ as the second Adam, so fruitful in the brooding soul of Irenaeus, is strange tohim. He looks upon Redemption, not as the restitution of that which was lost at the Fall, but as the crown and consummation of the destiny of Man, leading to a righteousness such as Adam never knew, and to heights of glory and power as yet un- scaled and undreamed. ‘The Word of God became Man, in order that thou also mayest learn from Man, how man becomes God +.’ 1 Protrept. i. 7,76 €b Ghv edibatey émavels ws dibdcKados, iva TO det Cav vaoTepov ws Oeds xopnynon: Paced. i. 3.7, Ta pev GpapThnpata ws Peds adueis, eis 5¢ 70 7) E€apapraveyv Tmadaywyav ws avOpwmos. 2 See especially the fine outburst at the close of the Protrepticus, and the opening of the Paedagogus. 3 Protrept. xii. 120; Strom. vii. 2.9. But Strom. v. 11. 7o, though "Apxzepevs is not used, Christ offers Himself to the Father as a 0dua drupor, a phrase borrowed from Euripides, ‘the scenic philosopher: In v. 10. 66 He is the dmopov dpa of Plato, Rep. ii. p. 378 A. So closely are Clement’s reminiscences of the Classics intertwined with his theology. * Protrept.i.8. The reader will find it instructive to compare with this sketch of the Christology of Clement, Dr. Harnack’s account of the teach- ing of Irenaeus, Dogmengeschichte, p. 478 sqq- Peep URE. te: And, now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three: but the greatest of these ts chartty.—1 Cor. xili. 13. CLEMENT did not admit the pre-existence of the soul or the eternity of Matter’, but in other respects followed closely the Philonic view of Creation. God of His goodness and love created the world of Ideas, the in- visible heaven and earth, and in accordance with this divine model the Word gave shape and substance to the material universe”. The six days are not to be under- stood literally. They express in an allegory the differ- ing dignity of the things recorded to have been created on each in succession®. The pre-eminence of Man is further shown by the fact, that he was not called into existence by a mere command, but moulded, if we may so speak, by the very hands of God *, who breathed into his nostrils the ‘spirit, or ‘intellect, the ‘sovereign faculty’ of the tripartite soul®. Thus Man received at 1 The eternity of matter is denied, Stvom. v.14. 89. The pre-existence of the soul is rejected, Strom. ili. 13. 93; iv. 26. 167; Lclogae Proph. § 17. Yet it appears to be implied, Q.D..S. 33, 36; Strom. vii. 2. 9. 2 Strom. v. 6. 39; 14. 93 Sq. 3 Strom. vi. 16. 142. aul ala. 1, 3. 7. > Clement analyses the Yuy7, a. philosophically into émOvpia, Oupds and Aoyopos from the ethical point of view, Strom. iii. 10. 68, and into the Tpla PéTpa OF KpiTHpia, ataOnots, Adyos, vos from the logical, Strom. ii. 11. 50 (the latter is from Philo, see Potter’s note); 4. theologically, Strom. vi. 16. 134 sqq., into ten parts, corresponding mystically to the Decalogue. From the point of view of the New Testament these ten faculties may be summed up in two, the d:00a mvevpara, The first capt, capxixdv mvedpa, TO bnoxeipevoy, the animal and emotional nature, is actually materialised Creation. Lreedon. vii birth the ‘image,’ and may acquire by a virtuous life the ‘likeness,’ of God, or rather of the Son. The ‘image,’ the Reason, may be blurred and defaced, but can never be wholly destroyed. It is the ‘love-charm,’ which makes Man dear to God for his own sake!. It is the fountain of that natural yearning, which makes the child always unhappy, when banished from his Father’s home. It is by this that he receives, understands, recognises his Father’s voice. | But here there arises a difficulty, which had never before been felt in all its force. If God made all things out of nothing, what is the cause of Evil? According to the heathen Platonist, and even in the eyes of Philo, it was Matter. God’s purpose was limited and frustrated by the nature of the substance, on which He was com- pelled to work. The Gnostics carried this view so far as to maintain, that creation was the act of a rebellious spirit, who mingled together things that ought to have been kept apart. But the Christian believed that Matter, as well as Form, was created by God. How then were the imperfections of the universe, pain, sin, waste, inequality, to be accounted for? They can be no by sin and is cast off in heaven, Strom. v. 6. 52; the second is the mveta pro- per, the vovs or Adyos in Platonic, the #yenoruedv in Stoic, the €upvaonpua in Philonic language. In the latter consists the likeness to God, or rather to the Son; Protrept. x. 98; aed. 1. 3. 7; Strom. ii. 19. 102; v. 13. 87; vi. 9. 72. It is to be distinguished from the Holy Spirit which is said mpocemmveto0a, Strom. v. 13. 88. M. Denis is quite mistaken in ascribing the error of Tatian to Clement, Phzlosophie d’ Origéne, p. 225. 1 Paed. i. 3. 7, the éupdanua is a piAtpov which makes man dear to God for his own sake. See also Protreft. x. 100, mépuke yap GAAws 6 avOpwros oixelws éxew mpos Gedy: Strom. v. 13. 87, man has an éppacis Oeod porn. But on the other hand, Strom. ii. 16. 74, God has no voix} oxéors with man. Man’s spirit is not a part of God as on the Pantheistic theory. Otherwise He would be partaker in our sins. 78 Clement. pleats part of the intention of Him, who gave all things being because He is Good. Here again Clement does not grasp the whole range of the problem. He is not affected by the disorder of external Nature, as was the troubled and far-glancing spirit of Origen. To the former all that seems to demand explanation is the existence of Sin, and for this he found an adequate reason in the Freedom of the Human Will. This conception is as new as the difficulty out of which it sprang. It is to be found in the Apologists, but the Alexandrines were the first to define it and make it the foundation of a system. St. Paul speaks of Freedom from conflicting motives, but never of Freedom of the Will. There are those who being servants of sin are free from righteousness, those again who being free from sin are servants to God. Between these stand a third class, who are in bondage yet longing to break their fetters—‘to will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good I find not. This is in fact the doctrine of the Platonist, who held that the soul has two instinctive and antagonistic movements, that of Reason towards the Ideal and that of Sense towards Gratification, and that the man is then only truly free, when his sovereign faculty soars freely towards the Good unimpeded by the clamour of Desire. In what sense Will itself is free the Greeks did not attempt to decide. Generally speaking they regarded it as the expression of character, and did not or could - ‘not clear up the previous question, how character itself is formed’. 1 The difficulty was felt but not removed by Aristotle. See especially III.] freedom. 70 Yet precisely at this point, where Plato and St. Paul are in substantial agreement, the Alexandrines broke loose from their allegiance. There were strong reasons for this revolt. They had to account for the Fall of the First Man. This was no mere academical thesis, it was pressed upon them by an active, subtle, and formidable antagonist. If Adam was created perfect, said the Gnostic, he could not have fallen. He was then created imperfect, and in that case the Creator was the cause of his imperfection, and must therefore be imperfect Him- self1. Closely connected with this argument is the Gnostic Dualism and their peculiar doctrine of pre- destination. At a later period, when nosticism was practically vanquished, Augustine did not hesitate to maintain that, though God predestines, He is yet not the author of evil. But to the Alexandrines this did not seem possible. Determinism in any shape appeared to them to impugn both the divine goodness and the divine right to punish sin, and though they held that in truth God does not punish, they would not acknowledge this in set terms. Hence they were driven to make Will an independent faculty, knowing both good and evil and choosing between them, selecting and in fact creating its own motive. The actual phrase Free Will, Lzberum Arbitrium, is due to Tertullian, but it expresses with Eth. Nic. iii. 5.17, €i 5€ Tis A€you OTe TavTeEs EpievTat TOD Pavopevov ayabod, Ths 5€ pavTacias od KUpior, GAX’ 6roids 100 ExagTds éaTt TOLOUTO Kai TO TéAOS paiveTat avTa@, K.T.A. + The Gnostics went so far as to assert that 6 px) xwAvoas aitios, he who did not prevent evil is the cause of the evil. The argument is retorted upon them with nnanswerable force in the Recognitions, ii. The Demiurge is evil because he tolerates evil. Why then does God tolerate the Demiurge ? The difficulty was strongly felt by Clement, whom it drove to the assertion that Christ’s Passion was not ordained by the Father, Strom. iv. 12. 86 sq. 80 Clement. (Lect. Latin precision what Clement and Origen really mean. No wise man will attempt to find a precise solution for the eternal antinomy of Freedom and Necessity. It is enough to point out what the Alexandrines did. In their recoil from Gnosticism they abolished Necessity altogether, and gave Freedom a new meaning. We can only judge of their action by its results. It has become possible to ask whether God can do wrong, and almost a heresy to speak of Christ as begotten by the Will of the Father. And already the door is opened for all the barren disputes, that troubled the Church and the Schools from the days of Augustine to those of Pascal’. Evil then in Clement’s view is, not a Power, but an Act. It is not the Platonic ‘lie in the soul, nor the Pauline ‘law of sin, not a vicious motive nor a false belief, because these have no constraining force. Vice consists in acting the lie, and we need not act it unless we choose. Clement could not then believe in any inherited depravity of human nature. This follows indeed already from his opinion, that the Reason comes in each case fresh from the hands of its Maker. Adam 1 Origen has formally explained the Alexandrine doctrine of Freedom in the third book of the De Princifiis. Neither he nor Clement clearly saw what Jeremy Taylor insists upon, that ‘in moral things liberty is a direct imperfection, a state of weakness, and supposes weakness of reason and weakness of love.’ But practically they admit, as we shall see, that at a certain point in the upward progress Grace absorbs the Will, and that at a certain point in the downward progress evil becomes second nature. Thus the demons have sinned so deeply ‘ ut revocari nolint magis quam non possint,’ De Princ.i. 8. 4. But this point of irremediable depravity, of complete dxoAagia, they refused to fix. This seems to be the essential difference between the Alexandrines on the one hand and the Gnostics and Augustine on the other. Mehlhorn, Dze Lehre von der menschlichen Frethett nach Or., Zeitsch. fiir Kirch. Gesch. 2 Band, p. 234, is referred to by Dr. Har ack, but I have not seen the article. III.] Grace. 81 was created perfect, yet not perfect ; perfect inasmuch as every faculty was sound and apt for virtue, not perfect inasmuch as virtue was not yet actualised by obedience. He fell by lust, and so we all fall’. There is no entailed necessity between his sin and ours. But though Free Will and Reason, both gifts of God, are enough for guidance in this world, they cannot tell us fully what God is, they cannot bring us into living communion with Him. ‘Each of us justifies himself.’ ‘The true Gnostic creates himself.’ Men may ‘choose to believe er te dishelieve*.” Yet Faith. itself issa grace*s%¢the ball-player cannot catch the ball unless it is thrown to him.’ We are created capable of wisdom, goodness, * The soul does not come from the parent, Strom. vi. 16. 135. For the original estate of Adam see Stvom. iv. 23. 150; vi. 12. 96. The Serpent was pleasure, Protveft. xi. 111, and the precise sin may have been that the first parents anticipated the time fixed by God for their marriage, Strom, iii. 17. 103. Compare Philo, De Mundi Op. 55 (i. 37) sqq. ‘Ita vix alia Adamum primo vixisse conditione noster censet quam posterorum infantes,’ Guerike, i. p.143. Clement does not admit any hereditary guilt. For (i) God punishes only voluntary sins, Strom. ii. 14.60; and again, those sins which are not imputed are those which are pr) xaTd rpoaipeciy, Strom. ii. 15. 66. (ii) The sins forgiven in Baptism are always spoken of as actual sins. (iii) Infant Baptism, a practice which is very closely connected with the tenet of Original Sin, is never certainly mentioned by Clement. Mr. Marriott (article Baptzsm in Dict. Christian Antiquities) cites Paed. iii. 11. 59, Tav ef ViaTos dvacrwpévwy madiwy, but in this treatise ma.diov is used of ‘ babes in Christ’ without any reference to age. (iv) In Strom. ili. 16. 100 Clement replies to the Encratites, who forbade marriage on the ground that the children are accursed, AeyéTwoay piv rod émdpvevcev TO yevynbev madiov, 7 mas bMO THY TOU Addy troTénTwKEY apay TO pndev évepyjoav. (v) The causes of sin are tAns adoOéveca and dyvaa, Strom. vii. 3. 16. Yet Adam is the type, though not the source, of sin, Protreft. xi. 111. So also Adumb. in Ep. Judae, p. 1008, ‘Sic etiam peccato Adae subjacemus secundum peccati similitudinem,’ where the negative is omitted, as by Origen, in the well-known verse, Rom. v.14. But I doubt very much whether this passage, which goes on to lay down the doctrine of Reprobation, is from the hand of Clement. a arwone. Oi. Q:'G5* Vil. 3.13: iv. 25. 157. S are: Ui, A, tA? iL. 57. G 82 Clement. (Lect. felicity, which yet we can only attain by grasping the Divine Hand outstretched to lift us up. ‘Not without special grace does the soul put forth its wings’ The secrets of this diviner life cannot be expressed in rules and formulas. But there is a point where grace and nature meet, which is the proper field of discipline. Knowledge must be gradually assimilated. Love must creep before it can fly. Christ has revealed to us all truth, but truth is precept before it is conviction. It is by obedience to Authority, that the carpenter and the pilot acquire their skill. So the Christian life begins in Faith *, that is belief in the desirability of the End, and willing submission to the Means in their regular pro- 1 The ball-player, Stvom. ii. 6.25. So in Paed.-i. 6. 28 regeneration is compared to waking or the removal of a cataract ; we open our eyes and the light streams in. The words ‘no man can come to Me except my Father draw him,’ Clement explains differently at different times, Strom. iv. 22. 138; v. 13.83. Inthe latter passage he quotes with approval the saying of Plato in the AZeno, that virtue comes to those to whom it comes, Oeia poipg. Compare also v.1. 7; vi. 6.45; Q.D.S. 10, 21. 2 See especially Stvom. ii. 2,3,4. Clement was. very anxious to connect Faith, the Christian watchword, with philosophy. Plato, who refers it (Rep. vi.ad finem) to the Tphya Tov aicOnrov and regards it as unintelligent belief in material objects, gave him no assistance, and perhaps helped to mislead him. He found better definitions in Aristotle, Zopzcs, iv. 126 B. 18, % mioTis UMOAnYis opodpa, in the mpoaipeois of the H¢hzcs, in the Epicurean mpoAnius, in the Stoic ovyxcata@eots. It is the faculty by which we grasp the dpyai. These to Clement are not, as to the Stoic and Epicurean, the facts of sense alone, but the @ frzorz data of deduction identified with the articles of the Creed. Hence Faith in Strom. ii. 4. 13, 14 is an act of vots conditioned by atc@noi1s. That is to say, experience brings home to us and ratifies the dicta of Revelation. Hence Knowledge and Faith may be ‘spoken of as in substance identical ; Strom. iv. 16.100; v. I. 23 vi. 17. 155; vii. 2. 5. But generally speaking yA aioms is sharply distinguished from Gnosis. It is the pia kaBodrrKy owrnpia, Paed. i. 6. 30, or rather the mpwtn mpos owrnpiayv vedo.s, Strom. ii. 6. 31. But ‘honour’ is more than salvation, vi. 13. 109. Faith is in fact the minimum condition of admittance into the Kingdom of Heaven. But it is not full spiritual life, Paed. i. 1. 3, tom 8 ovK éoroy vyiea Kai yva@ois. III.) faith and Baptism. 83 J gression. “But we can learn only within the school, and we must first be cleansed. Hence the gate of the Church is the Baptism of Regeneration. Herein we receive Forgiveness, the only free forgiveness, of all past sins, which leaves the mind like a sheet of blank paper, not good yet ‘not bad,’ we are brought within the circle of light, within reach of all wholesome sacraments and aids. We have started fairly in the race for the eternal crown !. Beyond this point stretches out the Christian Life, and’ here begins the most distinctive portion of Cle- ment’s teaching. We shall fail to do him justice unless we bear steadily in view the two influences that deter- mined his path—on the one hand the love of St. Paul, on the other the dread of Gnosticism, a dread which did not prevent him from seeing that this peculiar form of error answered to a real and pressing need of the human mind. Gnosticism was in one aspect distorted Paulinism. The cure lay in a full and true presentation of the Apostle’s teaching. But Clement only half understood 1 The Jocus classicus on Baptism is Paed. i. 6. It carries with it a double grace, Forgiveness and Light. For the first see § 30, mavra pév ovv amoAovdpeba TA GuapThpata ovKéTe 5E Eopev mapa mddas Kaxot. Light in a sense has been given before, for wiors and xarhxnots precede Baptism. But niomis Gya Banriopart ayiw madeverar mvevpatr. The gift is perfect, because it is the gift of the perfect God. That is to say, it is objectively perfect ; our subjective perfection, 76 7éAos, the Promise, Rest, is attained only in the Resurrection. It is a perfect gift at first imperfectly grasped. Clement gives no details about xarnynows. Strom. i. 19. 96 he speaks of the ov« oixetov kat yvjovov vdwp of heretical baptism. The only ritual usage he mentions is that of giving milk and honey to the newly baptised at their first communion, aed. i. 6. 35. See Tertullian, De Cor. AZ. iii; Bingham, xli. 4. 6; Probst, Atrchliche Disciplin, p. 321. Probst finds allusions to Confirmation and to a week of instruction and daily communion succeeding Baptism, Sakramente, pp. 159 sqq-,193 sqq., but they are very dubious. Infant Baptism appears to have been not the rule at Alexandria, see above, p. 81. G2 84 Clement. | [Lect. St. Paul, and in his desire to win back the sectaries he draped Christianity in a Gnostic garb. He saw around him a system little better than the liberal form of Judaism out of which it sprang. The new wine was fermenting in old bottles, the Christian still trembled beneath the handwriting of ordinances. If we read the Doctrine of the Apostles, we find there a law which differs from the Mosaic mainly in being more searching and elaborate. The circumstances of the time were such as to confirm and even justify this legalism. Crowds were pressing into the Church, mostly ignorant and undisciplined, some rich and wilful. They brought with them the moral taint, the ingrained prejudices of their old life. We learn from many sources that the same incongruous blending of the Gospel with pagan superstitions, which recurred during the conversion of the Northern Barbarians, existed in some degree in the second and third centuries!. Disci- pline, teaching, supervision, direction, were absolutely necessary to the purity and maintenance of the Faith, and no wise man would attempt to weaken the growing authority of the Priest. Yet there were those again for whom this atmosphere was not the best, devout souls whose life was hidden with Christ in God, men and women of cultivated thoughtful minds, who fretted under a system of routine and dictation administered, we may suppose, not unfre- quently, by ignorant and fanatical officers. Social and 1 See Miinter, Przmordia Ecclesiae Africanae, pp. 6, 68, 95. The curses on tombstones by which the grave was secured against violation were often copied with slight alterations from the formulas in use among Pagans. See Mr. Ramsay’s article, Cztzes and Lishoprics of Phrygia, Journal of Hellenic Studies, Oct. 1883, p. 400. III. The Two Lives. 