The Conflict of Religions in the Early Roman Empire

Thought (phronesis) takes many forms, and it is diffused through all the universe and all human affairs, and in each sphere it has a separate name – Thought, Knowledge, Wisdom or Faith. In the things of sense it is called Right Opinion; in matters of handicraft, Art; in the logical discussion of the things of the mind, it is Dialectic. "Those who say that Philosophy is not from God, come very near saying that God cannot know each several thing in particular and that He is not the cause of all good things, if each of them is a particular thing. Nothing that is could have been at all without God's will; and, if with His will, then Philosophy is from God, since He willed it to be what it is for the sake of those who would not otherwise abstain from evil."

"He seeth all things and he heareth all[845]

and beholds the soul naked within, and he has through all eternity the thought (epínoia) of each several thing in particular," seeing all things, as men in a theatre look around and take all in at a glance. "There are many things in life that find their beginning in human reason, though the spark that kindles them is from God.[846] Thus health through medicine, good condition through training, wealth through commerce, come into being and are amongst us, at once by Divine Providence and human co-operation. And from God comes understanding too. And the free will (proairesis) of good men most of all obeys God's will… The thoughts (epinoiai) of virtuous men come by divine inspiration (epípnoia), the soul being disposed so and the divine will conveyed (diadidonénou) to human souls, the divine ministers taking part in such services; for over all nations and cities are assigned angelic governances – perhaps even over individuals."[847] Philosophy makes men virtuous, so it cannot be the product of evil – that is, it is the work of God. As it was given to the best among the Greeks, we can divine who was the Giver.[848]

This is a favourite thought with Clement, and, as he does with all ideas that please him, he repeats it over and over again, in all sorts of connexions and in all variety of phrase. When a man is avowedly making "patchwork" books (Stromateis), there is really no occasion on which we can call it irrelevant for him to repeat himself, and this is a thought worth repeating. "Before the advent of the Lord, Philosophy was necessary to the Greeks for righteousness, and it is still profitable for piety, a sort of primary instruction for those who reap faith by revelation… God is the cause of all good things, of some directly, as of the Old and New Testament, of others indirectly as of Philosophy. And perhaps even directly it was given in those times to the Greeks, before the Lord called the Greeks also; for Philosophy too was a paidagogos for the Greek world, as the Law was for the Hebrews, to bring them to Christ."[849] "Generally speaking, we should not be wrong in saying that all that is necessary and profitable to life comes to us from God – and that Philosophy was more especially given to the Greeks, as a sort of covenant (diathéke) of their own, a step (hypobathra) toward the Philosophy according to Christ, – if Greek philosophers will not close their ears to the truths, through contempt of the barbarian speech."[850] "God is the bestower (choregós) of both covenants, who also gave Philosophy to the Greeks, whereby among the Greeks the Almighty is glorified."[851] "In those times Philosophy by itself 'justified' the Greeks – though not to the point of perfect righteousness."[852] "As in due season the Preaching now comes, so in due season the law and the prophets were given to the barbarians and Philosophy to the Greeks, to train their ears for the Preaching."[853]

The origin of philosophy

Philosophy however fell short of the Law. Those, who were righteous by the Law, still lacked Faith; while the others, whose righteousness was by Philosophy, not only lacked Faith but failed to break with idolatry.[854] (This was in many quarters the capital charge against contemporary philosophy.) It was for this reason that the Saviour preached the Gospel in Hades, just as after him, according to Hermas, "the apostles and teachers, when they fell asleep in the power and faith of the Son of God, preached to those who had fallen asleep before them."[855] It is curious that Clement not only cites Philosophy as a gift of God to the Gentiles before Faith came, that God's judgments might be just, but he also says, on the authority of the Law (quoting inaccurately and perhaps from memory), that God gave them the sun, the moon and stars to worship, which God made for the Gentiles that they might not become utterly atheistic and so utterly perish. "It was a road given to them, that in worshipping the stars they might look up to God."[856] That they fell into idolatry was however only too patent a fact.

