The Gnostic Polemic I: Dualism
THE GNOSTIC POLEMIC I: DUALISM
'Did you say the stars were worlds, Tess?'
"Yes."
'All like ours?'
'I don't know; but I think so. They sometimes seem to be like the apples on our stubbard-tree. Most of them splendid and sound— a few blighted.'
'Which do we live on—a splendid one or a blighted one?'
'A blighted one.'
T. HARDY, Tess of the d'Urbervilles \": answer to the problem of evil is dictated to a large degree by the contemporary cosmogony and world-view.
There are essentially only two alternatives: either the world is eternal and God is spared the embarrassment of cosmic evil; or the world is temporal, his creation, and he is responsible
(at least indirectly) for the evil in it. Appalled by the implications inherent in the second choice, the Gnostics opted for the first.
Moreover, eager 'to set forth the living essence of their religion in a form uncontaminated by the Jewish envelope in which they had received it',' and in terms more suited to the cosmogony and philosophy of their enlightened age, they harked back to the creation myth of Plato's Yimaeus for their answer. There the popular reading? discerned three co-equal realities which constituted the structure of the world: God, Matter, and Ideas. The myth presupposed a dualistic world-view. The transcendent God was totally removed from the material world. His delegate, the 'divine Craftsman', created order as best he could out of the existing chaotic matter in accordance with a pre-existent model.
Despite the obvious tension which this interpretation created with the Genesis account, the Gnostics made it their own. Carrying
1 Burkitt, Church and Gnosis, pp. 27 f.
2 See especially Albinus, Didask. chs. 8-10, but cf. Diogenes Laertius, iii (Plato),
69. For a good account of Middle Platonism in the second century, see P. Merlan,
'The Later Academy and Platonism', The Cambridge History of Later Greek and Early Medieval Philosophy, A. H. Armstrong (ed.), (Cambridge, 1967), pp. 53-84.
826707X B
THE GNOSTIC POLEMIC I: DUALISM
the implications of Platonic dualism to its logical extreme," they divided 'the Godhead into two, . .
. placing the two halves on different levels'? utterly alienated from one another. Thus,
Basilides' notion of the cosmos separated from the trepxdopua by a orepéwua or peOdpiov3 and the Valentinian view of a Totality
(ITAvpwua) of aeons bounded by "Opos which safeguarded the integrity of the Pleroma and shut out the lower forms of existence* were just different ways of talking about what Plato had called the world of 'Forms' or 'Ideas' and the world of reality. Such a world-picture made God so utterly transcendent that Valentinus called him the indescribable Depth (Bv8ds) ;5 Basilides, the Non-existent (6 od« wv).6 Inevitably, this conception led in its more exaggerated forms to the presumption that there was a 'divine goodness which struggles in a precariously matched eternal conflict with a contradictory and yet equally divine evil'.7
This Lord of Evil was the inferior deity who, either as a result of his own limitations' or as a deliberate act of open rebellion against the Godhead, perpetrated that cosmic mistake—the universe.
It is against this highly sophisticated and yet superstitious mentality that Clement's polemic must be viewed. On no account would he consider disposing of the 'Jewish envelope', but at the same time he willingly recognizes that not only the prophets, but the philosophers and poets as well,? have a valuable contribution to make to an orthodox cosmology. Clement's aim, then, is to discuss 'the tenets of the heterodox (regarding creation), and endeavouring as far as we can to confute them'.!° He sought to resolve that deep-seated gnostic discontent which was summed
1 With the possible exception of W. R. Inge, The Philosophy of Plotinus (London, grd edn., 1929), this aspect has seldom been noticed in modern studies.
2 H. Lietzmann, Beginnings of the Christian Church, trans. by B. Woolf (London, grd edn., 1953), p. 294.
3 Ref. vii. 23. 2 f., 25. 1.
4 Adv. Haer. 1. 1. 1-2. 2; cf. Exc. ex Theod. 42. 1.
5 Adv. Haer.i. 1. 1 and passim.
6 Ref. vii. 21. 1, 4, 22. 6, etc.
7 D. E. Jenkins, The Glory of Man (London, 1967), p. 106. Cf. Plutarch's Hellenized Zoroastrianism, De Is. et Os. 46, 369d: rov perv ayabdr, tov dé davAwv dnproupyov; and Marcion, cited in Str. iii. 12. 2: Tov dyabdv v. Tov Bedv ev addAw
TpOTm.
8 In Philo the angels are blamed for the evil in creation because of incompetence: Conf. 179; Opif. 75; Abr. 143; Fuga 68 ff.
9 See Protr. chs. 6-8.
10 Str. iv. 3. 3 f. In this and Str. vi. 168. 4, Clement promises a systematic treatment of creation which is never forthcoming.
THE GNOSTIC POLEMIC I: DUALISM
up in the question, 'If God the Creator is almighty, why is the world the way it is?'
In answer to this dilemma, both Gnostic and Christian turned to Genesis as their starting-point. The suggestion that the earth
'was without form and void'? aroused considerable speculation about what, if anything, existed prior to God's creative act.
Basilides and his followers assumed the text was speaking of strict nihilism: "There was nothing—no matter, no substance, no nonsubstance, nothing simple, nothing complex, nothing not understood, nothing not sensed, no man, no angel, no god, not anything that is named or perceived through sense, not any intelligible things, and not anything which can be defined more subtly than anything else.
. .3 The Valentinians, however, approaching Genesis with the a priori notion that matter was the root of all evil, preferred to interpret the text in the light of Plato. God, then,
'found the whole visible sphere not at rest, but moving in an irregular and disorderly fashion ; out of disorder he brought order, considering that this was in every way better than the other'.4
Hence, the Valentinian Gnostics emphasized formlessness rather than negativity and posited a pre-existent chaos.' In this way the blame for physical imperfection was shifted from the creative agent to the intractability inherent in the raw material which he merely ordered and for which he was not personally responsible.
Clement of Alexandria's argument falls midway between these two extremes. He interprets the scriptural text literally, denying the eternity of the world and advocating its creation ex nzhilo.
How he arrives at this conclusion is not always clear. Like Irenaeus before him,° Clement presumed that a position which denied the existence of anything prior to creation was an automatic refutation of Gnosticism. Hence, Clement firmly insists that 'nothing exists which God has not caused to exist'.? What is more,
God had no need of matter in order to perform his art. At the same time, however, Clement was very conscious of his duty to gain the sympathies of the Gnostics. Moreover, they had both
1 The Apocryphon of John is a classic example of a gnostic interpretation of Genesis. See S. Giversen, 'Apocryphon of John and Genesis', Studia Theologica, 17
(1963), pp. 60-76.
2 Gen. 1: 2.
3 Ref. vii. 21. 1.
4 Tim. 30 a.
5 In Zeno, 'chaos' = vdwp; see S.V.F. i, Fr. 103 Arnim.
6 Adv. Haer. ii. 10. 2-4, 27. 2, 28. 7; iv. 38. 3.
7 Paed. i. 62. 3; cf. Str. vii. 69. 5 (cf. Wisd. 11: 24).
8 Protr. 56. 5.
THE GNOSTIC POLEMIC 1: DUALISM
Plato and Philo! on their side. Therefore Clement says that God created the world from matter which, because formless, was initially in a state of relative non-being (17) 6v).? Yet this 'meontic' non-being was so amorphous that it could not be said to have the status of 'being' at all. Therefore, he concludes, God's shaping hand created the world from nothing. Clement is content that this formula safeguards the sense of the Scriptures as well as pacifying the enthusiasm of the Platonizers. It does not necessarily imply that matter is an ultimate principle coeternal with God. Beyond this Clement is reticent and almost seems anxious that no one probe deeper.