85 personal distinctions were perhaps greater in those days than they have ever been since, and in times of intense religious excitement these distinctions shape themselves into forms of character, which, though held together by the most powerful of all bands, are yet as different as it is possible for children of the same family to be. No- where do we see this more clearly than in the history of the Martyrs. There were those who died, as Polycarp, Perpetua, Blandina, Christlike blessing their persecutors ; there were those who brought their fate on their own heads by wild defiance, and went to meet it like Pris- tinus drugged to insensibility by the fumes of wine; there were others again, like Peregrinus, who found suffering for the Name an easy road to profit, and if the worst happened to notoriety’. It was out of this diver- gence of type that the Gnostic made his gain. What was the Christian teacher to do? How was he to deal with the spirit of discontent and disillusion which. he knew to be at work? It was impossible to alter the existing framework of the community. But there might be a life within a life, a Church within a Church, a quiet haven for the spiritually free. Had Clement written a few years later he would have taken refuge in the distinction between nominal and real Christianity, between the Visible and the Invisible Church. But he lived in a time of transition. As yet the ancient view that all the brethren were in process of 1 For Pristinus see Tertullian, De Jej. 12; Miinter, Prim. Eccl. Afr. p. 183. The history of Peregrinus will be found in Lucian. He was actually a confessor, and it was not his own fault that he was not a martyr. That these were not isolated instances is clear from the earnestness with which Clement maintains against Heracleon that even those who had. denied Christ in their lives washed away their sins by martyrdom; S¢vom. iv. 9. 72 S44. 86 Clement. (Lect. salvation, though shaken, was not abandoned. Hence he falls back upon his philosophy, and finds the solution in the Two Lives of Philo, the practical and contemplative Life of Plato and Aristotle, still more exactly in the Stoic distinction between Proficiency and Wisdom?. He thought he found the same idea in certain antitheses of St. Paul’s—the milk and the solid food—faith and knowledge or mysteries—the spirit of bondage and the spirit of adoption—faith and hope which are less than charity. There were indications in the Roman Clement, in Hermas, in Barnabas?, that pointed in the same direction. Other cherished ideas appeared to fit in—the opposition between the servant and the son of God, be- tween God the Lord and God the Father, between the letter and the spirit, between the Human and the Divine ~ Natures of Christ. Gathering all these hints into one, Clement proclaims that the life of the ordinary believer, that is to say of the great body of the Church, is a lower life. Its marks are Faith, Fear and Hope ?—un- questioning obedience to the letter of Authority, a selfish motive, a morality of abstinence from wrong. It is the sphere of discipline, of repression, of painful effort. Its crown is Holiness’, the negative virtue of ' See the description of the Stoic mpoxomm or Proficiency in Seneca, Ep. 75. Seiclem. Rom. 1.1.2; 7. 4.3.30. 23 40. 13 41.45 48)\5 3) elenmas, 9) gyre 200 spamabas, 1. 5; ii. 2, 23 V..43 VliOs Ix. 8 ex ee Orn eile on Hermas and Barnabas the connection of Gnosis with Allegorism is clearly asserted. 3 Strom. ii. 12. 553; iv. 7. 53. Sometimes he drops Fear, and speaks of the ayia rpids, Faith, Hope and Charity, corresponding to the three man- sions in the Father’s House. * Strom. iv. 22. 135, 7 Gmoxi) Tav Kakwv, émBabpa yap a’tn mpoKomys peylotns: vi. 7.60, ) amoxi) THY KaKkav jv TwWes TeACKiwow HyodvTat Kal ETL amA@s TOU Kowvod muaTOv "Iovbaiov Te Kal“ EAAnvos 77 TeAciwots atTn. T1I.] The Two Lives. 87 Self-Control. It is a state of salvation, but not of peace or joy. Above it stands the Higher Life, that of the true Gnostic, the life of Love, Righteousness, Knowledge, of serene and reasonable convictions, of glad and spon- taneous moral activity, in which the spirit of man is so closely wedded to the spirit of his Lord that there is no more recalcitrance, and freedom is merged in the deata necessitas non peccandt. Thus Clement insisted as against the Gnostic that purity is the condition of insight, as against the Ortho- doxast that law is meant to issue in freedom. On these two piers he built his Vza Media the Christian Gnosis. It is a compromise between the Church and the world, but the later history of Catholicism is enough to prove how inevitable is such a concession to a body that will govern and yet purify society. As against the Gnostic, again, Clement protests that the Two Lives are not divided by any Jaw of nature. The one must and should grow out of the other, the one is incomplete without the other. All men, all women are called, as he says, ‘to philosophise ', to strive upwards to the highest ideal. Yet the distinction in itself is evil, and Clement has expressed it in such a way as to make not a distinction but a real difference, a breach of prin- ciple and continuity. The spiritual life is one because Love, its root, is one. But this Faith, which in the Lower Life leads through Fear and Hope to Love, is itself not Love, but imperfect intellectual apprehension ; 1 Paed. i. 4; 6. 33: Strom. iv. 8. 59, 68; 19. 118-124. In this last passage he refers to Judith, Esther, Susanna, Miriam, and a host of women famous in Greek story, but to none of those mentioned in the New Tes- tament, and quotes from Euripides the character of a good wife as a patter for the Christian matron. 88 Clement. lest, not personal trust in the Saviour, but a half-persuasion of the desirableness of what the Saviour promises /. The belief, the morality, the reward are all external. Fear and Hope are the life, not the outer husk which shields and protects-the life till it is strong enough to act by itself, Clement has attempted. to seize ‘the Pauline doctrine of Grace without the Pauline doctrine of Faith*. He has superposed the Gospel freedom upon the Aristotelian theory of Habit, upon ‘ reasonable self-love, upon the legal Christianity of his time, with- out seeing that between these two an entirely new element must come into play. This element he has endeavoured to supply by banishing Fear and Hope from the Higher Life. ‘ Perfect Love casteth out Fear, which indeed is not a motive but a check. But disinterestedness, which is what Clement wants, does not depend upon the presence or absence of Hope, but on the nature of the thing hoped for. That which was mercenary in its original conception does not become less mercenary because Hope is swallowed up in fruition. In Clement’s view the supreme End of all is 1 Clement partly realised all this. To the Platonist the vots has an €pws for the von7d. ‘The spark of knowledge contains the spark of desire, and this is kindled to a flame by better knowledge gained through practice, Strom. vi. 17. 150 sqq. 2 How little Clement understood what St. Paul means by Faith will be seen from the following quotations. Stvom. vi. 13. 108, ‘thy faith hath saved thee’ was said not to Gentiles, but to Jews who already abounded in good works. vi. 12. 98, Faith is not good in itself, but as leading to Fear and Hope. vi. 13. 111, every act of the Gnostic is a xardép@wpa, every act of the simple believer a péon mpagis. He constantly uses these Stoic phrases. vi. 12. 103, ‘ Faith was accounted to Abraham for righteousness when he had advanced to that which is greater and more perfect than faith. For he who merely abstains from wrong is not righteous unless he adds well-doing and knowledge of the reason why he ought to do some things and not do others.’ iv. 18. 113, Love is the motive of the Gnostic, Fear that of Faith. III.) The Lower Life. 89 not Love but Knowledge, and this misplacement of the Ideal involves an egotism which he vainly struggles to escape. He succeeds in placing felicity within the soul, in the fulness of spiritual life, but he has not really ~ advanced beyond the point of view of Philo. But Fear he has handled in a truly Christian spirit. It is not the fear of the slave who hates his master, it is the reverence of a child for its father, of a citizen for the good magistrate. Tertullian, an African and a lawyer, dwells with fierce satisfaction on terrible visions of tor- ment. The cultivated Greek shrinks not only from the gross materialism of such a picture, but from the idea of retribution which it implies. He is never tired of re- peating that Justice is but another name for Mercy. Chastisement is not to be dreaded, but to be embraced. ‘The mirror is not evil to the ugly face because it shows it as it is, the physician is not evil to the sick man because he tells him of his fever. For the physician is not the cause of the fever.’ Still more evidently true is this of Jesus. ‘The Lord who died for us is not our enemy. Here or hereafter God’s desire is not ven- Peace, but correction. “In -trutit if is’ not. He that punishes, but we that draw chastisement on our own . heads?. . The life of Faith, as he has described it in the later books of the Pedagogue, is in beautiful accordance with these maxims”. It is a life, like that of the Puritans in 1 Paed. i. 8. 62, ékdaOdpevor 5€ TO péyroTrov avdTovd THs PiravOpwrias Ore 50 Huds dvOpwros eyéveto: zhid. 67, ws dAnOas ayaba TacxoVvow oi dixnv dddvtes: zb2d. 69, aipetrar 5¢ Exacros nuav Tas Tipwpias adTds Exdv apyap- Tavwv, aitia 5¢ édAopevov eds avaitios. For the mirror see /aed.i. 9. 88. The same simile is found in Epictetus, ii. 14. 