The Conquest Of Evil
THE CONQUEST OF EVIL
'And thus, my brothers, at last it is revealed to you, the divine compassion which has ordained good and evil in everything ; wrath and pity; the plague and your salvation. This same pestilence which is slaying you works for your good and points your path.'
A. cAmus, The Plague 1TH Paneloux, the parish priest of that plague-stricken \ X / Algerian city, as his spokesman, Camus rehearses the classic Christian answers to the problem of evil. Gamus realized that the answer ought to be given in terms of Christ's sacrifice and death on the cross, but he personally could make little sense of it. This was equally true of the second-century
Gnostics. For them, it was utterly incomprehensible that the same 'stuff' could underlie both cancer and Christ, and still more puzzling that the transcendent deity could actively concern himself with this world, not to mention become a member of it. For Clement, however, the economy of the Redemption is the real and only solution; it is the case par excellence in which good was brought out of evil.
Like the Gnostics, Clement conceded a 'gap' between the Supreme Being and the visible world, but unlike them he saw it bridged by God himself instead of by intermediary beings or demons. At the Incarnation, on the one hand, God entered the world asa human being, and on the other, by his example, passion, and death, he 'points the path' towards union with him through grace. For the Gnostics a theodicy such as this, which accepted the existence of evil as well as of a living and omnipotent God, was no solution at all. In fact all it meant was that the wheel had turned full circle. At this juncture, then, a parting of the ways was inevitable. Heretofore, as we have observed, Clement had been moderately successful in answering point for point the Gnostics' pessimistic world-view with his essentially optimistic Christian picture, at times tempering his words (ifnot his thought) so as to offend few and conciliate many. But with this fundamental axiom of the
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Christian faith there could be no compromise. Christ as man died in order to break the hold which the various forms of evil had over the world. The present discussion is devoted to Clement's theology of that event which began with the Incarnation and terminated with the reconciliation of disobedient man with his Creator.
Clement himself sums it up as follows: 'In order to believe truly in the Son, we must believe that he is the Son, and that he came, and how, and for what, and respect his passion.'!
The first step towards man's salvation and the defeat of the power of evil was taken by God—'the Word became flesh and dwelt among us'.? The Fall was history and not myth; therefore
God intervened in history with the aim of bringing all men back to him. This idea was almost totally rejected by the Gnostics. At best, they conceived of a saviour who disguised himself by a process of incarnation in his descent through the spheres so as to go unnoticed among the terrestrial inhabitants.3 On no account did
God actually become man. As we have seen, certain gnostic groups abhorred the material world and consequently disdained marriage and procreation as playing into the hands of the demiurge and facilitating the transfer of others less fortunate into this same prison of existence.* Given this mentality, it would have been spiritual suicide for God to stoop to conquer. For Clement, however, the scriptural doctrine of the Incarnation was further ammunition for his anti-gnostic polemic. That God became man was positive proof of the essential worth of matter, mankind, and the world,' as well as of the immanence of God and his governing providence.
Clement's speculation on the nature of the Incarnation is rarely profound, but not devoid of interest. His naive consideration
ESET nv | Tin 2 2 John 1: 14. According to A. Grillmeier, this christological formula increasingly became the most influential N.T. text in the history of dogma; Christ in Christian
Tradition, trans. by J. S. Bowden (London, 1965), p. 27.
3 A familiar gnostic theme. Cf. the descent of the Sumerian queen of heaven, Inanna, who was invested with mortality at seven stages during her descent. (For the details of this myth, see Grant, Gnosticism and Early Christianity, pp. 81 ff.)
4 Especially the view of Marcion (Str. ili. 12, 25. 1-4), but also of Tatian (Str. iii, 49. 81-2, 89), Cassianus (Str. iii. 91), and Gnostics in general (Str. iii. 45. 1,
60. 1).
Str. ili. 103. 33 cf. Ecl. Proph. 23.
© Bigg records that Clement's Christology is often spoken of as 'meagre and unsatisfactory', but adds: '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.' (Christian Platonists, p. 103.)