Elsewhere Clement also plays on the sympathies of his gnostic opponents. From time to time he suggests in a different way that the divine Craftsman might conceivably be less a 'fabricator' than an 'orderer'. For example, he notes that the Logos mingles the 'extreme notes of the universe', composes the 'entire creation into melodious order',5 and (if the concluding hymn of Paedagogus iii were not a scholium) 'creates this ordered sphere out of a confused heap and adorns the universe from the shapeless mass of matter'.6 However, in spite of these carrots which Clement dangles in front of his adversaries in order to demonstrate that orthodox Christianity is broad enough to encompass their ideas, one must insist that Clement remains firm in his opinion that the divine Artist did not 'order' the world, as did the Platonic
Demiurge, but created it ex milo. Any ordering that Clement speaks of does not refer to the creation of the world at the beginning of time, but to the harmony established by the redemptive act of the Logos' and its perfect eschatological realization at the Second Coming.
1 Leg. Alleg. iti. 10; Heres 36; V. Mos. ii. 267; cf. Som. ii. 45 (ordering formless ousia). Elsewhere Philo implies that God created matter: Som. i. 76; Prov. ap.
Eusebius, P.E. vii. 21.
2 Str. v. 89. 6; 92. 3. For the Platonic distinction between relative non-being (um ov) and the absolutely non-existent (od« dv), see Parmen. 160 c-162 a; Soph.
237 a-254 €, 255 a-259 d.
3 Cf. Chadwick, Early Christian Thought, pp. 46 f. (though well criticized on this point by M. Bévenot in The Heythrop Journal, 8 (1967), pp. 327 £.). In Str. ii. 74. 1, ex p17) OvTwY = 005' GAws dv. It is because of this that Clement can say in the same breath, "he world is made "'out of nothing" (é« 7) é6vrwyv)'; Str. v. 126. 2, citing
Empedocles.
4 Protr. 5. 1.
5 Ibid.
® Concluding hymn in the scholium on Paed. iii. 11. 19 f. (Stahlin edn., i. 340).
7 See below, pp. 83 f.
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Another question posed by a reading of the first chapters of Genesis was, 'Who created the universe?'. The Gnostic and Christian replies to this query and hence their identification of the responsible agent are fundamentally at odds, stemming ultimately from their different world-view, as well as their appraisal of the creatio ex nithilo dilemma. Once again, Clement insists that the Scriptures themselves have the answer. In this, and in every discussion for that matter, they are the ultimate criteria, for as inspired revelation they alone convey to man what is certain concerning God's actions.! Clement says that orthodoxy? is confirmed
'through the Prophets and the Gospel and the blessed Apostles'.3
Human opinion and speculation are insufficient unless they are corroborated by the 'voice of the Lord', which is the only sure authority.* In short, Clement interprets the Scriptures by the Scriptures.' Thus, when it comes to expounding a cosmology which is not merely fanciful observation of human sects but is the tradition of the Church (éxxAnovaorixiy mapadoaw),° Clement turns to 'the Prophets',? a periphrasis for the Scriptures as a whole.' What is more, Clement's approach to the sacred text is exceedingly modern. He is not above a bit of judicious demythologizing. He abstracts the meaning from the prophetic utterances and discards the stereotyped phraseology where he is convinced that it would break the thread of his discourse, obscure his thought, and consequently sound even more like
Greek to his listeners.° Given this priority of Scripture, Clement's interpretation of 6
6edsin Genesis 1 : 1 naturally turned back to the Wisdom literature. e.g. Sir. 1v. 2. 2.
2 The term itselfis beginning to become current about this time. In Str. i. 45. 6,
Clement writes of the 'so-called orthodox', who, 'like beasts which work from fear, do good works without knowing what they are doing'.
3 Str. iv. 2. 23 vii. 95. 3, 97. 2.
4 Str. vii. 95. 8; cf. Str. vii. 103. 5. On the relationship between Scripture and Tradition, see C. Mondésert's illuminating metaphor of the shepherd and the flock: Clément d'Alexandrie (Paris, 1944), p. 256.
5 Str. vii. 96.
6 Str. vii. 95. 1. G. L. Prestige draws a sharp distinction in the Fathers between S:SacKadla ('accumu:ated wisdom of philosophically grounded Christianity') and mapdSoats (revealed writing which is 'handed over' or "given') : Fathers and Heretics
(London, 1940), pp. 12 f. R. P. C. Hanson sees this as a spurious distinction in the case of Clement, which has little meaning and is rarely, if ever, followed: Origen's
Doctrine of Tradition (London, 1954), p. 53. Tollinton agrees: op. cit. ii. 117.
Pe Stal Sa Be 3 e.g. Sir. vu. 1. 3.
9 Thid.
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There codia was personified and ranked as a consort of the deity,! 'an emanation of the glory of the Almighty . . . a reflection of the eternal light .
. an image of his goodness',2 who was before the world3 and instrumental in its creation+ and governing.s That this imagery was applied to Christ as the Incarnate
Word and Wisdom of God in the Pauline and Johannine writings was also commonplace. In Christ, the sapiential texts of the Old
Testament find their definitive meaning. It was part of the Christian tradition, then, that Christ, like Wisdom, participated in the creation of the world:
'In him all things were created',®. . .
'the one through whom are all things and through whom we exist'.? It is statements like these which are the backbone of Clement's identification of the Creator with the Son of God, not, however, as an independent artificer, but as a mediator of the Father's power. How Clement argues to this conclusion without merely presenting a pastiche of texts is somewhat difficult to ascertain, for it is a topic which involves him in an intricate and not always consistent discussion of the relations between the persons of the triune godhead.® Clement begins this investigation by rejecting polytheism outright and postulating a strict monotheism.° God is the 'great original',!° the one being,"! himself unbeginning,!? and since avapxos, he is the 'perfect beginning of the universe and the producer of the beginning'.!3 In fact, by means of some highly suspect etymology Clement proclaims that God is called @eds because as 'author of all' he places (@éo1s), orders, and arranges the cosmos."
God, then, is ranked as 'the All' and Father of the universe, Clement says,'5 and is transcendent to the point of unintelligi- © Prov. 8: 30; cf, Sir. 1: 24.
2 Wisd. 7: 25 f.
3 Prov. 8: 22-6.
4 Wisd. 7 : 12, 21, 8: 6; cf. Prov. 8: 27-30.
5 Wisd. 8: 1.
O"Colyr. 163 ch. dep, ks ae 7-1 Cor, 82.6% ct. John r: 3, 8 Clement is clearly aware of the three persons of the Godhead: Q.D.S. 42,
19 f., 34. 13 Paed. i. 42.
13; iii. ror. 2; Str. v.
103.
1, THv aGyiay rpidda (an interpretation of Plato, Hpist. ii. 312 e); and cf. Hcl. Proph. 13. For a complete discussion of Clement's Trinitarian theology see J. Lebreton, 'La Théologie de la
Trinité chez Clément d'Alexandrie', R.S.R. 34 (1947), pp. 55-76, 142-79.
9 Str. iv. 2. 2; cf. Protr. chs. 2, 3, 5, 6.
10 Protr. 65. 4. (dpxovra).
TIS. Vie HU. Ls Va 13a. 1
12 Protr. 65. 4.3 Str. v. 141. 1. In Str. vii. 2. 2, applied to the Son.
13 Str. iv. 162. 5.
14 Str. i. 182. 2 f. For a similar etymology, cf. Herodotus, Hist. ii. 52 (cf. Philo,
V. Mos. ii. 99).
18 Str. v. 81. 6.
THE GNOSTIC POLEMIG I: DUALISM
L bility.t Recalling one of those truisms of Plato (whom Clement regarded as a plagiarist of Moses), Clement says that 'the first principle is difficult to find out—the absolutely first and oldest principle which is the cause of all other things, being and having been, is difficult to exhibit'.3 And this first principle, the transcendental God, Clement identifies as the Father; he is the Great Artist and Creator of the universe.*
At the same time, however, Clement does not see any contradiction in associating the act of creation with the Son. Harking back to the Wisdom-motif which played a significant part in his
Alexandrian heritage, Clement recalls that Wisdom was the first of God's creation (zpwroxrictos)§ as well as his assistant. Thus,
Wisdom is the 'Maker (reyviris) of all things'6 and leads all to the ruler of all.7 However, since Christ the Lord is 'Wisdom',® that 'Wisdom in which the Almighty rejoiced',® it follows that he similarly was the Father's counsellor?® before the foundation of the world! and instrumental in the act of creation.