The exact means, by which the Greeks received the truths contained in their philosophy, is not certain. A favourite explanation with Christian writers, and one to which Clement gives a good deal of thought, is that Greek thinkers borrowed at large from the Old Testament, for Moses lived some six hundred years before the deification of Dionysos, the Sibyl long before Orpheus.[857] Clement's illustrations are not very convincing. "The idea of bringing Providence as far down as the moon came to Aristotle from this Psalm: 'Lord, in heaven is thy mercy and thy truth as far as (héos) the clouds.'" Epicurus took his conception of Chance from "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity;" while the Sabbath is found in several lines of Homer – unfortunately spurious. An attempt to convict Euripides of plagiarism from Plato's Republic shows the worth of these suggestions, and the whole scheme wakes doubts as to the value of Clement's judgment.[858]

Another theory was angelic mediation. God might have communicated with the Greeks by inferior angels;[859] or those angels who fell into pleasure might have told their human wives what they knew of divine secrets, "and so the doctrine of Providence got about."[860] Or else by happy guess or accident the Greeks found parts of the truth for themselves – or in virtue of some naturally implanted notion (énnoia) or common mind, and then "we know who is the author of nature."[861]

Whatever the explanation, in any case the hand of God was to be traced in it – Providence foreknew all, and so designed that the wickedness of fallen angels and men should promote righteousness and truth.[862] So much for those who quote the text "All that ever came before me were thieves and robbers,"[863] or who say that the devil is the author of Philosophy[864] (though we may admit Epicureanism to have been sown by the sower of tares).[865] We might look far for a more vivid illustration of the contrast between sound instinct and absurd theory.

The Protrepticus

Thus he vindicates the right of the Christian to claim Philosophy as the manifestation of the Divine Logos, and as a fore-runner of the Gospel, and in his Protrepticus he shows how the Christian thus re-inforced can deal with paganism. If the Stromateis weary even the sympathetic reader with their want of plan, their diffuseness and repetition, and their interminable and fanciful digressions – faults inherent in all works of the kind – the Protrepticus makes a different impression. It is written by the same hand and shows the same tendencies, but they are under better control. Allegories, analogies and allusions still hinder the development of his thought – like Atalanta he can never let a golden apple run past him. He is not properly a philosopher in spite of all his love of Philosophy, and he thinks in colours, like a poet. Yet he is not essentially a man of letters or a poet; he is too indolent; his style is not inevitable or compulsive. It is too true a confession when he says that he does not aim at beauty of language. His sentence will begin well, and then grow intricate and involved – in breaks an allusion, not always very relevant, and brings with it a quotation that has captured his fancy and paralyses his grammar – several perhaps – some accommodation is made, and the sentence straggles on, and will end somehow – with a pile of long words, for which others have been patiently waiting since before the quotation, in pendent genitives, accusatives and so forth. But in the Protrepticus– in the better parts of it – something has happened to his style, for (to speak after his own manner)

Nothing of him that doth fade,But doth suffer a sea-changeInto something rich and strange.

He is no longer arguing; he surrenders to a tide of emotion, and is borne along singing, and as he sings, he seems to gather up all the music of the ancient world; we catch notes that come from Greek and Hebrew song, and the whole is woven together into a hymn to "the Saviour," "my Singer," "our new Orpheus," that for sheer beauty, for gladness and purity of feeling is unmatched in early Christian literature. One comes back to it after years and the old charm is there still. That it can survive in a few translated fragments is hardly to be expected.

He begins with the famous singers of Greek myth – Amphion, Arion, and Eunomus with the grass-hopper… You will believe empty myths, he says, but "Truth's bright face seems to you to be false and falls under eyes of unbelief." But Cithæron and Helicon are old. "Let us bring Truth and shining Wisdom from heaven above to the holy mount of God and the holy choir of the prophets. Let her, beaming with light that spreads afar, illumine all about her them that lie in darkness, and save men from error." "My Eunomus sings not Terpander's strain, nor Capion's, not the Phrygian, the Lydian or the Dorian, but the eternal strain of the new harmony, the strain that bears the name of God, the new song, the song of the Levite, with a sweet and true cure of sorrow." Orpheus sang to enslave men to idols, to foolish rites, to shadows. "Not such is my singer; he has come, soon to end cruel slavery to tyrannic dæmons; he transfers us to the gentle and kindly yoke of piety, and calls to heaven them that were fallen to earth."[866]

A drug infused antidote to the painsOf grief and anger, a most potent charmFor ills of every name,[867]

It was this new song that first made the whole cosmos a harmony, and it is still the stay and harmony of all things. It was this Logos of God who framed "the little cosmos, man," setting soul and body together by the holy spirit, and who sings to God upon this organ of many tones – man. The Logos himself is an organ for God, of all the harmonies, tuneful and holy.[868] What does this organ, this new song, tell us?