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of the union of humanity and divinity in Christ Jesus is largely explained by the fact that no need had yet arisen in the history ofdogma to make the type of distinctions which theologians were later to spend centuries debating. That the Incarnation took place is in Clement's opinion an indisputable historical fact attested by the Scriptures, but what the Incarnation means must remain a divine mystery.! However, working on the hypothesis of fides quaerens intellectum (a thesis which occupies the entire first book of his 'Miscellanies'), Clement dutifully seeks an explanation. His analysis of the texts is essentially nothing more than a refinement of that celebrated Christological hymn recorded by Paul in Philippians 2:6f.,2 and the classic formula from the Prologue to St. John's Gospel already alluded to.3 When the meaning of those passages is consolidated by Clement into a quasicredal formula he says, 'God is in man and man is in God',* by which he understands the Word is both God and man. In language highly reminiscent of that 'captivity epistle' he states that the Word has the 'form of man' (feds év avOpamov oxjpatr) without losing the 'form of God' (adv cat 7 oxyjpatu Geds).° But this is as close as Clement comes to the 'one person—two natures' definition of Chalcedon. Thus, the Word of God who was not of this world7 came from heaven' to earth as one of the world, assuming the 'mask of manhood',? that is flesh and blood, by conception in the Virgin's womb.!° This miraculous intervention was effected by the Father's own power,!! and denial of it on the grounds that 1 Protr. 111. 2 (see Col. 2: 2); cf. Paed. iii. 2. 1.
2 e.g. Protr. 8. 4; Paed. iii. 2. 2 (verse 7 only). The relationship of this hymn to Pauline authorship is discussed by R. P. Martin, Carmen Christi (Cambridge, 1967), esp. pp. 61 (difficulties) and 287 ('an independent, hymnic composition').
3 'No other passage in the Scriptures of similar length exerted an influence comparable to that of this profound exordium upon his theology.' (Tollinton, op. cit. ii. 188.) 4 Paed. ili. 2. 1: Beds ev avOpdmw, Kal 6 avOpwros beds.
5 Protr. 7. 1: 6 wovos dudw, eds Te kal avOpwros, 106. 43; Paed. i. 7. 1.
6 Paed.i. 4. 1; cf. Str. vi. 151. 3, '. .
. not in vain that the Lord chose to make use of the mean form (yop¢7) of body'.
7 Str. vi. 126. 3: od« dv KoopuKds.
8 Protr. 111. 3, but in Str. v. 34. 7 the Lord enters the world of Ideas, as opposed to that of sense perception.
9 Protr. 110. 2.
10 Str. vi. 127. 1. Cf. Paed. i. 43. 3 where Clement seems to support what Kelly
(following Loofs) calls 'Spirit-Christology' (Doctrines, pp. 142 ff.). Here the 'Spirit is made flesh' (mvedu.a capxovpevov) ; the 'heavenly flesh sanctified' (dyvalopevn adp& ovpdvos).
TI Sir. Vi. 132. 4
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a7 birth is evil, Clement insists,! is tantamount to blaspheming against the will of God and the mystery of creation. The essential idea of Clement's notion of the Incarnation involves a genuine communicatio idiomatum. God 'clothed himself' in human flesh
;? he was not merely transformed nor did he undergo a metamorphosis like Basilides' 'winged sonships'.3 Similarly, human blood coursed through his veins+ as opposed to some divine, Homeric ichor which safeguarded the deity from a full identification with humanity. In fact, it seems that Clement attributed a human soul and mind to the Incarnate Word as the ultimate verification of his true humanity.s At the same time, however, Clement on occasion treads dangerously close to the trap of Docetism laid for him by the Gnostics. There is not always free from his thought the suggestion that God, like Zeus, was play-acting on earth and that his humanity was only a ruse; in short, that he only 'seemed' to be a man. For example, Clement apparently quotes with approval®
Valentinus' letter to some unknown Agathopus saying that Jesus 'ate and drank in a manner peculiar to himself, and the food did not pass out of his body. Such was the power of his continence that food was not corrupted within him; for he himself was not subject to the process of corruption.'? Elsewhere, Clement seems to support this view by saying that nutriments were nct essential for the body of Christ, for it was sustained by a divine power.
What is more, whatever natural functions Christ's body performed were not of necessity, but merely to forestall the Docetists.®
If more fuel is needed for Clement's pyre, it is not wanting.