Equally conscious of the appeal to Greek rationalism in Middle Platonist Alexandria, Clement capitalizes on the Logos-image which had already received widespread recognition through the writings of John. Equating Word with Wisdom," everything that had been postulated of the Son as Wisdom regarding creation is applicable pari passu to the Word. Like Wisdom, then, the Word was pre-existent, in the beginning" and from the very foundation of the world,'4 even before the 'morning star'.!5 Likewise the Word t See Str. ii. 5. 3, God as a being difficult to grasp; Str. v. 71 on the via negativa as the only suitable means for describing God (cf. Plotinus, Enn. v. 3. 14. 6) ; Str. v. 81 f., difficulty of naming God; Sir. vi. 150. 7, difference between declaring
God and declaring things about God ; Str. vi. 166, inadequacy of human speech for talking about God. See also E. F. Osborn, The Philosophy of Clement of Alexandria
(Cambridge, 1957), Appendix B, 'Negative Theology', pp. 184-7.
2 See Str. v, ch. 14 (especially 92); also a favourite theme of Justin; Apol. i.
59-60.
3 Str. v. 81. 4; cf. Str. v. 78. 1(= Plato, Tim. 28 c).
4 Protr. 98. 3 (cf. Pindar Fr. 57 Schroeder; Str. v. 102. 2). Cf. Str. iv. go. 2;
Protr. 105. 1; Paed. i. 72. 3 (and in 73. 1, the Lord is the Son of the Creator).
5 Str. v. 89. 4; cf. Sir. 1: 4.
6 Str. ii. 5. 2 (= Wisd. 7: 21 f.); cf. Str. vi. 55. 2.
7 Str. ii. 5. 3.
8 Str. ii. 52. 7; vi. 61. 1; but in Paed. iii. 101. 1, Clement links Wisdom with the Holy Spirit.
2 Sir. vil. 7. 43; Prov. 8: 22-30.
10 Str. vi. 58. 1.
™ Str. vil. 7. 4; cf. Eph. 1:
12 Paed. i. 6. 2; cf. Protr. 5. 4
13 Protr. 7. 3; cf. John 1: 1.
TM Stra 3
15 Protr. 6. 3.
THE GNOSTIC POLEMIC I: DUALISM
is spoken of as the Creator 'who formed us, then appeared and taught us to live rightly';! but even more obviously the Word says, 'J make new things which eye hath not seen nor ear heard'.
However, there are not two Logoi, the one 'uttered' and the other 'immanent', but a single Logos who is timeless with the Father and instrumental in creation.3 Clement concludes, then, that the Son—Wisdom—Word is also the Creator. How is one to square this with the earlier evidence that the Father is the maker of all?
Clement has little difficulty in reconciling these seemingly contradictory positions. His solution springs from his admittedly rudimentary conception of the Trinity. In spite of the fact that his vocabulary is too undeveloped to probe effectively into the subtle nuances of the relationships between the Trinitarian personages,* Clement clearly distinguishes in his own mind between them and at the same time recognizes their essential unity. His particular concern, however, and that which has a direct bearing on our discussion, is the relationship between the Father and the Son. By conceiving the Son in psychological terms and asserting that the Word is 'of the Father'7—in fact, the very 'consciousness of God''—Clement makes a most significant contribution to second-century theology : he distinguishes between the thinker and the thought.? However, this did not suggest to Clement, as it did to Arius, that one was subordinate to the other.!° Both Father and TS Proineye 3:
2 Str. ii. 15. 3 (= 1 Cor. 2: 9; Isa. 64: 4).
3 Str. v. 6. 33 cf. Str. vii. 53. 6, 55. 4. C. Bigg holds this position and supports it with Str. vii. 5. 5; The Christian Platonists of Alexandria (Oxford, 2nd edn., 1913), p98, n. 2. Photius' charge that Clement advocated a dangerous 'double Logoi'
Christology (Bibl. Cod. 109) is taken up seriously by some modern commentators ; see, e.g., R. P. Casey, 'Clement and the two Divine Logoi', 7.T.S. 25 (1923), pp. 43-56. Cf. H. A. Wolfson, 'Clement of Alexandria on the Generation of the Logos', Church History, 20, n. 2 (1951), pp. 72-81, who rather improbably argues for a two-stage theory which was converted to a one-stage theory under the possible influence of Origen. Note, however, that the Stoic vocabulary used to distinguish the immanent reality vy. the economic activity of the Logos had a precedent in Justin, Theophilus of Antioch, and Tertullian.
+ For details, see Lebreton, art. cit., pp. 55-76.
5 Paed. iii. 101. 2; Str. iv. QI. 1.
6 This is emphasized by the fact that the promised discussion of the Holy Spirit
(Str. v. 88. 4) is lacking. None the less, Clement speaks of the Holy Spirit as a separate hypostasis ; cf. Paed. i. 42. 1; iii. 101. 2; Str. v. 103. 13
Vii. 9. 4.
7 Str. v. 6. 3.
8 Bigg's hypothesis based on an interpretation of Str. iv. 156 (op. cit., p. 94).
9 Cf. Bigg, op. cit.
10 But in Str. iv. 91. 4, the Lord is better than the Creator-God.
THE GNOSTIC POLEMIC I: DUALISM
Word. are equal in time and dignity;! both are one Oeds.2 In consequence, their activities are identical. One is not loving
(¢iAdvOpwros) without the other.3 The Son has a nature which most closely approaches the one Almighty Being,' so closely that the original Word of the Father' is privy to his 'secret thought' ;® nay, zs his secret thought. Moreover, the bond between them is so intimate that the Son is not without the Father, nor the Father without the son,' for by definition the Father is not a father without a son, the Son.8 And thus whatever the doctrine of TEpixwpyois May mean, it is fair to say that Clement used language which was pointing towards that idea: the Son is in the Father and the Father is zn the Son.? It is because of this unity of being, then, that Clement can justifiably maintain without contradiction that the Father is Creator, and the Son—Wisdom—Word as well.
However, in insisting on the unity of the Godhead (a fact which Clement reckons as part of the data of revelation) ,!° Clement does not fail to appropriate specific activities to the different members. In the act of creation the Father is, properly speaking, the principal agent, for since the universe is created it derives its existence from him, as a son from a father." In fact, all activity of the Lord is referred principally to the Almighty, and the Son, so to speak, is a 'certain activity' (tis évépyeua) of the Father. It is this idea which lies behind Clement's habit of calling the Son 'the power of God' (dvvapus e086) ,13 a phrase with considerable gnostic implication. In creation, then, the Power of God becomes the very 'finger of God''s which moulds the universe. The Word
I Str. vi. 58. 1, 141. 73-vil. 2. 2 (timeless); Hcl. Proph. 4. 1 (Son as apyq). For a discussion of the last, see J. Daniélou, The Theology of Fewish Christianity, trans. by J. A. Baker (London, 1964), pp. 166 ff.
2 Paed. i. 62. 4. Clement leaves no room for tritheism. He never speaks of Sedrepos Beds, as did Philo (Leg. Alleg. ii. 86), Justin (Dial. 56, 128), or Origen, and only once of oi (Str. iv. 91. 4), which is clearly a mistake.