The Logos, that was before the Day-Star was, has appeared among men as a teacher, – he by whom all things were made. As Demiurge he gave life; as teacher he taught to live well; that, as God, he may lavish upon us life forever. Many voices and many means has the Saviour employed for the saving of men. Lest you should disbelieve these, the Logos of God has himself become man that you might learn from man how man may become God.[869]

He casts a glance over Greek myths and mysteries – cymbals, tambourines, emblems, legends and uncleanness, the work of men who knew not the God who truly is, men "without hope and without God in the world." "There was from of old a certain natural fellowship of men with heaven, hidden in the darkness of their ignorance, but now on a sudden it has leapt through the darkness and shines resplendent – even as that said by one of old,

See'st thou that boundless æther there on highThat laps earth round within its dewy arms?

and again,

O stay of earth, that hast thy seat on earth,Whoe'er thou art, beyond man's guess to see;

and all the rest that the children of the poets sing."[870] But wrong conceptions have turned "the heavenly plant, man," from the heavenly life and laid him low on earth, persuading him to cleave to things fashioned of earth. So he returns to the discussion of pagan worships – "but by now your myths too seem to me to have grown old" – and he speaks of the dæmon-theory by which the pagans themselves explained their religion. The dæmons are inhuman and haters of men; they enjoy the slaying of men – no wonder that with such a beginning superstition is the source of cruelty and folly. But "no! I must never entrust the hopes of the soul to things without souls."[871] "The only refuge, it seems, for him who would come to the gates of "Salvation is the Divine Wisdom."[872]

He now reviews the opinions of the philosophers about God. The Stoics (to omit the rest) "saying that the divine goes through all matter, even the most dishonourable, shame Philosophy."[873] "Epicurus alone I will gladly forget."[874] "Where then are we to track out God, Plato? 'The Father and maker of this whole it is hard to find, and, when one has found him, to declare him to all is impossible.' In his name why? 'For it is unspeakable.' Well said! Plato! thou hast touched the truth!"[875] "I know thy teachers," still addressing Plato, "Geometry thou dost learn from Egyptians, Astronomy from Babylonians, the charms that give health from Thracians; much have the Assyrians taught thee; but thy laws – such of them as are true – and thy thought of God, to these thou hast been helped by the Hebrews."[876] After the philosophers the poets are called upon to give evidence – Euripides in particular.[877] Finally he turns to the prophets and their message of salvation – "I could quote you ten thousand passages, of which 'not one tittle shall pass' without being fulfilled; for the mouth of the Lord, the holy spirit, spoke them."[878]

God speaks to men as to his children – "gentle as a father," as Homer says. He offers freedom, and you run away to slavery; he gives salvation, and you slip away into death. Yet he does not cease to plead – "Wake, and Christ the Lord shall lighten upon you, the sun of resurrection."[879] "What would you have covenanted to give, oh! men! if eternal salvation had been for sale? Not though one should measure out all Pactolus, the mythic river of gold, will he pay a price equal to salvation."[880] Yet "you can buy this precious salvation with your own treasure, with love and faith of life … that is a price God is glad to accept."[881] Men grow to the world, like seaweed to the rocks by the sea, and despise immortality "like the old Ithacan, yearning not for Truth and the fatherland in heaven, and the light that truly is, but for the smoke."[882] It is piety that "makes us like God" – a reference to Plato's familiar phrase. God's function (érgon) is man's salvation. "The word is not hidden from any. Light is common and shines upon all men; there is no Cimmerian in the reckoning. Let us hasten to salvation, to re-birth. Into one love to be gathered, many in number, according to the unity of the essence of the Monad, let us hasten. As we are blessed, let us pursue unity, seeking the good Monad. And this union of many, from a medley of voices and distraction, receives a divine harmony and becomes one symphony, following one coryphæus (choreutés) and teacher, the Word, resting upon the Truth itself, and saying 'Abba Father.'"[883] Here indeed Philosophy and the Gospel join hands, when the Monad and Abba Father are shown to be one and the same.[884]