21. It was probably a Stoic commonplace. ? Clement’s doctrine on the subject of Pleasure is to be found in Paed. ii, gO Clement. (Lect. Milton’s youth, of severe self-restraint, but built on broad principles, not captious and not gloomy. It should be as the Stoics taught, ‘according to Nature,’ hence all artificial desires are evil. But Clement condemns on the one hand the self-torture in which some of the Gnostics emulated the Hindoo Fakirs, on the other the Stoic paradox that things external are things indifferent. Here again he is Aristotelian. Innocent pleasure is the salt of life. Wealth rightly used is a blessing. The first requisite is the beauty of virtue, the second the beauty of health; Christ Himself was not beautiful in person’. Many thoughts are suggested by this charming iii; Strom. iii. iv. His general aim is to moderate the antique rigour in favour of the wealthier classes. His leading principle is the (jv xara pvow of the Stoics, but he rejects the older Stoic doctrine of the dd:apopa, Strom. iv. 5. 19, and adopts the more modern distinction of external circumstances into mponyHeva and dromponypeva, which comes to the same thing as the threefold division of Good characteristic of Peripateticism, S¢vom. iv. 26. 164, 166. His chief axioms are that pleasure as such is not to be desired by the Christian, and that to be ‘according to nature’ it must be strictly limited to the end which God intended it to promote. Hence the rule of marital continence, the prohibition of the use of the ‘bones of dead animals,’ ivory and tortoiseshell, of dyes, and artificial hair. No ring is allowed but a signet. There is a natural and an unnatural use of flowers. ‘For in spring-time to walk abroad in meadows dewy and soft and springing fresh with jewelled flowers delights us with a natural and wholesome fragrance, and we suck their sweetness as do the bees. But it is not meet for grave men to carry about in the house a plaited chaplet from meads untrodden.’? The stern prohibition of the use of cut flowers is one of the most singular features of primitive Christian discipline. It is hardly necessary to refer to the De Cor. AZ. of Tertullian. Art he disparages, but the signet may bear a simple Christian emblem, a dove, a fish, a ship in full sail, a lyre, an anchor, a fisherman. But he was quoted on this account in the Iconoclastic controversy as a favourer of Christian imagery, Photius, Cod. 110. Generally speaking, he gives innocent pleasure a liberal scope. ‘ Wine,’ he says, quoting Plato, ‘makes a man good-tempered, agree- able to his company, more lenient to his slaves, more complaisant to his friends.’ He is much less austere than Origen. 1 Strom: Mi. 17, 103 5 Vi. 17. 151. IIl.] The fligher Life. gI and authentic picture of daily Christian life. We see the vulgarity and thinly-veneered barbarism of Roman luxury giving way to true courtesy and refinement. We see the Church, no longer oppressed by instant expecta- tion of the Last Day, settling quietly down to her task of civilising the world. Already her victory is assured. Those who have been trained in the school of Jesus the Pedagogue are fitted for, are imperatively summoned to a better service. Clement delights to speak of the Higher Life in terms borrowed from Eleusis. It is the Greater Mysteries, of which Christ is the Hierophant and Torchbearer. Such language is partly conventional and common to all the Platonists of the time’. Again it is intended to conciliate the Gnostics and the religious heathen, who had all been initiated, as probably Clement himself had been in his youth. But it is also connected with, and tends to strengthen, the unfortunate doctrine of Reserve. In the Higher Life Faith gives way to Knowledge, Fear and Hope to Love, while Holiness is merged in Righteousness. Knowledge, Gnosis, Clement has defined in words taken partly from Philo, partly from the Stoics. From the first he learned that it is the intuitive communion of the intelligence with the Ideas, from the latter that being science it is indefectible?. To the Christian doctor 1 Tt is to be found in Plato himself and Aristotle (see Lobeck, Ag/ao- phamus, p.128), in Philo, and in Plutarch. 2 Tt is eis, dudBeots, naTdAnpis ms BeBaia Kal dperamtwros, emornun dvanéBdnros. Clement uses the strongest language to express the union of the Gnostic with his knowledge; it is évdrns, oixeiwors, dvdxpacts, the didvos Oewpia becomes his ovata, his (@ca imdcracis. He no longer has goodness, he is goodness, Strom. iv. 22.136; 25.1573 Vi. 9. 71; vil. 12. 79. This 92 Clement. [Lect. Christ is not only the Sum of the Ideas, but the co- equal Son of God, and Gnosis therefore is the ‘ appre- hensive contemplation’ of God in the Logos, and not, as in Philo, of God above the Logos’. Yet there is a progress in the object of Knowledge, measured by the varying aspect of Christ, who in the Lower Life is mani- fested chiefly on the human side as Physician, Tutor, and so on, in the Higher chiefly on the divine as Light, Truth, Life. Holiness is the indispensable preliminary of knowledge, which is partly Theology, but still more the experimental knowledge of Christ. The Gnostic is the ‘pure in heart’ who ‘sees God.’ ‘He that would enter the fragrant shrine, says Clement, quoting the in- scription over the temple gate of Epidaurus, ‘ must be pure, and purity is to think holy things*.’ He is the ‘approved money-changer,’ whose ‘ practised senses’ are the touchstone of truth. His Faith has become Con- viction, Authority is superseded by the inner light. To him the deep things of Scripture are revealed. He reads the spirit beneath the letter. In Christ he understands past, present, and future, the theory of Creation, the symbolism of the Law, the inner meaning of the Gospel, the mysteries of the Resurrection®. He sees the vital harmony of dogma with dogma, of all dogmas with Reason*. Ina word, he isan Allegorist. Moral purity and assiduous study of Scripture are the only training language is important as bearing on his doctrine of Grace. We have here the beata necessitas non peccandi. Again it entirely excludes Ecstasy. * Gnosis is always i. Christ; Strom. iv. 25.1553 v. 3. 16; vi. 9. 78- Nay, the Saviour zs our knowledge and spiritual paradise ; vi. 1. 2. 2 Strom. v.1.13. Another favourite quotation is from Plato’s Phaedo, p. 67, ob Kabap@ yap Kabapod épanrecOar pi) ov Oeprdv 7. 3 Strom. Vi. 7. 54. + The cvvap? tav Soypatwr, Strom. i. 2.20. III. ] The fligher Life. 93 that is absolutely necessary’. But Clement well knew the importance of mental cultivation. His Gnostic still reads Plato in his leisure moments. ‘He is not like the common run of people who fear Greek philosophy as children fear a goblin lest it should run away with them +,’ Of Knowledge Love is at once the life-element and the instrument. For ‘the more a man loves the more deeply does he penetrate into God? But here again, most unhappily, Stoicism comes in, and casts the chill shadow of Apathy over the sweetest and simplest of Christian motives. Platonism also helped to mislead, For though the Alexandrines held that Matter is the work of God, they could not wholly divest their minds of the old scholastic dislike of the brute mass and the emo- tions connected with it. The first thought suggested by the Incarnation is Fear. Love is not of Jesus, but of the Logos, the Ideal. Clement could not bear to think that the rose of Sharon could blossom on common soil ¢. This was the price he paid for his Transcendental Theology. Love makes man like the beloved. But Christ, like God, was absolutely passionless. So too were the Apostles after their Master’s Resurrection. So too must the Gnostic be. Self-control, Holiness, has made 1 The majority of the Christians had not received a regular education and some did not know their letters, Stvom. i. 20. 99. Erudition is some- times hurtful to the understanding, as Anaxarchus said, moAvpadin xdpra Bev wped€er Kapta 5é BAdmrec Tov Exovta, Strom. i. 5. 35. 2 Strom. vi. 10. 80; 18. 162. Sh DS 27s * The most singular instance of Clement’s disparagement of human love is to be found in Strom. vii. 12. 70, where married life is regarded as supe- rior to celibacy because it offers so many more temptations to surmount. 04. Clement. [Lect. the reason absolute master of the brute in the centaur man. He will feel those desires which, like hunger or thirst, are necessary for self-preservation, but not joy nor sorrow nor courage nor indignation nor hatred. He lives in the closest union with the Beloved, so absorbed in the Divine Love that he can no longer be said to love his fellow-creatures in the ordinary sense of the word}. There were many in Clement’s own time who shrank from this too ethereal ideal, which, to use his own phrase, ‘touches earth with but one foot.’ If we take away hope and joy, they urged, will not the Christian be swallowed up by the sorrows of life? And if all union with the Beautiful is preceded by aspiration, how can he be pas- sionless who aspires to the Beautiful??’ How can we rise without desire, and how can we desire the extinction of desire? It is the argument afterwards pressed with irresistible force by Bossuet and Bourdaloue against Fénelon. Clement replies, ‘Love is no more desire but a contented self-appropriation, which restores the Gnostic into oneness with Christ by faith, so that he needs neither time nor place. For by Love he is already in that scene where he will one day dwell. And having an- ticipated his hope by Gnosis he desires nothing, for he holds in closest possession the very object of desire.’ It is the Love which we mortals feel ‘in our diviner mo- ments, when Love is satisfied in the completeness of the beloved object.’ So absolute is its content, that if it were possible to separate eternal salvation from the knowledge of God, and a choice were given to the * The leading passages on the subject of Apathy and disinterested Love are S7vom. iv. ©. 30; 18. I11; 22. 135-146; vi. 9. 71; 12. 100; 16. 138. 