3 Paed. i. 63. 1; mutatis mutandis re hate, Paed. i. 62. 3.
4 Str. vii. 5. 3.
5 Str. vii. 7. 4.
6 Str. vil. 5. 4.
7 Str. v. 1. 3; faith and knowledge enjoy a similar parallel.
8 Ibid. Cf. Origen, Princ. i. 2. 10, quemadmodum pater non potest esse quis, si non filius sit, etc.
9F Pacdele 243305341 sn 4 aels 10 Str. iv. QI. I.
11 Sir. v. 92. 3.
12 Str, vii. 7. 7; cf. Exc. ex Theod. 4. 2.
13 Str. i. 88. 8; ii. 45. 2, 52. 7 (cf. 1 Cor. 1: 24); vi. 47. 3, 43 Vil. 5.4. f£., 7.4, 9. 1.
14 Cf, Philo, Qu. Gen. iv. 8; Abr. 121 ff. For Philo, 'angels' are a symbolic way of talking about the 'power of God'. They are not distinct beings, but God's operations.
1s Exod, 31: 18 (= Str. vi. 133. 1).
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issuing forth from the Father is the cause of creation.! In this manner Clement considers the Son as the 'mediator' (6 ecirns) of the Father's will,2 the one in whom and by whom all things were made.3 God then creates the world by the agency of the Word+—'by the Word of his power'.s In a passage which sums up all these ideas, Clement says, "This is the Son, this is Christ, this is the Word of God, the arm of the Lord, the might of the universe, the Father's will.'® The gnostic identification of 6 Beds of Genesis 1 : 1, on the other hand, was a far cry from this Christian creator. Although both had turned to the Scriptures as their source material, for the Gnostics it played asecondary role to the popular Middle Platonist philosophy. Moreover, since the Gnostics were convinced of the evil of human existence, it was inevitable that their creator-god should emerge as a hostile power. With these prejudices as part of their mental furniture, the Gnostics surveyed the Scriptural texts with a very jaundiced eye.' Inevitably, they read into the texts their own presuppositions, rather than letting the texts speak for themselves. They did violence to the Scriptures by picking and choosing only what was appealing, completely neglecting the context of the passage, thereby perverting the 'bare letter as it stands'.8 For Clement, it is obvious how the heretics 'attend to the words alone, while they change the meaning, neither understanding them as they are spoken, nor even using in their natural sense such extracts as they adduce',® and he was anxious that no one should be taken in by this approach.
Sharing a common source, it is not surprising that the Christian and gnostic creation-myths bear an over-all similarity.!° Both conceive the world as 'made' by a deity other than the superior, transcendental one. This, however, is the extent of the likeness.
In Judaism this 'other deity' is Wisdom, the divine consort; in Philo, the Logos ; in the Christian interpretation, Christ as Logos.
In the gnostic systems, however, the demiurge is fotally 'other'!
1 Str. v. 16. 5. Cf. Tatian, Ad Graecos 5; Theophilus of Antioch, Ad Aut. ii. 22;
Tertullian, Adv. Prax. 5.
2 Paed. iii. 2. 1 (cf. John 4: 34); 1. 4. 1. Justin emphasizes the Son's ministerial role: Dial. 61, 127; cf. the Logos as the medium of creation in Philo: Cher. 127;
Migr. 6; Heres 119, 130, 140, 196.
3 Str.r03. 13 cf. John 1: 3.
4 Sir. v. 89. 33 vi. 136. 3.
5"Str. vi. 39. 3, (Gf. Eleb."1's°3).
© Protr. 120. 4.
7 Str. vii. 99; cf. Str. i. 88. 5.
8 Str. vii. 96; cf. Str. iii. 39.
9 Str. vii. 3.
10 Wilson, Gnostic Problem, p. 184.
11 Str. iv. 94. 2.
THE GNOSTIC POLEMIC I::DUALISM
II and appears in the guise of either an emanation or an active hostile deity, and very frequently a combination of the two.! In this manner the Gnostics utterly disassociated the creator-god from the supreme-god and preserved the latter unsullied by involvement in mundane matters.
This is the principle which underlies all the gnostic creation myths. Whom they charge as culprit for creation seems to be almost a matter of arbitrary mental gymnastics. Basilides, for example, conjures a system of Triple Sonships.? From the third of these vidrnres, which was in need of purification, sprang the Demiurge, the Great Archon. As assistants he begot two filial
Archons, the rulers of the Ogdoad and Hebdomad, who functioned as alter egos in their respective spheres. Hence, this system associates a group of powers rather than a single demiurge with the transformation of chaos into order, that process by which the world was brought into being.3 For Valentinust+ and his followers, the interest is not so much in the creation of this earth as in the development of the supraterrestrial regions. For this reason their myth obscures the creator of the material world. If forced to identify an agent, however, they lay the blame on Sophia—
Achamoth, that abortive desire of the higher Sophia which was drawn out of the Pleroma. She, in turn, was aided by a demiurge of her own creation who functioned blindly as her tool. It appears, then, that the Valentinians attempted to preserve what they thought was the Old Testament tradition. Wisdom was the demiurge, and the poor sort of world that she created stemmed from the fact that Wisdom herself was fallen.'
The particularities of these myths and the nature of the gnostic demiurge may have been exclusively the privilege of the elect, but the broad outlines were not unfamiliar to the educated public. So conversant was Clement with them that he felt compelled to clothe his 'myth' in their language, in order to make his
1 Cf. Wilson, op. cit., p. 206, though he sees the 'hostile power' motif as the primary one. Thus he can say that the 'Gnostic Demiurge plays a part analogous to Satan' (ibid., p. 190).
2 Hippolytus, Ref. vii. 20-7. 'In the view of most scholars this is the genuine system of Basilides' (R. M. Grant, Gnosticism: An Anthology (London,
1961), 2 : tk Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. i. 24. 3-6, for another account of the Basilidian myth which rests largely on a theory of single emanations and concentric heavens.
4 See Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. i. 1-8.
5 An observation I owe to Dodd, Fourth Gospel, p. 107.
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argument more palatable, but all the time realizing that this was in fact all he was doing. Disguised in this manner, God the First
Principle becomes the 'Great Archon',! 'Nous'?; the Son, the 'Monad'3 or the 'greatest pre-eminence', by which Clement meant to suggest the highest of those emanating gnostic aeons.
But in Clement's mind the dividing line remained clear: the Gnostics rejected monotheism in order to solve the problem of evil, whereas he did not.
How and why creation was brought about follows directly on this. When considering the manner in which the universe came into being, Clement (once again with the support of the Scriptures) is confident that everything was fabricated by a single act of the Father's will: 'His mere will is creation.'5 Moreover, this bare wish is actualized solely by the utterance of a word® which is the Word 'by whom and with whom all things were made'.7
Describing the same operation in the language of Aristotelian causality, Clement sees the Father as the Ultimate® or First
Cause? of creation and the Son as the Second! or Efficient Cause.!! For Clement, this bit of metaphysics does not in any way cripple the unity of the Godhead. One cause, Clement says, can have many joint or co-operating causes without destroying the efficacy of the first cause.' This principle, when applied to the Godhead, means that the Father causes creation through his Son, the ministerial agent who acts in conjunction with the Father's will. Hence, creation still remains the effect of one will.!3 This was t Protr. 65. 4.