It is easy to see which of the thoughts represented by these names means most to Clement. "Our tender loving Father, the Father indeed, ceases not to urge, to admonish, to teach, to love; for neither does he cease to save" – "only, oh! child! thirst for thy Father, and God will be shown to thee without a price."[885] "Man's proper nature is to be at home with God;" as then we set each animal to its natural task, the ox to plough and the horse to hunt, so "man, too, who is born for the sight of heaven, a heavenly plant most truly, we call to the knowledge of God… Plough, we say, if you are a ploughman, but know God as you plough; sail, if you love sea-faring, but calling on the heavenly pilot"[886] "A noble hymn to God is an immortal man, being built up in righteousness, in whom are engraved the oracles of truth"[887]; and very soon he quotes "Turn the other cheek" as a "reasonable law to be written in the heart."[888] "God's problem is always to save the flock of men. It was for that the good God sent the good Shepherd. The Logos has made truth simple and shown to men the height of salvation."[889] "Christ wishes your salvation; with one word he gives you life. And who is he? Hear in brief: the Word of truth, the Word of immortality, that gives man re-birth, bears him up to truth, the goad of salvation, who drives away destruction, who chases forth death, who built in men a temple that he might make God to dwell among men."[890]

The last chapter is a beautiful picture of the Christian life, full of wonderful language from Homer, the Bacchæ of Euripides, and the Mysteries, and in the centre of it – its very heart – "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest."

In the passages here quoted from the Protrepticus some of Clement's main ideas in the realm of Christian thought are clearly to be seen; and we have now to give them further and more detailed examination. We have to see what he makes of the central things in the new religion – of God, and the Saviour, and of man, and how he interprets the Gospel of Jesus in the language of Greek philosophy. It is to be noted that, whatever happened in the course of his work – and very few books are, when written, quite what the writer expected on beginning – Clement looked upon his task as interpretation. The Scriptures are his authorities – "he who has believed the divine Scriptures, with firm judgment, receives in the voice of God who gave the Scriptures a proof that cannot be spoken against."[891] Amid the prayers and hymns of the ideal Christian comes daily reading of the sacred books.[892] Clement has no formal definition of inspiration, but he loved the sacred text, and he made it the standard by which to judge all propositions. It is perhaps impossible to over-estimate the importance of this loyalty in an age, when Christian speculation was justly under suspicion on account of the free re-modelling of the New Testament text that went with it. Clement would neither alter, nor excise, but he found all the freedom he wanted in the accepted methods of exegesis. Allegory and the absence of any vestige of historical criticism – and, not least, the inability induced by the training of the day to conceive of a work of art, or even a piece of humbler literature, as a whole – his very defects as a student secured his freedom as a philosopher. He can quote Scripture for his purpose; the phrase will support him where the context will not; and sometimes a defective memory will help him to the words he wants, as we have seen in the case of the worship of sun, moon and stars. To the modern mind such a use of Scripture is unwarrantable and seems to imply essential indifference to its real value, but in Clement and his contemporaries it is not inconsistent with – indeed, it is indicative of – a high sense of the value of Scripture as the ipsissima verba of God. And after all a mis-quotation may be as true as the most authentic text, and may help a man as effectually to insight into the thoughts of God.

The Logos

We have seen that Clement quarrelled with the Stoics for involving God in matter – "even the most dishonourable." The World-soul was, in fact, repugnant to men who were impressed with the thought of Sin, and who associated Sin with matter. This feeling and a desire to keep the idea of God disentangled from every limitation led to men falling back (as we saw in the case of Plutarch) on the Platonic conception of God's transcendence. Neo-Platonism has its "golden chain" of existence descending from Real Being – God – through a vast series of beings who are in a less and less degree as they are further down the scale. It is not hard to sympathize with the thoughts and feelings which drew men in this direction. The best thinkers and the most religious natures in the Mediterranean world (outside the circle of Jesus, and some Stoics) found the transcendence of God inevitably attractive, and then their hearts sought means to bridge the gulf their thoughts had made. For now he was out of all knowledge, and away beyond even revelation; for revelation involved relation and limitation, and God must be absolute.