3 Strom. Vi. 9. 73- III. ] The fligher Life. 95 Gnostic, he would without hesitation choose the latter. It is the paradox of Mysticism :-— Be not angry; I resign Henceforth all my will to thine: I consent that thou depart, Though thine absence breaks my heart ; Go then, and for ever too; All is right that thou wilt do’. Of this Ideal (for it is perhaps no more”) enough has been said. Clement no doubt overshot the mark. It remains to be seen whether by so doing he encouraged presumption, or led weakness astray. The answer is to be found in the rigour with which he insists upon Holi- ness as the indispensable condition, on Righteousness as the indispensable fruit of Love. Like all the early Fathers he attached a very real sense to the word Righteousness. ‘Ye were justified by the name of the Lord, ye were made just as He is, and joined in the closest possible union with the Holy Spitit =. » tis. not mere abstention from evil, which 1 It was insisted upon by the Quietists. It is a paradox because the separation is impossible. The Kingdom of Heaven is within you. Milton makes Satan complain, ‘ Which way I go is hell, myself am hell;’ and the converse is true also. But Clement knew this. well; cp. Strom. v. 10. 63, TO 5& ayvoeiy Tov TaTépa Oavatds eat, ws TO yv@vat (wi aiwvios. Nor did the Quietists think otherwise. Bossuet did not venture directly to deny the mystic paradox, which is in fact admitted in the Articles of Issy. But I must refer my readers to Mr. Vaughan’s charming Hours with the Mystics, vol. il. pp. 170, 217, 380, ed. 1856. ? Clement ascribes Apathy to Christ and to the Apostles after the Resur- rection, Strom. vi. 9.71. As regards men he uses sometimes very strong language. The Gnostic becomes a god upon earth, iv. 23.149; vii. 3. 13; Io. 56: he is ioayyedos évtav0a pwrevods 5¢ 75n, vi. 13.105. On the other hand, Paed.i. 2. 4; Strom.iv. 21.130; Q. D..S. 40, more sober language is employed; Christ is the only perfect man, passion cannot be wholly eradicated in this life, the wise man touches no known sin. It is the Josse non peccare, not the zon posse peccare. But Clement is less introspective than Origen. The mere frailty of human nature does not distress him so long as he feels that his heart is safe in Christ. 3 Strom. vii. 14. 87. On Righteousness, see especially the fine passage, CU lLOMtCitl. LAueCl- is Holiness, the virtue of the Lower Life, but the free active joyous service of those who are sanctified. It is life which needs no rule. The Gnostic, says Clement in language very like that of Madame de Guyon, has no virtue, because he is virtue. Nature is absorbed by Grace. It is easier to do good than to leave it undone, hence ‘ good works follow Gnosis as shadow follows sub- stance!.’ Contemplation is the Gnostic’s chief delight, the next is active beneficence, the third is instruction, the work of making others like himself. God gives him an exceeding great reward, the salvation of other men’. Thus Apathy, Detachment, make the sanctified be- liever not less but more useful to his kind. It is important to add, in view of the objections afterwards urged against the Quietists, that Clement lays great stress upon the observance of the existing Church disci- Strom. vi. 12. 102. Origen distinguishes two modes of Righteousness, Innocence, the effect of Baptismal Forgiveness, and the active virtue of Justice. Clement speaks only of the latter. The just man is faithful, but the faithful man is not necessarily just. Faith is salvation, but not righteous- ness; it gives the will, but not immediately the power to do right. Faith is life, righteousness is health (tyie). It would seem then that we might be ‘saved’ without good works, but Clement never expressly deals with this question. He seems to assert the opposite, Strom. v. I. 7, xapite yap ow lbpeba ovk dvev pevTo TOV KAaAaY Epywy, but here perhaps owrnpia is used in the sense of tyiea. On the necessity, the ‘merit’ of good works, see Si70m. V. 13. 86; vil. 12. 725; 14. 108. 1 Strom. vii. 13. 82. 2 Strom. iv. 22.136. Inii. 11. 46 the three characteristics of Gnosis are Pewpia—n THY evTOA@v Emit éAecis—avSpav ayabav KaTacKeEvy : vi. 17. 160 the Gnostic is compared to a mad50TpiBns who teaches in three ways, kata mapako- Aovdnow, putting the pupil in the requisite posture and making him do thething required ; Ka6’ 6potwowv, by example and emulation ; card mpdoragw, when the pupil has mastered all his exercises and simply requires to be told which he is to perform : the last may refer to spiritual direction: vii. 1. 3 the life of the Gnostic is a constant Oepameia of two kinds, BeATiwtiKH, in which he resembles the presbyter, tnpetixn, in which he resembles the deacon. See Baur, Christliche Gnosis, p. 507. fa fru As Tore a ) A Ve be A) pline, the regular use of all the ordinary means of Grace. I will not here dwell upon what he says about Public Worship, the reading of Scripture, the Eucharist, Alms- giving, Fasting’. It will be sufficient to state his views on the subject of Prayer’, the point on which the Quietists departed most widely from the lines he laid down. The Gnostic prays without ceasing. He would rather forego the grace of God than enjoy it without prayer. But indeed this is impossible. For our holiness must cooperate with the providence of God, if the blessing is to be perfect. Holiness is a correlative of Providence ®. For God Himself is a voluntary agent. He does not ‘warm like fire’ as Plutarch thought, nor can we receive His best gifts involuntarily, even if they be given before we ask. But God reads the heart, and therefore few words are needed or none. ‘Ask,’ He says, ‘and I will do, think, and I will give*.’ Good is the prayer which Christians utter in the church, with head and hands uplifted, and foot raised at the Amen, as if to soar above earth. 1 Public Worship in the morning, Paed. ii. 10. 96: Fasting on Wednesday and Friday, Strom. vii.12, 75. The Scripture says (Tobit xii. 8), dya@ov vnoTeia pEeTa TpocevX7S, vnoTEia 5é dnoXas KaKGv pHviovow aragaTA@s : Ob- servance of the Lord’s Day, Strom. vii. 12.76: Reading of Scripture, Paed. ii. 10.96; Strom. vii. 7. 49; Almsgiving, Q. D. S. 33; Strom. ii. 15. 96, éAenpoovvas ovv Kal micTegt amoKaPaipovta ai ayuaptias: on the Eucharist see below. 2 See generally Strom. iv. 23. 148; viii. 7. 35 sqq. 3 dvtemoatpopy, avtiatpopos, Strom. vii. 7. 42. The reference to Plutarch (an author whom Clement several times quotes) is on posse suaviter vivt sec. Epic. xxii, odre yap Oeppod 76 yYixew GAAA TO Oeppaiver Horep 0S dya0ov 70 BXanrev. This will further illustrate what was said in Lecture I on Plutarch’s connection with Gnosticism. 4 aitnoa Kal Tonow’ év¥onOntt Kal Swow, a favourite quotation (see Strom. vi. 9. 78; 12. 101; vii. 7. 40; 12. 73) from some apocryphal book. H 98 Clement. (Lect. Good is prayer at the three hours’, with face turned towards the East, as even pagans use. But better still is the inner colloquy of unspoken supplication for which no place or time is set apart, the praise of him who ploughs, of him who sails upon the sea. The Gnostic’s prayer is chiefly Thanksgiving and Interces- sion, as was that of our Saviour. Beyond this he will ask only for the continuance of the blessings he enjoys, for he desires nothing that he has not, and the Father's Will is enough for him. The prayer of the Gnostic, even when speechless, is still conscious and active. It is far removed from the blank vacuity of the soul which, as Molinos says, ‘lies dead and buried, asleep in Nothingness” ’ — thinking without thought of the Unconditioned. The Silent Prayer of the Quietist is in fact Ecstasy, of which there is not a trace in Clement. For Clement shrank from his own conclusions. Though the father of all the Mystics he is no Mystic himself. He did not enter the ‘enchanted garden’ which he opened for others. If he talks of ‘ flaying the sacrifice,’ of leaving sense behind, of Vision, of Epopteia, this is but the parlance of his school. The instrument to which he looks for growth in knowledge is not trance, but the disciplined reason. Hence Gnosis when once attained is indefectible, not like the rapture which Plo- tinus enjoyed but four times during his acquaintance with Porphyry, which in the experience of Theresa 1 Strom. vii. 7. 40; the Gnostic rose also at intervals during the night to ‘ pray, Paed. ii. 9. 79; Strom. vil. 7. 49. * ¢Endormie dans le néant,’ Molinos, Guzde Spirituelle, iii. 20. 201. I owe the reference to La Bruyere, Dzalogues sur le Qutétisme, vol. ii. ed. Servois. 1. ] The Church. 99 never lasted more than half-an-hour’. The Gnostic is no Visionary, no Theurgist, no Antinomian. These dangers were not far away in the age of Mon- tanus and the Neo-Platonists. The Alexandrines have perhaps too much ‘dry light, but their faith was too closely wedded to reason and the written word to be seduced by these forbidden joys. Mysticism is as yet a Pagan solace. The time for a purely Christian mysti- cism, which Gerson evolves not from the reason but from the emotions, had not yet arrived. Yet Clement laid the fuel ready for kindling. The spark that was needed was the allegorical interpretation of the Song of Songs. This was supplied, strange to say, by Origen, the least mystical of all divines. Every baptised Christian, who has not been ‘cut off’ like a diseased limb by solemn judicial process, is a member of the Church upon earth, is therefore within the pale of salvation. The Church? is the Platonic City of God, ‘a lovely body and assemblage of men governed by the Word,’ ‘the company of the Elect.’ She is the Bride of Christ, the Virgin Mother, stainless as a Virgin, loving as a Mother. She is One, she is Catholic, be- 1 Porphyry, Vita Plotinz, 23, p. 116, ed. Firmin-Didot. For St. Theresa see Barthélemy Saint-Hilaire, L’Zcole d’ Alexandrie, pp. xlv, |xxix; for Gerson, 22d. lxii, xcviii. Vacherot in his third volume traces the connec- tion of the Alexandrines with mediaeval mysticism. Diahne, De T'vwoe, p. 112, insists that Clement himself was a mystic. It depends upon the meaning which we attach to the word. In one sense all believers in the unseen are Mystics ; in another, all believers in whom the emotional element predominates largely over the intellectual. I have taken Mysticism as co- extensive with Ecstasy. Of this again there are several degrees, ranging from the inarticulate communion of the Quietists to pictorial visions. Such visions were regarded with suspicion by Mystics of the higher class, such as St. John of the Cross. See Vaughan, Hours with the Mystics. 2 Strom. iv. 26. 172; vii. 5. 29; iii. 6. 49; 11. 74; Paed. i. 6. 42; Strom. vii. 17. 107 (one, true, ancient, catholic), 108 (apostolic). H 2 100 Clement. [Lect. cause the doctrine and tradition of the Apostles is one; the heretic who has forsaken her fold has ‘an assembly devised by man,’ ‘a school, but not a Church’. One in belief, but not in mechanism. Peter is the first of the Apostles ?, but the See of Peter is never named. The West is as unknown to Clement as it was to his favourite Homer. Yet in this One Church there is a distinction. There are those who within her fold live as do the Gentiles, these are the flesh of Christ’s Mystical Body; there are those who cleave to the Lord and become one spirit with Him, the Sons of God, the Gnostics; these are the Holy Church, the Spiritual Church ; these, and they who are in process to be- come as these, are the rings which have not dropped from the magnetic chain, but in spiritual union with saints and angels ‘ wait for the Rest of God °’ The Stromateis were written during the Patriarchate of Demetrius amid the bustle and excitement of a revo- lution. But no echo of the strife penetrated the tranquil 1 S:arpiBy, Strom. vii. 15. 92: dvOpwmwva avvyndioes, vii. 17. 106. The notes of heresy are contempt of apostolical tradition, vii. 16. 95, 6 dvadaktioas Ti éxkAnoacTiK}VY Tapadoow, and defiance of Scripture, which the Gnostics reject in part, vii. 16. 97, mapeméu~avto Tas ypadds, or inter- pret by vicious methods out of g:Aavtia. ‘Those who use only water in the Eucharist are heretics, i. 19. 96; and there is also a heretical baptism, zdzd. On the asceticism and in some cases lax morality of the Gnostics, see Strom. iii. The‘ Phrygians’ are not called heretics, iv. 3. 93. 2 0.D. S. 21, 6 pakapios wétpos 6 éxdXexTOs 6 é€atpetos 6 mp&Tos Ta pabnrav brép ov pdvou Kal EavTov Tov Popov 6 owTip ExTEAEL. 3 Strom. vil. 11. 68: in vii. 14. 87 the Gnostics are the Holy Church, the Spiritual Body of which those who only bear the name of Christian and do not live according to reason are the flesh. Had this point of view been habitual to him Clement must have written very differently about the Lower Life. The Invisible Spiritual Church, the Communion of Saints, is compared to a chain of rings upheld by a magnet, vii. 2.9. It is the Church of the First Born, Protreft. ix. 82. IIl.] The Clergy. IOL seclusion in which Clement lectured and composed. He reflects with calm fidelity the image of the antique times in which he had himself been reared. His heart is with the Republic; he is the Samuel of the new monarchy. One of the chief pillars of the aggressive theory of Church polity was the claim of the Christian ministry to be regarded as lineal successors of the sacrificial hierarchy of the Jews. But to Clement the true anti- type of Levite or Hiereus is the Gnostic, the son or daughter of God, who has been anointed like King, Prophet, or High Priest of the Law, but with the spiritual unction of the Holy Ghost?. The Gnostic sacrifice is that of praise, of a contrite spirit, of a soul delivered from carnal lusts; the incense is holy prayer ; the altar is the just soul, or the congregation of believers”. Beyond this there is no sacrifice except the ‘costly,’ the ‘fireless’ Victim once offered upon the Cross *. Clement quotes the famous verse of Malachi, but the ‘pure offering’ is the knowledge of God as Creator derived by the heathen from the light of the universal Word*. The much disputed text about the power of the keys he never cites at all, and in the Penance controversy, which was already agitating men’s minds, he follows Hermas, allowing but one Absolution for mortal sin after Baptism, a view highly unfavourable 1 fepeis, Strom. iv. 25. 157 sq.; vii. 7. 36. In Strom. vi. 13. 106 the Gnostic is a true Presbyter, though he be not honoured mpwroxadedpia. * The sacrifice, Paed. iii. 12. 90; Strom. ii.18. 79, 96; v. 11.67 (imme- diately after an allusion to the Eucharist) ; vii. 3. 14; 6. 31, 32. The last cited passage explains the terms altar, incense. 3 Strom. v. 11. 66, 70. See also passages quoted in Lecture II. * Strom. v. 14. 136. The verse had already been applied to the Eucharist in the Doctrine of the Apostles, Irenaeus and Justin. TO2 Clement. [Lect. to the growing authority of the Bishop’. He rarely mentions the three orders of Clergy?, and never in con- nection with the Sacraments. The rich man should have a domestic chaplain or spiritual director, who is to be ‘a man of God?’ The unlearned brother is not to trust his private judgment, but the interpreter of Scrip- ture is no doubt the Gnostic. The one office assigned ‘to the Presbyter is that of ‘making men better,’ and this is also the special function of the Gnostic. It seems most.probable that at this time, in the Church of Alexandria, the Eucharist was not yet dis- 1 Strom. li. 13. 56. Clement follows Hermas, J/and. iv. 3, almost verbally, though without naming his authority. He supports this view by Heb. x. 26, 27. Clement nowhere expressly draws a distinction between mortal and venial sins, but it is implied here and in Strom. vi. 12. 97, where he speaks of peravora d1007, the first being conversion, the second repentance for minor daily sins. It is the first, repentance of mortal sin, that could only be repeated once after baptism. It is singular that in Q. D..S. he does not enter upon the question. (I observe that in § 39 the right reading is un- doubtedly ws pi trevnvéyOa TéA€ov, OVTOS OV KaTEe-HpioTm.) For further information see Lecture vi. * Strom. vi. 13. 107. Bishop, Priest, and Deacon symbolise the ‘three Mansions,’ the three degrees of the Angelic Hierarchy: iii. 12. 90, Priest and Deacon distinguished from Aakés: vii. I. 3, Priests exercise the BeAtiwtixn, Deacons the tanpetixr Oepameia: vi. 13. 106, Priests have mpwrokadedpia, sitting probably in a semicircle with the Bishop in their centre round the east end of the church: Paed. i. 6. 37, motpeéves éoper of TOV ékkANoLOV Tponyoupevot. * Q.D.5. 41. Probst, Sakramente, p. 261, unhesitatingly identifies the Man of God with the Priest. It is just possible that we have here the same admonition as in Origen, Se/. zx Psalmos, Hom. ii. 6 (Lom. xii. p. 267), ‘tantummodo circumspice diligentius, cui debeas confiteri peccatum tuum. Proba prius medicum.’ He may mean that the chaplain is to be a priest, but a worthy priest. But were there more than twelve priests in Alexandria, and in any case can there have been enough to supply domestic chaplains to all the rich men who needed them? I do not doubt that the chaplain is to be a Gnostic who is a judge in spiritual matters, S¢vom. vii.7. 45. Rufinus, before his ordination, seems to have held such a post in the household of Melania. Compare note above, p. 96. Probst, I may add, endeavours to prove that the Gnostic is the Priest by combining what Clement says of the Gnostic, of Moses, of the Law, and of Christ the Shepherd. III-] Lhe Eucharist. 103 tinguished in time, ritual, or motive from the primitive Supper of the Lord’. Of this, the Agape, the Love- Feast, or Banquet, there were two forms, the public and the private, the first celebrated at a full gathering of the brethren on fixed evenings in the church, the second in private houses”. 1 This statement, that the Eucharist at Alexandria was not yet separated from the Agape and that both were celebrated together in the evening, may seem doubtful, and indeed I make it with some hesitation. It may be argued, on the other side, (i) That the separation was already made in the West, as we see from Justin and Tertullian, and is found immediately after Clement’s time in Palestine, feste Origen. (ii) That the word Eucharist is employed by Clement for the Elements, S¢vom.i. 1.5, and for the rite, Paed. ii. 2. 20; Strom. iv. 25.161. (iii) That there was a morning service at Alexandria, though we are not told that it included the Eucharist, Paed. ii. 10. 96. On the other hand, (i) the Liturgy, so far as we can judge, is not nearly so developed in Clement’s church as in that of Origen ; (ii) the Agape in both its forms is distinctly mentioned, the Eucharist as a separate office is not; (iii) the word Eucharist is employed of the Agape, /aed. ii. Io. 96. (iv) The Agape is mentioned in the Sibylline Oracles—Or. viii. 402, 497, temp. Trajan or Hadrian; Or. v. 265, temp. Antoninus. Pius—while the Eucharist is not: see Alexandre, ii. 547. It is true that both these authori- ties are anterior in dateto Clement. (v) Dionysius of Alexandria still uses of the rite of Communion the same word, éotiaovs, which in Clement means the Agape, Eus. 1. Z. vi. 42. 5, nal mpocevx@v abrots kai éoTidcewv Exo.vwvnoav. (vi) Lastly, I do not know of any passage in an Oriental writer before Clement’s time in which the Eucharist appears as a distinct and substan- tive office. In the Doctrine of the Apostles Hilgenfeld observes upon the word éumAnoO7jva in chap. 10, ‘ eucharistia vere coena communis nondum separata ab Agape.’ And from Socrates, v. 22, it appears that the Agape lingered on in the churches of Upper Egypt longer than elsewhere. We may infer from this perhaps that Alexandria also had clung to the primitive usage after it had been abandoned by others. * The public Agape is the dyuwdys éoriaois of Paed. ii. 1.12. But we read of tov KexAnkéta, zbid. § 10. This is the 50x7. Yet further the ‘ Feast’ is universal and daily, Paed. ii. 10. 