2 Protr. 98. 3.
3 Paed. i. 71. 1: 'God is beyond the One and beyond the Monad'. This term is also used of the Son in Str. iv. 156 f.
4 Str. vil. 5. 4.
5 Protr. 63. 3; cf. Sir. ili. 95. 1.
6 Protr. 63. 2; cf. Pss. 33 : 6, 148. Yet in Str. vi. 142. 2, creation by thought, rather than by word, is proposed.
7 John 1: 3; cf. Str. vi. 136. 3.
8 Str. vii. 2. 3.
9 Str. vi. 78. 5; but in Sir. vii. 17. 2, the First Cause is the Son.
10 Str. vii. 16. 6.
11 Str. i. 94. 4. (7O mounriKov aizvov). Clement accuses the philosophers of honouring the elements in preference to the Efficient Cause, Str. i. 50. 63; cf. Protr. 64
(against pantheism) ; Str. i. 52. In one of Clement's metaphysical red herrings he records that pain (i.e. thirst) may be the efficient cause of pleasure (satiety), but evil is never the efficient cause of good (Str. iv. 23. 1).
12 Str. i. 97 (cf. Str. viii. 31), 99 (cf. Str. viii. 28). The context here deals with philosophy as a suitable adjunct to theology. In Sir. i. 99. 2 the joint-cause is useless without the first cause (cf. Chrysipp. Fr. phys. 352 Arnim); cf. Sér. ii. 26. 2, for joint-causes in nature.
13. Str. vil. 81.2; cf. Strvvil. 5.14%
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a radical departure from the view of Basilides, who denies the will altogether as the method by which the world came into being,! and from that of Valentinus, who conceived the universe as essentially a product of passion and frustration within the Pleroma.?
The reason why God created the world, Clement maintains, was to share his goodness.3 Creation, then, was the supreme act of generosity* and not some divine punishment, as the Gnostics had supposed. It is inconceivable that God had need to produce the universe that he might win kudos from both gods and men.5
Therefore benevolence, not malevolence, is the characteristic note of creation.® Yet God is in no way determined by creation.
Even before the existence of the world God was God.' Similarly, the Son was not produced simply as a deus ex machina solely for the sake of creation.' From this it follows that God has no 'natural' relation to us.? We are not in any sense a part of his essence, as the Stoics had supposed, but are related only in so far as we are his creation and he is our Creator.!° Although Clement was anxious to dispose of Stoic materialism, he eagerly supports their idea that God is immanent in his creation!! and concurs with the Pythagoreans that the deity permeates it through and through.!? God creates and continues to create by holding all things in being."3 If he ceased from doing this, he would cease from being God." This power by which God is near and sustains all things in his embrace we call Providence.!5 But this is a topic for another discussion.'©
In the foregoing discussion of creation we have continually alluded to Clement's remarkable ability to withstand the dangers of the gnostic Platonizing tendency which was so popular in 1 Hippolytus, Ref. vii. 21. 1.
2 Trenaeus, Adv. Haer. i. 4. 1.
3 Paed. i. 88. 2 (cf. Tim. 29 e; Sextus Empiricus, Adv. Dogm. v. 70). Compare the medieval metaphysical axiom: omne bonum est diffusivum sui.
4 Str. vii. 2. 3; cf. Philo, Opif. 21; Athanasius, De Inc. 3. 3.
5 Str. v. 75. 3 (Plato?) ; cf. Str. vi. 39. 3.
6 Str. ii. 28; cf. Paed. i. 63. Benevolence is 'the wishing of good things to another for his own sake' ; Paed. i. 97. 33 Str. ii. 28. 3.
7 Paed. i. 88. 2; cf. Protr. 78. 4. (contingency of creation and eternity of God).
8 Ibid., though Str. v. 16. 5 sounds remarkably like just that.
9 Str. ii. 73-4.
10 Str. iil. 75. 2.
11 Str. vy. 89. 3. Clement supports what they say, but does not mean what they mean.
12 Proirs 72. 4.
13 Protr. 69. 3; Str. vi. 39. 2 f.; vii. 5. 43 Q.D.S. 7. 2.
4 Str. vi. 141. 73 cf. Philo, Leg. Alleg. i. 5 (re the 'rest' on the seventh day).
15 Cf, Sér. ii. 5. 4.
16 See below, Ch. II, esp. pp. 35 ff.
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Alexandria. However, when we turn to his examination of the gamut of creation, we realize how attracted he was by that philosophy and how congenial he found it to Christian theology.
In particular, there are two aspects of Clement's vision of the cosmos which one may rightly trace back to Plato as their source : first, the notion that there are two worlds—the one unseen and eternal (xécp0s vontés), of which the other, the visible world
(xdopos aicOyrés), is but a pale copy; and secondly, that all beings are not of an equal rank but are arranged hierarchically in some regular pattern. These two notions, which Philo and the Middle Platonists made much use of, form the skeleton of Clement's world-view. However, in contrast to the Gnostics, for Clement this was not tantamount to offering obeisance to a dualist deity.
Clement structured his universe on the Platonic two-world pattern.! He was conscious that this distinction had been countenanced in 'barbarian' cosmology,? and, eager to modernize revelation and make it attractive and comprehensible to the cultured world, Clement put his creation-myth in these terms.
Thus, 'God of his goodness and love created the world of Ideas, the invisible heaven and earth; and in accordance with this divine model the Word gave shape and substance to the material universe'.
Now, given two worlds, one of which was superior to the other, it was not so unlikely, Clement thought, that within these worlds there should also be a regular system of gradation.* Clement, then, adopted a world-picture that bore a marked similarity to the 'emanationism' proposed by the Gnostics. God was the highest being, from whom all others proceeded and derived their existence. Their relative worth depended upon their proximity to him in the scheme of emanation and their participation in his being, which was commensurate to this distance. On this assumption it appeared that at each successive stage of the evolutionary process godlikeness waned, like the heat from a fire which diminishes the further away one goes. The great difference, how1 Str. iv. 148; v. 94; vil. 2. 2.
2 Str. v. 93. 4; cf. Philo, Opif. 13-16. Heraclitus makes a similar distinction: Sér. v. 104. (Chrysipp. Fr. phys. 590 Arnim).
3 Bigg, op. cit., p. 107. Cf. Str. v. 33, 39 (with reference to the robe of the high priest in the Temple).
4 Str. vii. 2; that which is elder in origin is more distinguished.
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ever, between this plan and the gnostic one was that according to Clement's design God did not merely work from the top as the Gnostics thought, totally disinterested and quite incapable of dealing with that which was further down on the scale, but he worked through and through, holding all in existence—the beginning, middle, and end.! All of this was none other than what
Homer meant when he spoke of Zeus letting down out of the sky a 'cord of gold' from which all beings 'dangle in mid air'? and what Occidental philosophy has referred to for centuries as 'the great chain of being'.s That this is Clement's way of viewing the universe is clear. In a classic passage, which rivals many Homeric similes in its effectiveness, Clement conceives of God's immanence in the universe as (ws) 'the remotest particle of iron is drawn by the influence of the magnet extending through a long series of iron rings'. How literally one ought to take this is uncertain, but from adjacent references in this text what is unmistakable is that the 'rings' are grades of being hierarchically arranged (viz. 'rank being subordinated to rank',5 'first, second, and third gradations',®
'last mansion',' etc.). Clement's treatment of the six days® of creation is a similar case in point. He contends that they express in an allegory the differing dignity of the objects created.? We shall now relate the gradation of beings in full. t Protr. 69. 4 (Clement siding with Plato, Laws 715 e-716 a). Cf. Str. il. 132; vii. 100.
2 Homer, Iliad, viii, ll. 17-27 (cf. Plato, Theaet. 153 d). Although Clement does not quote this, he does refer to the Homeric world-view as depicted by the iconography on Vulcan's shield (earth-sky-sea-sun-moon: Jliad xviii, ll. 483-5) but considers it to have been plagiarized from Moses (Str. v. 101. 43 cf. Paed. iii. 99. 3).