He claims that the Lord was 'no ordinary man' desiring some LStfs Wiel O02.
2 Protr. 110. 2, 111. 23; Paed. iii. 2. 2; Str. iii. 103. 3; v. 34. 13 vi. 127. 1; vil. 6. 5,
7. 5, 8. 1, 61. (In Sir. vi. 126. 3, the Word is 'clothed with virtue'.) For the Logos as creator of his own humanity, see Exc. ex Theod. 60; Str. v. 16. 5. Cf. Justin, Apol. i. 23, 32; Dial. 105; Tertullian, Adv. Prax. 26.
3 Cf. Hippolytus, Ref. vii. 22. 8 ff.
4 Paed. iii, 25. 2.
5 Q.D.S. 37. 43; Paed. i. 85. 2.
6 The interpretation of Bigg, Christian Platonists, p. 102, n. 2.
7 Str. iii. 59. 3; cf. ibid. 102. 3 for Valentinus' claim that Christ's body was
'psychic'.
8 Str. vi. 71. In one rather unfortunate passage, Clement interprets the Psalmist as saying that the Incarnation was a sort of divine 'sleep-walking' (Str. v. 105).
Cf. Paed. i. 25. 3 for rejection of Adoptionism.
9 Had Photius been present, the fire would have been lit. Cf. Bibl. Cod. 109.
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helpmeet after the flesh! or in need of begetting children to perpetuate his stock.? Finally, Clement remarks that the soul of the Saviour is sinless and blameless, but more especially, 'devoid of all passion'.3 How is one to reconcile these thoughts with those consoling reassertions that he took our flesh which is by nature subject to passion+ so that he knew from personal experience human weaknesses ?5 J.
N. D. Kelly's solution to this dilemma is an exceedingly plausible one. He says, "The problematical element in his [Clement's] picture of Him springs from the way he allowed it to be coloured by the Greek ascetical idea of apatheia, or emancipation from passion." Therefore, although sarx is naturally subject to passion, the Lord as the perfect human being trained it to a habit of impassibility.7 This led Clement to assume that his most normal bodily functions were thereby reduced to an absolute minimum, if they existed at all. The dominant idea in Clement's
Christology, then, is a perfectly orthodox theory of the Incarnation, though sometimes couched in misleading Docetic language.
This evidence for the humanity of God which Clement considered to deal the death-blow to every Gnostic theory that matter was evil and that sex, marriage, and birth were the inventions of the Devil, is not emphasized at the expense of the divinity of Christ. Side by side with his insistence that God is 'true man' is the notion of the Incarnation as the 'manifestation'® of the Deus Absconditus :? the Word became flesh so that God might be seen!° and, therefore, known.!! In other words, the Incarnate Lord is the 'face of the Father'!? and the revealer of the Father's character.13 Thus, in Clement's theology, the Incarnation serves a double purpose. The Supreme God became a real man out of his loving
1 Gen. 2: 18.
2 Str. iii. 49. 3; cf. Str. ii.
138. 2 (for Plato's opinion, Laws 773, 776b).
3 Paed. i. 4.
4 Str. vil. 7. 5.
5 Paed. i. 62. 2 (cf. Heb. 4: 15) ; Q.D.S. 37. 3, Christ willingly endured man's lot.
© Kelly, Doctrines, p. 154; cf. Grillmeier, op. cit., pp. 161 f.
To Str. Vly Fat 8 Protr. 7.°3,.9«9, 110. 04 Paed. 1.:29..1
3 Sir. v. 16. 53 vil. Gy OspQ.DSu 97a Ecl. Proph. 23. 3.
9 Cf. Str. v. 34. 1.
10 Cf. John 14: 9; Str. v. 39. 2.
1 Protr. 110-13 passim; Paed. i. 20. 2 (cf. Matt. 11: 27; Luke 10: 22). The Son as the 'door' to the Father is a familiar image (e.g. John 10: 7 ff.) ; cf. Hermas, Sim. ix. 12. 5-6; Ignatius of Antioch, Ad. Phil. 9.
1; 1 Clem. 48. 2.