96, éomépas 5€ dvaravoacba KabjKe pera tiv éotiaow Kal peta Tiv én Talis dmoAavocow edxapiotiav. Here Clement obviously means the ordinary house supper. So again, Strom. Vil. 7.49, ai mpd THs EoTidaews evrevfes THY ypapay, Padpol 5e cal tuvor Tapa T7V éotiaciy mpd ye THs Koitns. No priest can have been present in the vast majority of cases; the devotional exercises of the family and the ‘ thanks- giving’ constituted the meal an Eucharist. The phrase in Q. D.S. 23, tépa kad’ juépav évdi50vs dOavacias, may perhaps thus be explained. The private 104 Clement. [ Lect. The first was still disfigured by those excesses and . disorders, which St. Paul sharply rebuked, but a century of discipline had not eradicated. It was preceded by reading of the Scriptures, psalms and hymns. After this the Bread and Wine were blessed, and then dis- tributed by the deacons!. Viands of every kind, often costly and richly dressed, were provided by the liberality of the wealthier brethren. Clement does not attempt to lay any puritanical restrictions upon social enjoyment. He enforces the rule prohibiting the taste of blood or of meat offered to idols, he explains the code of good manners, and insists upon moderation. The Christian must eat to live, not live to eat. He must not abuse the Father’s gifts. He must show by precept and example that the heavenly banquet is not the meat that perisheth, but love, that the believer’s true food is Christ *. All that Clement says upon this subject is of the highest value to those who wish to recast for themselves a faithful image of the Church life of the end of the Agape is the ordinary evening meal also in Cyprian, Zf. 63. § 16. p. 714, ed. Hartel. In a somewhat later time the clergy appear to have been gene- rally but not always present at the 60.7, which has become a charity dinner, to which especially poor old women were invited, Comst. Af. ii. 28. The Council of Laodicea prohibited the Agape in churches, can. 28, and in private houses, can. 58. Mansi, iii. 563. Hefele. ‘Hoc modo in totum eucharistia ab agapis distincta et separata fuit, Bohmer, D¢ssertationes Juris Eccles. Lipsiae, 1711, diss. iv. The consecration of the Eucharist by laymen was not unknown in Tertullian’s church, Aahort. Cast. vii. 1 Supper followed the Eucharist, see Paed. ii. 1. 11, weTa THY ev AOYH tpuphv. The deacons carried round the supper as well as the consecrated bread and wine; see the following words, cuppetapepopévns avTay, ws eimety, THs akpacias mpos TY Siakdver. 2 The description of the Agape will be found at the opening of Paed. ii. For a similar and equally graphic account of the coarse vulgarity of Alex- andrine luxury, see Philo, De Vita Cont. 5 (ii. 477). The contrast between the heathen man of the world and the Christian gentleman as drawn by Clement is most instructive. III. ] The Eucharist. 105 second century. But of all his phrases the most im- portant are those which assure us, that the ordinary evening meal of a Christian household was in a real sense an Agape. It was preceded by the same acts of worship; it was blessed by thanksgiving ; it was a true Eucharist. The house father is the house priest. The highest act of Christian devotion is at the same time the simplest and most natural. Husband, wife and child, the house slave, and the invited guest gathered round the domestic board to enjoy with thankfulness the good gifts of God, uplifting their hearts in filial devotion, ex- panding them in brotherly bounty and kindness. To us the word Eucharist has become a term of ritual, whose proper meaning is all but obsolete. To the Greek it was still a word of common life—thanksgiving, the grateful sense of benefits received, of good gifts showered by the good Father on mind and heart and body. ‘ He that eateth eateth unto the Lord and keepeth Eucharist to God ...so that a religious meal is an Eucharist *.’ All these good gifts sum themselves up in one, the gift of the Son. In the Eucharist, in its narrower sense, we eat the flesh and drink the blood of Christ, ‘hallowed food, of which the bread and wine given by Melchise- dech to Abraham was a type*. It is ‘a mystery pass- ing strange.’ ‘I will, I will impart to you this grace also, the full and perfect bounty of incorruption. I give _ 1 Paed. ii, 1. 10, ws elvat thy Bixaiay Tpopiy edxaptoTiav. * Strom. iv. 26. 161. The figure is from Philo, and must be interpreted by Philo’s light. 3 pvotnpioyv napadogov, Paed. i. 6. 43: the following quotation is from Protrept. xii. 120. The chief passages on the subject of the Eucharist are, besides these two, Paed. ii. 2. 19 sq.; Strom. v. 10. 66. Other notices in Bee. Be 5 155) 0.38; Som. 1, 10.465 19.96; Vv. 11.70; Vi. 14. 1195 GaOSS: 23; 106 Clement. Lect. to you the knowledge of God. I give to you my perfect Self.’ Christ’s own Sacrifice, the charter of His High Priesthood, is the condition of His sacramental agency. But what is the special boon that He conveys in that supreme moment, when His sacrifice co-operates with ours, when ‘in faith’ we partake! of the nourishment which He bestows? Not forgiveness—that gift is be- stowed in the laver of Regeneration, and if lost must be regained by the stern sacrament of Penance—but incor- ruption, immortality 7. The Bread, the Wine mingled with Water, are an allegory. ‘The Blood of the Lord is twofold. One is fleshly, whereby we have been ran- somed from corruption ’—in Baptism— one is spiritual, with this we have been anointed’—in the Eucharist. The Body is Faith, the Blood is Hope, which is as it were the lifeblood of Faith. ‘This is the Flesh and Blood of the Lord, the apprehension of the Divine power and essence. ‘The Blood of His Son cleanseth from all sin. For the doctrine of the Lord which is very strong is called His Blood °.’ The elements are ‘hallowed food’; ‘the meat of babes, that is to say the Lord Jesus, that is to say the Word of God, is spirit made flesh, hallowed flesh from heaven *.’ These phrases have been interpreted in very 1 Paed. ii. 2. 20, Hs of kata TioTW peradapBavorTes. eeaged. li. 2. 19,3 ii. 1.2. $ For these four quotations see Paed. ii. 2. 193; i. 6. 38; Strom. v. Io. 66; Adumb.in Ep. Joan. I. p. 1009. I quote the last book always with hesitation. * Strom. iv. 26. 161; Paed. i. 6. 43. The two opposing views are maintained by Dollinger, Die Hucharistie in den dret ersten Jahrb., Mainz, 1826, and Probst, Zz/urgze, on the one hand, and by Hofling, Dze Lehre der altesten Kirche vom Opfer itm Leben und Cultus, Erlangen, 1851. Upon the whole Hofling’s view appears to me to be correct. But I must in fairness add, what I do not remember to have seen mentioned, that the HI.) The Eucharist. 107 different senses. One writer sees in them the doctrine of Transubstantiation, another the doctrine of Zwinglius. Those who read Clement as a whole, who reflect upon his strong antithesis of the letter, the flesh, to the spirit, who take into due account his language on the subject of Priest and Sacrifice, and his emphatic declaration that knowledge is our reasonable food 1, will be inclined to think that the latter view is far nearer to the truth. Christ is present in the Eucharist as Gnosis, ‘in the heart, not in the hand.’ The Elements are a symbol, an allegory *, perhaps a vehicle, an instrument, inasmuch as they are ordained by Christ Himself, and to substitute c doctrine of the Real Presence is stated, Excerpta, 82, 6 dpros Kat 70 EAaov ayiacerae TH Svvduer TOV dvdpaTos ov Ta aiTa bvTAa KaTa TO PaivopevoY oia €ANPOn, GAAA Svvape eis Svvapiv mvevpatixny peraBéBAnra. And the precise idea of transubstantiation was familiar to Clement, Paed. i. 6. 40, macxe 5¢ THY pweTaBoArAry KaTa ToLdTHTA Ov KaT ovciavy, He is speaking of the change of the mother’s blood into milk, and his point is that the Faith of the Lower Life is the same in substance as the Gnosis of the Higher. It is barely possible that there may be also some allusion to the Elements, but I do not think there is. 1 Strom. v.11. 70, AoyiKov Huiv Bphya H yv@ors: i. 10. 46, iva 57 paywpev AoyiKws: Vv. 10. 66, Bpwots yap Kal méats Tod OEiov Adyou 7% yvwois éaTL THs Qcias ovotas: Adumb. in Ep. Joan. J. p. 1011, sanguis quod est cognitio. There is'a remarkable departure from the ordinary symbolism in the very obscure passage, aed. ii. 2. 19, 20. Clement’s drift is that those are to be praised who abstain from wine altogether, and he illustrates this by the mixed chalice. The Wine is the Blood, the symbol of Redemption, Bap- tism, Faith, and Discipline; the Water is the Spirit, the better gift. * Paed. ii. 2. 32, aiwa THs dpméAov, Tov Adyov Tov mEpt TOAAMY Ex Ed pEVOV -eis Apeow adpapriav evppootyns Gy.ov GAAnyopel vaya: i. 6. 47, 7% yap Kal ovxt ofvos GAAnyopetrar. Much depends on the meaning of the word Allegory and the purpose of the Alexandrine Disciflina Arcanz. On this I shall speak in Lecture iv. It may be noticed here that Clement mentions the kiss of peace, Paed. iii. 11. 81; the practice of anointing the eyes with a drop of the wine from the lips (a bare allusion), Paed. ii. 12. 129; and tells us, Strom. i. 1. 5, that some clergymen made the communicant take his piece of bread instead of giving it to him, lest they should become partakers in the sin of the unworthy recipient; see Probst, Lecurgie, PP- 135 Sqq- 108 Clement. [ Lect. any other figure for the one so ordained is heresy. But the veil, though a holy thing because it belongs to the sanctuary, is not the mystery that it shrouds, the alle- gory is not the truth that it bodies forth. The chief article of the Christian Gnosis was that of the Future Life. It was as interesting to Pagans as to Christians. ‘What will become of the soul after death?’ asks Plotinus, as he enters upon this universally fascinat- ing theme. The immortality of the soul was positively denied by none but the ‘godless Epicureans.’ But the doctrine of the Resurrection was peculiar to the Church, and, while it strengthened her hold upon the masses, was a great stumbling-block in the way of the educated. The Platonist looked upon the body as the ‘ dungeon of the soul,’ and could not understand how any pious man should expect a good God to renew and perpetuate that degrading bondage. Within the Church itself there was some variety and much confusion of thought. Tertullian and many others held that the soul itself was material! From this fol- lowed the terrible belief of Tatian, that it dies with the body, and is raised again with the body, by an act of Divine power, for an eternity of suffering or joy. Others, especially Arabian Christians, held that after dissolution the soul sleeps unconscious, till awakened to life by the restoration of its organism. But the majority believed in an intermediate yet conscious state of existence in Hades or Paradise, extending to the Day of Judgment, 1 A Montanist sister in one of her visions saw a soul ‘ tenera et lucida et aerii coloris et forma per omnia humana, De Anima, g. Tatian’s doctrine in Oratzo ad Graecos,13. For the Arabians, Eus. 7. £. vi. 37 ;.Rede- penning, Origenes, ii. 105 sqq. The Yvyoravyvxia may perhaps be found also in Athenagoras, De Res. 16, though Otto thinks not. III.] Resurrection. 109 when the soul is reunited to the body, from which it has been for a time divorced. The Resurrection itself they interpreted in the most literal sense. It would be a resurrection of ‘this flesh,’ of the identical body which had been dissolved by death. The ‘change,’ spoken of by St. Paul, was strictly limited to the accession of the new attribute of incorruption }. Closely allied to this view was the widespread opinion of the Chiliasts, who, resting upon the prophecies of Isaiah and the Apocalypse, believed that after the first Resurrection the saints should reign in the flesh upon earth for a thousand years under the sceptre of Christ. Chiliasm, which in vulgar minds was capable of the most unhappy degradation, was in turn strengthened by the urgent expectation of the End of the World. In the lower strata of Christian society prophecies on this subject were rife. At this very time a calculation, based on the numerical value of the letters composing the word Rome, fixed the downfall of the Empire and the coming of Christ for judgment for the year 195 A.D.? The Montanists held that the appointed sign was the appearance of the New Jerusalem in heaven; and this sign was given during the expedition of Severus against the Parthians, when for forty consecutive mornings the vision of a battlemented city hanging in the clouds was beheld by the whole army *. 1 See Irenaeus, v. 13; Athenagoras, De Res. * The four letters composing the word Pwyn = 948, hence it was sup- posed the empire would last that number of years, Or. Szd. viii. 148. When this expectation was frustrated by the course of events, the authors of the last four Sibylline books struck off 105 years from the Roman Fasti and fixed upon the year 305 in the reign of Diocletian. See much curious information upon similar speculations which recurred again and again from the persecution of Nero downwards, Alexandre, ii. pp. 485 sqq. * Tertullian, Adv. Marc. iii. 24; Miinter, Primordia Eccl. Afr. p. 141. IIO Clement. (Lect. There were differences of opinion again as to the nature, object, duration, of the sufferings that await the wicked in the life to come, especially among the outlying sects. The Valentinians, as we have seen, taught ‘con- ditional immortality, and regarded the future life as a state of education, of progress through an ascending series of seven heavens. The Clementine Homilies, a work composed under strong Judaic influences, expresses different views in different places. In one the sinner is warned that eternal torments await him in the life to come. In another St. Peter proclaims that those who repent, however grievous their offences, will be chastised but for a time, that those who repent not will be tortured for a season and then annihilated’. The Church at large believed in an eternity of bliss or of woe. Yet among the Montanists prayers and oblations were offered up on behalf of the departed, and it was thought that these sacrifices could in certain cases quicken the compassion of God towards those who had died in sin. The widow prayed that her lost husband’s pangs might be alleviated, and that she might share with him in the First Resurrec- tion. Perpetua, the matron lily of martyrs, in that jail which seemed to be a palace while her baby was at her breast, cried for mercy upon the soul of her little brother, who had died unbaptised ”. 1 Eternal torments in i. 7; xi. 11: the other view in iii. 6. ? Tertullian, De A/onogamia, 10, the widow prays for her husband’s soul ; ‘enimvero et pro anima eius orat, et refrigerium interim adpostulat ei et in prima resurrectione consortium, et offert annuis diebus dormitionis eius :’ De Cor. Mil. 3, ‘oblationes pro defunctis, pro natalitiis, annua die facimus’ (here he rests the usage on tradition, and not on Scripture: but he may mean only that the oblation is not scriptural as the use of prayer is sanctioned by 2 Tim. i. 18): see also De Exhort. Cast. 11. All these treatises are Mon- tanist according to Minter. Montanist also in the opinion of Valesius are II.] Resurrection. TU Clement never composed his promised treatise on the Resurrection, and it is not always easy to attach a definite meaning to his allusive style. But the general outline of his teaching is sufficiently clear. He rejects with scornful brevity the fancies of Chiliasm’. The Resurrection body is not ‘this flesh,’ but, as St. Paul taught, a glorified frame, related to that which we now possess as the grain of corn to the new ear, devoid in particular of the distinctions of sex?, The change is wrought by fire. Even Christ rose ‘through fire. Fire is here the agent not of chastise- ment, but of that mysterious sublimation by which our organism is fitted for existence in a new sphere. For the sinner the fire burns with a fiercer intensity, because it has a harsher office. It is the pang of un- satisfied lusts that gnaw the soul itself for want of food, the sting of repentance and shame, the sense of loss. It the Acta of St. Perpetua. As to the latter it should be observed that the little brother Dinocrates for whom Perpetua intercedes had certainly died unbaptised. For his father was a Pagan—Perpetua herself was baptised in the prison—and the effect of her prayer is that Dinocrates is admitted to the benefits of baptism. ‘I saw Dinocrates coming forth from a dark place very hot and thirsty, squalid of face and pallid of hue... And hard by where he stood was a tank full of water, the margin whereof was higher than the stature of the child, and he stood on tiptoe as if he would drink.’ Again, ‘on the day on which we lay in the stocks,’ she prays, and sees Dinocrates cleansed, dressed, and cool, drinking eagerly of the water. ‘Then I knew that he was released from pain.’ Further, the privilege of intercession is granted to Perpetua by revelation as a special mark of favour. So Clement appears to restrict it tothe Gnostic. The practice of prayer for the dead was certainly uncommon at the end of the second century. It is not found in Origen, for zz Rom. ix. 12 is confessedly from the hand of Rufinus. 1 Strom. vii. 12. 74, the Gnostic, Trav KoopiK@v Kaito. Ociwy dvTwy enay- yediav KaTepeyadodgpévncev. Guerike considers that these words refer to Chiliasm, ii. p. 163. * Paed.i. 4.10; 6.46. In this last passage it is said that Christ rose ‘through fire,’ which changes the natural into the spiritual body, as earthly fire changes wheat into bread. But the resurrection body may still be called flesh, Paed. ii. 10. 100; iii. 1. 2. 112 Clement. [Lect. is ministered not by fiends but by good angels}, it is alleviated by the prayers of the saints on earth”. There can I think be no doubt (though it has been doubted) that Clement allowed the possibility of repent- ance and amendment till the Last Day. At that final Assize there will be found those who, like Aridaeus ?, are incurable, who will still reject, as man always can reject, the proffered grace. But he nowhere expressly limits probation to this brief life. All his theory of punish- ment*, which is strictly Platonic, for he hardly ever quotes Scripture in this connection®, points the same way. And many passages might be adduced which prove how his maxims are to be applied. ‘Let them be chastised,” he says of the ‘deaf serpents’ who refuse to hear the voice of the charmer, ‘by God, enduring His paternal correction before the Judgment, till they be ashamed and repent®.’ In that fiery trial even Sodom 1 Strom. v.14. 90; vii. 2. 12. 2 The Gnostic, oixretper Tovs peta Odvaroy madevopéevous Sid THs KoAdC EWS akovaiws é£oporoyoupévous, Strom. vii. 12. 78. Yet Clement does not ex- pressly say that he prays for them. 5 Strom. v.14. 90: in iv. 24. 154 the ‘ faithless” are as the chaff which the wind driveth away. * The object of «éAaots is threefold—amendment, example, and protection of the weak, Strom.i. 26. 168; iv. 24.154; vi. 12.99. The distinction between «dAaois and tipwpia, Strom. iv. 14. 153; Paed. i. 8. 70, the latter is the rendering of evil for evil, and this is not the desire of God. Both KoAaats and Tiwwpia are spoken of in Stvom. v. 14. 90, but this is not to be pressed, for in Strom. vi. 14. 109 the distinction between the words is dropped and both signify purgatorial chastisement. 5 Isaiah iv. 4 is quoted, aed. iii. 9. 48, and Cor. i. 3. 10-13, Strom. Ve 4820: & Strom. vii. 16. 102. Repentance is attributed to the dead again in Strom. Vi. 14. 109. If it be asked whzch repentance Clement speaks of here (see note above, p. 102), the instance of Sodom and Gomorrha, Adumé. in Ep. Judae, p. 1008, is very strong. It rests upon Ezekiel xvi. 33, 55, and is employed by Origen in the same way. Even stronger is the language of Strom. vii. 2. 12, madevoes ... Tovs emt mA