3 See A. O. Lovejoy's history of this idea: The Great Chain of Being (New York:
Harper Torchbooks, 1960), especially ch. 2 for its emergence and development through Plotinus. P. Lévéque, Aurea Catena Homeri (Paris, 1959), traces this theme in later classical and Byzantine writers.
4 Str. vii. g. 4. For the magnet image, see Plato, Jon 533 de, 535 €, 536 a.
5 Str. vil. 9. 2; cf. Heb. 12: 2.
6 Str. vii. 9. 3; cf. Plato, Epist. ii. 312 e.
7 Str. vii. 9. 4; cf. Str. iv. 36; the 'many mansions' theme of John 14: 2 was traditionally interpreted as symbolizing a hierarchy of beings. See Osborn's comments on this theme, op. cit., pp. 80 ff.
8 Str. vi. 138. But in Str. iv. 158. 4, seven days of creation (including the Sabbath) ; cf. Ezra 44:25 f. Symbolism of the number seven: seven heavens (Str. iv.
159. 2) ; all live things revolve in sevens (Str. vi. 142. 4; cf. Str. v. 107. 1) ; first-born princes of angels (Str. vi. 143. 1) ; phases of the moon (Str. vi. 143. 1) ; seven Pleiades
(ibid.) ; seven planets (ibid.) ; phases of life, senses, and disease (Str. vi. 143-4).
9 Str. vi. 142.
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The xécpos vonrés is, strictly speaking, the invisible world which is only knowable by revelation. For Clement it is the 'locale' of God,! his attendant angels, and the supra-celestial heaven in which they dwell. Aware of the futility of trying to localize the utterly transcendent God,? Clement thinks it safe to place his throne simply 'in the heavens',3 but in the 'backs of the heavens' at that.t By this he means to signify that God is beyond the uttermost sphere, uncontained by any stratification, no matter how amorphous.' Directly beneath God in rank and dignity are the 'Hosts of Heaven' who are arrayed in a descending scale :7 Archangels,® Powers, Principalities, Authorities,? and then other inferior angels who passed on philosophy to the Greeks.!° These so-called 'gods'!! are in the 'fixed sphere',!? that transcendent orbit which is next to the Lord.'3
Descending from the Ideal World, one enters the visible and sensible realm of the xéapos aicy7ds, the arena of physical creation and sin.* This is composed of the 'solid heaven' above and the 'visible earth' beneath.!5 For Clement, the heavens and the heavenly bodies are quite clearly the result of God's creative act! and not the product of some primal cosmic explosion which splattered globules from an enormous molten mass about the universe, thereby forming the astral and planetary system. It was
God who established the physical Decalogue of the heaven: sun, moon, stars, clouds, light, wind, water, air, darkness, and fire.!7
Moreover, the celestial bodies move in those neatly defined, concentric orbits of the Platonic heaven,'8 dictate the seasons,!9 and mark time."° They are not, however, objects for adoration, as the t Str. v. 73. 3.
2 Str. ii. 6. 2. Cf. Str. v. 71. 53 vii. 28. 1; Origen, Orat. xxiii. 1.
3 Str. ii. 6. 3; cf. Isa. 66:1.
4 Protr. 68. 3; cf. Plato, Phaedrus 247 c.
5 Cf. Marcion, who pigeon-holed the Omnipotent in one sphere and the Goodgod in another (Str. v. 4. 4). In Str. v. 38. 6, the Lord is above the World of Ideas.
© Protr. 70. 2% Sits Ve 126) 3. Ct, Jer. 19c13.
7 Cf. Str. v. 10. 2; Clement is convinced that there is some order, though he is uncertain exactly what that order is.
8 Str. vi. 57. 5.
9 Str. vi. 30. 5.
10 Str. vii. 6. 4.
1 Cf. Str. vi. 31. 4 and Deut. 10:16 f.
12 Str. iv. 16. 2, 159. 2; v. 106. 3; Exc. ex Theod. 70.
13 Str. vii. 10. 2.
14 Str. iv. 159. 2.
15 Str. v. 94. 13 cf. Protr. 62. 2.
16 Protr. 62. 4, 81. 3.
17 Sire Vie 133013:
18 Cf. Paed. i. 6. 5.
19 Str. vi. 90. 3.
20 Protr. 63. 13; cf. Str. v. 41 (Egyptians signified the sun marking time by pictorially representing it as carried on a ship; e.g. stone sarcophagus of Pedési, Late
THE GNOSTIC POLEMIC I: DUALISM
pantheists assumed because of the mysterious power they seemed to wield over man.! Moreover, like Empedocles, Clement attaches a special importance to ether. This element holds all things together, pervades all matter,3 and is the essence of atmospheric conditions.'
Finally— See worlds on worlds compose one universe, Observe how system into system runs}— we arrive at the earth, the lowest strata of God's creation. Once again there is a physical Decalogue of the earth, which Clement arranges in a descending scale. On the earth, there are men, cattle, reptiles, and wild beasts ; in the sea, whales and fish; in the air, both carnivorous birds and those that consume mild food; and lastly, plants, both fruit-bearing and barren.7 From other examples, it is clear that Clement draws up his scala naturae on the Aristotelian plan, according to the powers of the soul. Hence, worms and caterpillars, which do not possess all the senses, and field mice and moles, which lack something from their birth, find their place very far down on Clement's list.» Even more undistinguished is the oyster family, 'which possesses neither sight nor hearing nor evenspeech',"° but the lowest ofall are the statues which the pagans idolize, for they are nothing more than inert matter."
This then is Clement of Alexandria's Vast chain of being! which from God began, Natures aethereal, human, angel, man, Beast, bird, fish, insect, what no eye can see,
No glass can reach; from Infinite to thee, From thee to nothing."
Period, East Berlin Museum, no. 29.
For an illustration, see Aegyptische und vorderasiatische Alterthtimer aus den Kéniglichen Museen zu Berlin (Berlin, 1895-7), pl. 125).
IS Proina 63. t.
2 Str. v. 48. 3.
3 Str. vii. 34. 1 (Chrysipp. Fr. phys. 721 Arnim) d; it is even infused into water for the benefit of aquatic life.
4 Paed. i. 72. 3 (water and clouds). Protr. 79. 2; Str. v. 126. 3 (thunder and wind).
5 A. Pope, quoted from Lovejoy, op. cit., p. 8.
6 Str. v. 33. 2 suggests a geocentric emphasis.
7 Str. vi. 133. 43 cf. Protr. 94. 2.
8 Cf. Str. ii. 110-11 and Aristotle, De anima 414729-415713.
9 Protr. 51. 3.
10 Protr, 51. 5. For oysters affected by the moon, see Cicero, De Divinatione ii. 33, and the massive list of citations in A. S. Pease's commentary thereon (p. 406).
11 Protr. 51. 6.
12 A, Pope, quoted from Lovejoy, op. cit., p. 60 (my italics).
826707X Cc
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It is not based on a unitary concept of matter, the hierarchy of macroscopic, molecular, atomic, subatomic levels which trail away without hitting rock-bottom, until matter dissolves into patterns of energy-concentration, and then perhaps into tensions in space. Rather, the cosmos is graded according to the dignity of being and the resemblance each bears to the Absolute Being, with all the lesser things ordered according to the safety and continuance of the superior.! Although the Platonic plenus formarum2 and the Aristotelian notion of 'continuity' first became formally blended in a coherent manner with Plotinus, Clement is anticipating this. He appears to conceive of the gamut of creation as consisting of every possible type of being, each linked to the next, ranging from the highest to the lowest. In short, this
'Principle of Plenitude', which Clement found echoed in the Scriptures,* will be of considerable consequence for his explanation of evil.