12 Str. v. 34. 1, and compare Paed. i. 57. 2; Str. vii. 58. 3; Exc. ex Theod. 10. 6, 12. 1,
23. 5. (Bigg sees this as a direct borrowing from Philo: Christian Platonists, p. 97.)
13 Str. v. 34. 1, but in Str. i. 88. 5, Clement notes that it is inconceivable to the Gnostics that the Father should speak through the Son,
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kindness for his creation! in order that first, God would be immediately intelligible to man,? thereby bridging that epistemological gulf between Creator and creature; and that secondly, because of this natural rapport, the Saviour might instruct man in the commands of Gods and that by giving himself as a common salvation,' all men might learn how to become other gods.5
From this ontological exploration, we must turn to the functional aspect, namely, the act of redemption. Here one will find
Clement's answer to a question which was classically expressed centuries later by St. Anselm as 'Cur Deus Homo ?', or Irenaeus' formulation of the same, 'Ut quid enim descendebat?'® Now the difference between the Gnostic and Christian view of salvation centred around their very different response to the query,
'Redemption from what?' Given their cosmology, the Gnostics viewed redemption as a physical escape from the world, from matter, and from evil.? The 'elect' was essentially an alien in a foreign environment.' Relying heavily on Platonic philosophy, they saw their earthly existence as a punishment for some previous offence? and thought that one's true self—the divine
'spark'—was somehow trapped in the prison-house of the body and the world,'° separated by the barrier of many heavens from one's destined place in the Pleroma. Life here was marked by psychological frustration and ignorance, a state which was t Paed.i. 24. 4, 74. 4; cf. Q.D.S. 37 for a mystical explanation of the Incarnation as a manifestation of God's love.
2 Str. vi. 151. 3.
3 Str. vii. 8. 6; cf. Paed. i. 7. 1; Protr. 7. 1 f. (cf. Titus 2: 11-19).
4 Str. vii. 8.1; cf. Eel. Proph. 23. 3.
5 Protr. 8. 4: 6 Adyos 6 Tod Beod avOpwros yevopevos, iva 81) Kat od mapa dvOpdmov pdOns, wh more dpa avOpwaos yevyrar Beds.
6 Adv. Haer. ii. 14. 7.
7 Cf. Jenkins, Glory of Man: 'If there is any hope for man at all it must lie in a complete escape from the alien matter of history and the indifferent, or more likely positively malignant, matter of the cosmos. It is because of this dualistic despair of both the universe and history that Gnosticism constitutes the meeting point of the Jew disiliusioned with history, the Greek disillusioned with reason, and the Oriental who never believed that man and the cosmos fitted together in either case' (p. 42).
8 Str. iv. 165. 3 f.; equally the case with Clement's 'true Gnostic' (Str. vii. 78. 3), but it was more a spiritual than a physical estrangement.
9 Str. iii. 13, 16. 3, 17. 1; expressly condemned by Clement in Str. iv. 167. 4.
10 Plato, Phaedo 62 b (= Str. iii. 19. 1); Phaedrus 247 c (= Str. i. 67. 4). The Ophite representation of Sophia as a harlot ("Sophia~Prunikos') was intended to emphasize the depth to which the divine principle had sunk by becoming involved in creation.
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inherited (according to the Valentinian myth) from that primordial experience of Sophia who longed to comprehend the magnitude of the Father. It was in so doing that her ignorance, grief, fear, and consternation gave birth to the very substance of the material world.! With this attitude to life it was not surprising that one constantly recurring theme among the Gnostics was the relief from the Angst experienced on earth of returning to one's true home. Irenaeus summarizes the gnostic solution in the following formula: 'Since through '"'Ignorance"' came about ""Deficiency" and ''Passion", therefore the whole system springing from Ignorance is dissolved by Knowledge.'? According to the savant Theodotus this ywéous was 'the knowledge of who we were, and what we have become, where we were or where we were placed, whither we hasten, from what we are redeemed, what birth is and what rebirth'.3 This was the gnostic idea of redemption ; it was essentially a release from ignorance, not from sin and its consequences. It was predetermined in character and, therefore, almost precluded the need for a soteriological Christ.* Salvation for them was not something won for man by God, but a natural possession one either had or did not have.