We have seen how Plutarch found in the existence of dæmons a possibility of intercourse between gods and men, while above the dæmons the gods, he implies, are in communication with the remote Supreme. But for some thinkers this solution was revolting. Philo, with the great record before him of the religious experience of his race, was not prepared to give up the thought "O God, thou art my God."[893] Linking the Hebrew phrase "the word of the Lord" with the Stoic Logos Spermaticos and Plato's Idea, he found in the resulting conception a divine, rational and spiritual principle immanent in man and in the universe, and he also found a divine personality, or quasi-personality, to come between the Absolute and the world. He pictures the Logos as the Son of God, the First-born, the oldest of angels, the "idea of ideas," and again as the image of God, and the ideal in whose likeness man was made. As the ambassador of God, and High Priest, the Logos is able to mediate directly between man and God, and bridges the gulf that separates us from the Absolute.[894] More than anything else, this great conception of Philo's prepared the way for fusion of Greek thought and Christianity. Clement is conspicuously a student and a follower of Philo – nor was he the first among Christian writers to feel his influence.

Clement, as already said, professed himself an eclectic in philosophy, and of such we need not expect the closest reasoning. Our plan will be to gather passages illustrative of his thoughts – we might almost say of his moods – and set side by side what he says from time to time of God. On such a subject it is perhaps impossible to hope for logic or consistency except at the cost of real aspects of the matter in hand. Something will be gained if we can realize the thoughts which most moved the man, even though their reconciliation is questionably possible. This doubt however does not seem to have occurred to himself, for he connects the dogmata of the philosophers and the teaching of the New Testament as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

To begin with the account of God which Clement gives in philosophical language. "The Lord calls himself 'one' (hèn) – 'that they all may be one … as we are one; I in them, and thou in me, that they may be perfected into one.' Now God is 'one' (hèn) and away beyond the 'one' (henòs) and above the Monad itself."[895] Again, after quoting Solon and Empedocles and "John the Apostle" ("no man hath seen God at any time"), Clement enlarges on the difficulty of speaking of God: – "How can that be expressed, which is neither genus, nor differentia, nor species, neither indivisible, nor sum, nor accident, nor susceptive of accident? Nor could one properly call him a whole (hólon); for whole (tò hólon) implies dimension, and he is Father of the Whole (tôn hólon). Nor could, one speak of his parts, for the one is indivisible and therefore limitless, not so conceived because there is no passing beyond it, but as being without dimension or limit, and therefore without form or name. And if we ever name him, calling him, though not properly, one, or the good, or mind, or absolute being, or father, or God, or demiurge, or lord, we do not so speak as putting forward his name; but, for want of his name, we use beautiful names, that the mind may not wander at large, but may rest on these. None of these names, taken singly, informs us of God; but, collectively and taken all together, they point to his almighty power. For predicates are spoken either of properties or of relation, and none of these can we assume about God. Nor is he the subject of the knowledge which amounts to demonstration; for this depends on premisses (prótera) and things better known (gnorimótepa);[896] but nothing is anterior to the unbegotten. It remains then by divine grace and by the Logos alone that is from him to perceive the unknowable."[897] Again, "God has no natural relation (physikèn schésin) to us, as the founders of heresies hold (not though he make us of what is not, or fashion us from matter, for that is not at all, and this is in every point different from God) – unless you venture to say that we are part of him and of one essence (homoousíous) with God; and I do not understand how anyone who knows God will endure to hear that said, when he casts his eye upon our life and the evils with which we are mixed up. For in this way (and it is a thing not fit to speak of) God would be sinning in his parts, that is, if the parts are parts of the whole and complete the whole – if they do not complete it, they would not be parts. However, God, by nature (physei) being rich in pity (éleos), of his goodness he cares for us who are not his members nor by nature his children (méte moríon ónton autoû méte physei téknon). Indeed this is the chief proof of God's goodness, that though this is our position with regard to him, by nature utterly 'alienated' from him, he nevertheless cares for us. For the instinct of kindness to offspring is natural (physikè) in animals, and so is friendship with the like-minded based on old acquaintance, but God's pity is rich towards us who in no respect have anything to do with him, I mean, in our being (ousía) or nature or the peculiar property of our being (dynámei tê oikeía tês ousías hemôn), but merely by our being the work of His will."[898] "The God of the Whole (tôn hélon), who is above every voice and every thought and every conception, could never be set forth in writing, for his property is to be unspeakable."[899]