Of all the major categories in the universe, Clement continually singles out Man for special mention.5 He occupies a middle position in the scale of beings, different from the beasts® and yet a little lower than the angels." In short, he is God's last® and most noble creation.? Clement might well have recalled Sophocles' memorable chorus:
Wonders are many, and none is more wonderful than man.'° This unique dignity is emphasized by the special way in which man was brought into existence. Other beings were created by a word of command, but God framed man by himself," from the dust of the earth;! that is to say, from matter pre-existent to man's creation, but originally brought about ex nihilo.!3 Moreover, in his composition, man parallels the cosmos,™ in fact ts a microI Str. vii. 12. 3.
2 Tim. 39 €, 42 €, 51 a, Q2C.
3 Lovejoy, op. cit., p. 58: 'If there is between two given natural species a theoretically possible intermediate type, that type must be realized.'
4 eg. Eph. 1: 23; 1 Cor. 10: 26 (= Sir. iv. 98. 15; vi. 89. 2; Protr. 103. 3).
5 Cf. Str. iv. 51. 2 (world-angels-men) ; Paed. iii. 100. 2 (world-man) ; Protr. 63. 2
(universe = heavens-sun-angels-men).
6 Str. iv. 8. 5. Cf. King Lear's, 'Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life, /
And thou no breath at all?' (Act v. iii).
7 Str. iv. B57.
8 Protr. 92. 2.
9 Paed. i. 63. 1; Str. iv. 93. 3.
10 Antigone, 1. 332 (cf. Aesch., Ch. 585 ff.).
1 Paed. i. 7.1
12 Str. v. 99. 4 (Gen. 2: 7), 63. 5; Paed. i. 98. 2.
13, Paed. iii. 100. 1.
™ Str. i. 60. 4.
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cosmos.! Clement compares him to that Thessalian figment, the Centaur, with a rational and an irrational part:? namely, the soul, the better part, and the body, the inferior.3 It is by virtue of the soul that man is God's 'peculiar possession'. Hence, 'he who would be most beautiful must adorn that which is the most beautiful thing in him—his mind'.s In consequence, unlike the brute beasts, God made man erect, fit for his natural work, the contemplation of heaven. This workmanship of God is really sacred' in contrast to those sham images fabricated by pagan craftsman for idle veneration.' In a moving diatribe which is at once reminiscent of Ezekiel's vision in the Valley of Dry Bones,
Clement challenges those pseudo-artisans :
Not one has ever fashioned a breathing image, or made tender flesh out of earth. Who gave its softness to the marrow? Who fixed the bones? Who stretched out the sinews? Who inflated the arteries?
Who poured blood into them and drew the skin around ? How could any of these men make eyes that see? Who breathed life into man?
Who gave him the sense of right? Who has promised immortality?
None but the Creator of the universe .
. formed such a living statue as man.?
The key to man's exalted position is his creation in the 'image and likeness' of God,' a concept which underlies Clement's whole anthropology. Clement takes these as two sharply distinct notions conveying separate ideas about the nature of man. Man kar' eixova denotes that distinctive psychological make-up which is characteristic of every man qua man and is existentially realized at his creation,!! though in some it remains a clouded image.%?
Clement's explanation of this is as follows. Things which proceed in pairs are complements, while that which originates from one is an 'image'.'3 Strictly speaking then, the Word is God's true
I Protr. 5. 3.
2 Str. iv. 9. 4.
3 Str. iv. 164; but the soul is neither good by nature, nor the body bad. Cf.
Diogenes Laertius, vii. 105 f.; Chrysipp. Fr. mor. 122 ff. Arnim, 4 Protr. 103. 3; cf. Paed. i. 7. 1; Str. iv. 163 f.
5 Paed. iii. 20. 6.
6 Protr. 100. 3; Paed. iii. 37. 1. See A. S. Pease's commentary on Cicero's De Natura Deorum, ii. 140, for an arsenal of references to humo excitatos in classical literature ((Cambridge, Mass., 1958), 2, pp. 914 f.).
7 Protr. 104. 1.
8 Protr. 98. 1.
9 Protr. 98. 2 f. In another anatomical aside, Clement compares our bodies to an organ and its nerves to the strings, by which it has received harmonious tension
(Paed. ii. 41. 5, commenting on Ps. 150).
10 Gen. 1: 26.
II Str. ii. 131. 6.
12 Str. vii. 86.2.
13 Str. iv. 90. 2; cf. Exc. ex Theod. 32.
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image.! Thus, man is the image of the Image,? the Logos; and while inferior,3 like him man is AoyiKds.4 Hence, man is God's image by virtue of his mind (vods), his reasoning faculty,' not because of any sensible, to say nothing of anatomical, resemblance.° On the other hand, man xa@' duoiwovw is an eschatological conception which is only fully realized in the Beatific Vision."
This exegesis of Genesis 1: 268 permits the Fall, as we shall see, but at the same time facilitates man's union with God through the transcendental reality of grace. Furthermore, it is an implicit condemnation of anthropomorphism as Xenophanes had formulated it? and the familiar cynicism that 'God created man in his image and likeness, and man has been returning the compliment ever since'.
Throughout Clement's cosmology the dominant note is that refrain which punctuates the Genesis narrative—'And God saw that it was good.' The excellence of creation stems from the nature of the Creator and the premiss that all effects are like their cause. As the supreme Good, God can only produce that which is good ;!! he is in no sense the author of evil.! It would be a contradiction for him to hate something he himself had brought into existence.!3 Therefore Clement concludes that the economy of creation is neither neutral, nor evil, but good.™ If this is not sufficient evidence for the Gnostics, Clement recalls that Plato took substantially the same line.'5 Such an optimistic view of creation came perilously close to that formula voiced by Leibniz and made familiar by Voltaire's irony—'this is the best of all possible worlds'.1¢ 1 Protr. 98. 3 (cf. 2 Cor. 4:4); Paed. i. 98. 3; Str. iv. 90. 33 v. 94. 5.
2 Cf. Str. vii. 16. 6; the divine image is now beheld in a third embodiment, assimilated as far as possible to the Second Cause (cf. Plato, Rep. 597 e).
3 Str. iv. 89. 6.
4 Protr. 98. 3; Str. vi. 136. 33 cf. Str. vil. 21, effect like the cause. See C. Mondésert's study of this term in R.S.R. 42 (1954), pp. 258-65.
5 Str. li. 102. 6 (cf. Philo, Opif. 69) ; v. 94. 5 (cf. Philo, Heres 231) ; vi. 72. 2.
6 Protr. 51.6; Str. ii. 102. 6 (what is mortal is not made like what is immortal) ; vi. 114, 136. 3.
7 Cf. Str. ii. 100. 3.
8 Cf. R. McL. Wilson, "The Early History of the Exegesis of Gen. 1: 26', Studia Patristica, 1 (1957), pp420-37.
9 Str. v. 109; but in Str. iv. 171. 4, Clement notes that the poets use this 'image and likeness' language to great effect (cf. Plutarch, De Is. et Os. 26, 360 f-361 a).
10 (Gen. Xi31 se: eenSirti genet 11 Paed. i. 63. 3.
12 e.g, Str. i. 84. 13 iv. 170. 2; vil. 12. 1. Cf. Plato, Rep. 617 e; Tim. 42 d.