In contrast to this, Christianity staunchly supported the claims of Genesis 1 : creation was essentially good and man was made 'in the image and likeness of God'. However, as we have observed, this design was deliberately frustrated by a wrong choice on the part of primal man. Whereas obedience had meant a certain share in the divine likeness and immortality, disobedience brought with it disparity between man and his Creator, as well as death. It was as a release from these 'wages of sin's (in fact, all the depravations incurred by Adam's lapse, both moral, physical, and cosmic)® that the Word of God became flesh. Only in this way
1 Trenaeus, Adv. Haer. i. 2. 2-3.
2 Ibid. i. 21. 4; cf. Evangelium Veritatis 24 : 28-32 where the same formula appears but with a slight variation of expression. Jonas notes that 'Ignorance' and 'Passion' named here as the source and essence of evil are not 'ordinary ignorance and ordinary passion as in us, but Ignorance and Passion writ large, on a metaphysical scale and at the origin of things'. (Gnostic Religion, p. 312.)
3 Exc. ex Theod. 78. 2; Str. v. 23. 1.
4 This issue is far from settled; cf. Grillmeier, op. cit., pp. 98 ff. Yet Wilson says 'in most Gnostic systems there appears the figure of a Redeemer, who is usually in some way associated with the Jesus of orthodox Christianity'. (Gnostic
Problem, p. 218.) 5 Rom. 6: 23; cf. Sir. iv. 11. 3.
6 See above, pp. 52 ff. Redemption brought freedom from sin (Paed. iii. 2. 3; Str. ii. 47. 33 iv. 51. 15 v. 55. 25 Protr. 111); from death (Paed. i. 23. 25 ii. 74. 33
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might God's former intention be fulfilled and man's original wrong made right.
The act of redemption itself emerges in four stages: the crucifixion, the descent into Hell, the resurrection, and finally the ascension. These receive little elaboration in Clement's text for they are the data of revelation and, therefore, go unquestioned by him. (Much more to the point for soteriology was the incarnation which initiated the economy of salvation and was the indispensable basis on which the redemption rests.)! Clement interprets the events of Calvary as indicative that the Incarnate
Lord really suffered the torments of the flesh? and died by crucifixion for the salvation of mankind. In sacrificial imagery, Christ was our burnt-offering and 'rare sacrifice'.t He did not prevent the folly of the cross, but brought good out of it.5 If providence is done away with, the economy of the Saviour becomes simply a myth.® Then, at death, the Lord entered the company of those who had died before him and shared with them his achievement.
For Clement, this descent into Hades was an integral part of the act of redemption.' It enabled Christ to preach the Gospel to those
Jews and Greeks who lived before the 'fullness of time' in order that they might not be deprived of the benefits of his salvific act.® ili. 2. 3; Str. iv.
11. 3); from ignorance (by implication, Str. vi. 46. 5) ; from perversity (Str. iii. 94. 2; cf. Matt. 18:
11; Luke 19: 10) ; from Satan and his powers (Sir. iv. 85. 1; Q.D.S. 29; Protr. 3. 2). t According to Harnack, this emphasis is typical of the Greek school; History of Dogma, iii. 305 ff. This is perhaps best represented by Irenaeus' doctrine of anakephalaiosis which sees the whole of creation as referred to the Incarnation of God in such a way that creation as such must be understood as a preparation for collaboration with God made man (cf. Adv. Haer. iii. 16. 6).
2 Protr. 106. 4f.; Str. i. 88. 5; vi. 70. 2, 127. 2; vil. 6-7.
3 Str. iv. 51. 1, 75. 13 Q.D.S. 33. 6; Paed. i. 43. 3; foreshadowed by Plato (Rep.
361 e-362 a = Str. v. 108).
4 Str. v. 70. 4-6; cf. Str. v. 66. 5; Paed. i. 97. 3. Cf. Paed. i. 23, Christ's sacrifice paralleled with the incompleted sacrifice of Isaac.
5 Str. iv. 86-7.
6 Str. i. 52. 2; cf. 2 Clem. ad Cor. 13. 3.
7 Str. vi, ch. 6 (44-54, but especially 47). H. E. W. Turner sees Clement as the first Father of the Church who brings together 1 Pet. 3: 18 f. with a specific doctrine of the Descent into Hell; The Patristic Doctrine of Redemption (London, 1952).
For a complete exegesis, see E. G. Selwyn's essay, 'On 1 Peter iii. 18-iv. 6', The First Epistle of Peter (London, 1946), pp. 313-62; cf. F. Loofs, "Descent to Hades',
H.E.R.E. iv. 654-63.
8 Cf. Str. ii. 44. 1-2. On this 'preaching theme', see Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. iv. 27. 25
Origen, C. Cels. ii. 43; but in Justin, Dial. 30, the emphasis is on overcoming demons.
826707X G
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Lastly, the Lord was raised up on the third day' and ascended to the right hand of the Father.?
The primary result of this Crucifixion—Death—Resurrection cycle was the propitiation by the God-Man for the sin of Adam, an offence in which Clement thought all men were physiologically, if not morally, implicated. There was no apparent contradiction for him in thinking that although we did not sin in one man, we were none the less redeemed from its effects by one man. This is some indication of the primitive state of Clement's theology of Atonement. He is not at home with Tertullian's juridical approach,' and biblical terminology of 'ransom's and 'sacrifice'¢ has a hollow ring." The attempt to fix an adequate price on eternal salvation was, for Clement, an absurd idea; the only fitting payment, he says,® is love and faith.
Instead, Clement argues a dynamic thesis of the atonement in which God is both the reconciler and the reconciled, both agent and object. Although labels frequently obscure rather than clarify a point of view, none the less it may be said with some accuracy that Clement's theory of that event most closely approximates what G. Aulén calls the 'classic view',? the 'motif?!° current in the New Testament and the kerygma of the early church. This view depicts the act of salvation as a cosmic drama, a contest
(aywv), in which Christ as the protagonist is the victor in his conflict with the powers of evil, thereby 'reconciling the world to himself'.1! That this agonistic approach is shared by Clement is unmistakable. He calls salvation a 'drama',!2 and in it Christus
I Str. v. 73. 2; cf. Str. iv. 99. 1; Q.D.S. 33. 6. In Paed. i. 47. 1, a full-scale treatise mepl avaoTacews is promised.
2 Although Clement is silent on this topic, it is unquestionably assumed by him.
3 See above, pp. 55 f.
4 Cf. Tertullian, De poenitentia 6; implied by Origen, C. Cels, i. 31.
5 Q.D.S. 37. 43 cf. Paed. 1. 23. 2, 49. 4.
6 Bigg notes that the only sacrificial title which Clement distinctly applies to our
Lord is that of the Lamb of God (Christian Platonists, p. 105); e.g. Paed. iii. 85. 1
(cf. John 1:29; 1 Pet.
1: 17-19).
7 'Origen is the first thinker to attempt a doctrine of the Atonement which is more than biblical quotations.' (Chadwick, Early Christian Thought, p. 144, n. 97.)
8 Protr. 85-6.
9 G. Aulén, Christus Victor, trans. by A. G. Hebert (London, 1931).
10 Tbid.: 'not a logically articulated theory of redemption, but rather an idea, a motif... (pp. 82 f.).
11 2 Cor. 5: 19, the text which Aulén interprets as epitomizing his thesis.
AAS ETO LEO. 2
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Agonistes is the true champion.! Here was the fulfilment of the Incarnation.
The immediate effect of the atonement was to release man from the personal and cosmic disorders to which he was liable as a member of Adam's race. This was accomplished, Clement says,? through the saving blood of Christ, not by bartering with perishable goods as the legalists would have us believe. Morally, man was forgiven his transgression and absolved from the bitter and deadly bondage of sin.3 Echoing the Valentinian myth in which Horos acted as the barrier-aeon preserving the harmony of the Pleroma,+ Clement comments that 'we have as a limit
(Gpos) the cross of Christ, by which we are fenced and hedged about from our former sins'.5 Intellectually, God's saving death enlightened man from his ignorance, for knowledge 'is the first lesson in walking according to the Word'.® Politically, the drama of salvation meant an end of the dominion of the Satanic powers over us:7 'He subdued the serpent and enslaved the tyrant death.'8 Finally, from a cosmic point of view, Christ's reconciling the world to himself terminated creation's 'groaning in travail'? and inaugurated a new harmony. "The ocean is left flowing, yet it has been prevented from encroaching upon the land; whereas the land, which was being carried away, is made firm, and fixed as a boundary to the sea. It even softened the rage of fire by air
... and the biting coldness of air it tempered by the intermixture I Protr.