13 Paed. i. 62.
14 Str. iv. 148. 2.
15 Tim. 29d; Epist. ii. 312 e (= Protr. 68. 5).
16 Cf. Str. vii. 8. 3.
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Given this cosmology, then, with its ontologically ordered creation, as well as its insistence that everything is good no matter what its position in the scale of being, the path is opened up for an anhypostatic metaphysic of evil. It was a familiar theme in pagan philosophy and one which was logically adopted by Clement and others for whom the Classics continued to be a sine qua non. Plato, for example, was convinced that the seed of the good was to be found in everything and in the nature of being itself.2 Only that which he calls the agathoid element in all things really 'is'. From this it followed that a thing was bad in so far as it lacked being. The Stoics, moreover, also argued that evil was not natural (xara pvow), but parasitic and secondary.3 On this hypothesis, since evil was not intended by nature, it was not a substance (odcia) or a positive presence, but an absence. Clement was certainly conversant with this philosophical tradition and derived his private view of evil from it. In perhaps his most explicit confirmation of this theory, he says that sin—that prime instance of evil—is not an existence, but an activity of a certain type.' It is a short step from this to the assumption that evil is not some thing but a deprivation of that which is essentially good.' Elsewhere it becomes clear that this absence-of-good which characterizes the nature of evil is more specifically the absence of God, the supreme Good. Metaphorically Clement says, 'Where the face of the Lord looks, there is peace and rejoicing ; but where it is averted, there is the introduction of evil.' And again, "The face of the Lord is against those who do evil.'7
Two observations follow from this negative conception of evil.
First, evil cannot be directly desired.' Secondly, evil as nonbeing is incapable of acting as an efficient cause of good.? 'Evil has an evil nature and can never turn out to be the producer of 1 This theme is fully developed by Augustine, but see also Origen, Princ. ii. 9. 2,
Comm. in Joh. ii. 13, C. Cels. iv. 66 ; Athanasius, C. Gentes 7 ; Basil, Hexameron, hom. 2, para. 4; and Gregory of Nyssa, Catech. Orat. 7.
2 Cf. Rep. 509 b. For the fourfold source of evil in Platonic cosmology, see Merlan, art. cit., Cambridge History, pp. 25 f.
3 Cf. $.V.F. ii. Fr. 1170 Arnim, and see below, p. 93.
4 Str. iv. 93. 3: 76 duaprdvew <év> evepyeia Keirar, ovK odaia' b10 odd€ Epyov Beod.
5 Cf. Str. iv. 39. 3: some things are good in themselves ; others, by participation.
6 Paed. i. 70. 1 f. (Deut. 32: 20).
7 Paed. iii. 85. 3 (1 Pet. 3:12).
8 See below, pp. 32 f.
9 Str. iv. 23. 1; cf. Aquinas, S.7T. Ia. Q.49, a. 1.
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anything that is good.'! It is in this way, then, that Clement harmonizes the nature of evil with the nature of God.
Finally, had the gnostic cosmogony been only a series of myths or simply an attitude of mind without carrying over into the realm of personal behaviour, it is unlikely that Clement would have been quite so anxious to refute it. But this was not the case ; those who 'masqueraded under the false name of knowledge'? practised what they preached. Their pessimistic doctrine of creation was the foundation of their ethic and had a considerable effect on their outlook regarding marriage and sexual morality.
It is in view of this that Clement says that the Gnostics 'who run down created existence and vilify the body are wrong',? and devotes the whole of Stromateis iii to putting them right.
Although the gnostic errors were as numerous as their expounders, they were essentially of two types: 'Either they teach that one ought to live on the principle that it is a matter of indifference whether one does right or wrong, or they set a too ascetic tone and proclaim the necessity of continence on grounds which are godless and arise from hatred of what God has created.'* In Clement's opinion the gnostic dichotomy of either utter licentiousness' or abstinence out of hatred for the Creator® were both extremes which resulted from an erroneous interpretation of the Scriptures.7 Clement suggests a less radical alternative.
As a check to the gnostic tendency to libertinism, the popular Stoic ethic was itself an easy answer. In addition, however,
Clement advocates that rampant desire must not be the ruling factor in human behaviour, but one ought to be continent even respecting desire itself. 'We are children not of desire but of will', he says. What is more, this applies not only to sexual relations, but to food and other matters as well for which the soul craves.'° On the other extreme there were those Gnostics who overemphasized continence and used it as a cover-up for hating creation.!! This was a more insidious position which was less easily combated. Against it, Clement argues that there is nothing meritorious about abstinence as such.!2 Moreover, birth is not 1 Str. i. 18. 4 (on the subject of philosophy).
2 Str. ili. 110. 3.
3 Str. iv. 163. 1.
4 Str. iii. 40. 2.
5 Str. iii. I-11, 25-44.
6 Str. ili. 12-24, 45-6.
7 Str. iii. 61-101 passim.
SStr, 1. 57. 2s 9 Str. iii. 58. 1; cf. John 1: 13.
10 Str. iii. 57-8.
11 Str. iii. 45. 1, 63. 13 cf. Str. ili. 105. I.
12 Str, iii. 51. 1.
THE GNOSTIC POLEMIC I: DUALISM
intrinsically evil,! as Marcion and many ancient philosophers suspected.? The true Gospel message does not countenance the absolute avoidance of marriage and the practice of an irrational chastity. On the contrary, one should live according to one's appointed state:+ continence or marriage is a matter of free choice.5 Using the editorial 'we', Clement lays down the party line as follows: 'We welcome as blessed the state of abstinence from marriage in those to whom this has been granted by God.
We admire monogamy and the high standing of single marriage.
. It is of second marriage that the apostle says, If you burn, marry." As in the case of Clement's commentary on the Gospel story of the rich young man,' the underlying principle for the Christian concerning the use of material goods (sexual activity not excepted) is that Christians are people who are not passionately attached to the created world, but use it with all gratitude and with a sense of exaltation beyond it.8
The gnostic ethic and cosmology, then, showed that the Gnostics were overwhelmed by the problem of evil and went to elaborate lengths in order to liberate themselves from it. For Clement this recourse was unnecessary. It was beside the point to divide the Godhead and spurn the material world. Evil was consonant with the omnipotent and omniscient Creator who brought into existence finite and necessarily limited creatures out of his beneficence. Since God was almighty, he was able to use evil for his purpose.
T Str. iii. 45. 1, 102. 1.
2 Str. ili. 12-23 passim; e.g. Plato (cf. Phaedo 62 b), etc.
3 Str. iii. 60. 1.
4 Str. iii. 105. 1.
5 Str. iii. 66. 3.
6 Str. ii. 4. 3; cf. 1 Cor. 7: 9; Str. iii. 82.
7 Mark 10:17-31. See Q.D.S., passim. There are many parallels between this work and Seneca, De Beata Vita 20 ff. Cf. also Paed. ii. 120.
8 Str, iil. 95. 33 cf. Str. iii. 69.
THE GNOSTIC POLEMIC IT;
DETERMINISM
As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods; They kill us for their sport.
King Lear (Act IV) Every drunken skipper trusts to Providence.
But one of the ways of Providence with drunken skippers is to run them on the rocks.
G. B. SHAW, Heartbreak House (Act IIT) D
TERMINISM
was a logical complement to the pessimistic world-view postulated by the Gnostics. Since the world was 'blighted', the only reasonable explanation for man's existence here was some pre-cosmic faux pas, the penalty for which was involuntary exile by the powers-that-be in this unhappy environment. Thus, as dualism was a direct attack on the omnipotence of the supreme deity, determinism made it impossible for them to conceive of him as a 'loving God'. In this manner, it struck at the very core of Christianity and demanded comment from the Christian apologetes. Clement's polemic against gnostic fatalism is dominated by three issues: predestination, free will, and divine providence.
Now just as the gnostic cosmogony was a product of blending pagan learning with Christian revelation, so determinism earned its place in the gnostic creed by virtue of a similar syncretism.!
It was the result of three strands of thought—Greek, Oriental, and Christian—which were brought together and juxtaposed without having been thoroughly digested. Prior to their amalgamation in the gnostic theosophy each was a distinct unit. For example, the Greek idea of moira which thwarted the desires of 1 Cf. Wilson, Gnostic Problem, p. 69. 'The characteristic of Gnosticism in all its forms is syncretism, blending together elements of every sort, and finding room for every type of thought, from the highest philosophical mysticism to the lowest forms of magic.'