110. 3: Kat Tod mAdopaTos cuvaywrioThs.
2 Paed. iii. 85. 1 (1 Pet. 1: 17-19).
3 Paed. iii. 2. 3; Str. ti. 47. 3 (cf. Eph. 2: 5); iv. 51. 1 (Rom. 6: 6). Cf. Paed. ii.
74. 3 which symbolically interprets the crown of thorns as representative of sins.
4 Cf. Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. i. 2. 2 ff.; Exc. ex Theod. 42. 1.
5 Paed. iii. 85. 3.
6 Str. v. 17. 1. In Sir. vi. 45. 6, salvation seems to be directly proportionate to knowledge.
7 Protr. 3.2, 7.43 Q.D.S. 29. Cf. Justin, Apol. ii. 6: "The Son of God became man in order to destroy the demons.' For Justin, the cross is the central moment in redemption. By it the devils are made to tremble; the cruciform shape itself is a symbol of victory and lordship, not of humiliation. See Dial. 49. Shiche Dial Ai. 1, g1. 3; Apol. i. 55. 2 ff. ; for Christ's 'saving blood', cf. Dial. 24. 1, 54. 1, 111. 3, 134.
5; Apol. i. 32. 7; the Passion as a purification of all human sins, see Dial. 41. 1. (In general, see H. Chadwick, 'Justin Martyr's Defence of Christianity', Bulletin of the Fohn Rylands Library, 47 (1965), pp. 290f.) Cf. Celsus ap. C. Cels. ii. 47, vi. 42;
Origen, ibid. vii. 17.
8 Protr. 111. 2 (cf. Luke 10: 19); cf. Str. iv. 26. 5, for the same idea, but in the context of chastity.
9 Rom. 8: 22.
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of fire, thus melodiously mingling these extreme notes of the universe.'!
; The release from these temporal ills, however, is in Clement's mind a means to a greater end—salvation.? More significant than what man is redeemed from, is what man is redeemed into ; namely, immortality. This was the prized possession forfeited with Adam's sin of disobedience? because only it enabled man to achieve that 'likeness' characterized by divinization and sonship which the divine plan had intended.* It was a common idea among the Greek Fathers' (and one in which Clement naturally shared)® that sin involved both an ontological as well as a spiritual death.
Consequently, only the Lord who possessed. that 'beauty of the flesh' (i.e. immortality)? could save man from this double peril.8
Yet, paradoxically, it is by death itself that this is accomplished.?
"By a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead.'!° In a sublime eulogy, Clement summarizes these findings: 'He it was who changed the setting into a rising, and crucified death into life; who having snatched man out of the jaws of destruction raised him to the sky, transplanting corruption to the soil of incorruption, and transforming earth into heaven.'!!
In short, then, man is redeemed for life in God.
Clement discusses this 'life in God' brought about by the saving activity of the Incarnate Word under two headings:
'deification' and 'sonship'. The former signifies man's whole being transformed by participation in the divine nature thereby fulfilling the design of Genesis 1 : 26; the latter, that new relationship as adopted son and heir whereby the 'new man' can rightly
* Protr. 5. 1 f. (cf. Philo, Plant. 1). Cf. Protr. 110. 3, thanks to the Saviour, the universe has become a sea of blessings.
Paed. i. 26. 3; cf. Plato, Gorgias 478 cd; Philo, Sacr. 135. See Irenaeus, Adv.
Haer. iti. 18. 7; Ut occideret quidem peccatum, evacuerat autem mortem, et vivificaret hominem.
3 See above, p. 53. Cf. Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. v. 1. 3.
* Yet Clement does not strictly identify divinization and immortality; cf. nfo Gross, La Divinisation du Chrétien d'aprés les peres grecs (Paris, 1938), P342.
5 Cf. Turner, op. cit., p. 76. Irenaeus is perhaps the first Father to associate the recovery of incorruption directly with the Passion; Adv. Haer. ii. 20. 2.
6 Cf. Str. iv. 11-12.
7 Paed. iii. 3. 3.
8 Protr. 6. 1; Paed. iii. 2. 3; Str. iv. 11. 3. Cf. Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. iii. 18. ve man had not been united to God, he would have had no share in incorruptibility'.
9 Str. iv. 68. 1; Protr. 118-19. Cf. Clement's whole discussion of martyrdom (Str. iv, especially 43-4; 103-4) and below, pp. 95f. The martyr's blood becomes the gateway to immortality.
10" 7 Core 1512:
1X" Proir. ViAoA.
THE CONQUEST OF EVIL
enjoy this share in the Godhead. It is essentially in these terms that Clement conceives a theology of Grace.
'Redemption may start from the breaking of the power of the demons ; it can only issue finally in the experience of deification."!
Now a starting-point for a theology of deification is Christology ; the real and deifying presence of Christ in the world and in the Church." Already we have witnessed how Clement sees Christ's cosmic reality in the act of creation, through his sustaining power of providence, and finally as the life of the Incarnate Word preserved in recorded history. Christ's ecclesial reality is no less vivid. By virtue of the deifying sacraments (particularly Baptism3 and the Eucharist) the Lord has left a visible remembrance of his earthly coming, as well as a witness of his continued presence. This close affinity established with the God-Man on earth, then, was the logical preliminary for assimilation with him in heaven.
The concept of divinization or deification (@co7ovéw)*+ had wide currency in second-century Hellenism and was readily adaptable for Clement's use. For Christian hearers this idea had the sanction of St. Paul who characterized the divinized man as one inseparably united to Christ.' So intimate was the union that 'it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me' ;° or as Augustine put it, 2ntimior intimo meo. Moreover, to the Alexandrian intelligentsia, "divinization' had a decidedly Platonic ring. In the Theaetetus Plato writes, 'We ought to try to escape from earth to the dwelling of the gods as quickly as we can; and to escape is to become like God, so far as is possible ; and to become like God is to become righteous and holy and wise.'? Clement looked upon t Turner, op. cit., p. 117; cf. Paed. i. 26. 3.
2 Cf. C. Moeller and G. Philips, The Theology of Grace, trans. by R. A. Wilson (London, 1961), ch. 1, 'Orthodoxy'.
3 Paed. i. 26. 1; see above, p. 59.
4 Protr. 114. 4. It appears that Clement is the first to employ @eorovdw to designate the deifying action of the Incarnate Logos. None the less, the idea is present in Irenaeus even though the technical term is absent; cf. Gross, op. cit., p. 163.
On 'divinization' in Clement, see G. W. Butterworth, 7.7.5. 17 (1916), pp. 157-69, who regards it as nothing more than the simple Christian doctrine of the future life.
5 Cf. Rom. 8: 35-9. But see P. Rousselot, 'La Grace d'aprés S. Jean et d'aprés S. Paul', R.S.R 18 (1928), pp. 87-104, who sees this thought as culled essentially from Johannine writings, though he admits the possibility of an exaggerated relief
(p. 103).
5) Galr2i20.
7 Theaet. 176 b, duyi 5é dpolwors Oe@ Kata 70 Svvardv: dpwoiwars Sé dixaov Kal Sovov pera dpovicews yevécbar; but see the whole context 172 c-176 c.
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this Platonic thesis as so germane to his own thought that he gave it his full approval, as is demonstrated by its numerous echoes, if not actual citations, in his text.! Finally, even to those Gnostics seeking salvation from matter and the world, divinization had some significance. It was in this context that they thought of their restoration in the Pleroma. Incorporating all these ideas, then,
Clement's 'true Gnostic' is none other than 'un homme deéifié'.?
Developing a theology of deification, Clement begins with a Stoic definition : godliness is the habit of mind which preserves a fitting attitude towards God.3 Yet, Clement maintains, it is essentially God alone who has the power to 'arrange the soul after his likeness'. Thus, one becomes like God when one has been made so by Jesus Christ,5 our exemplar. Furthermore, whatever it is that happens to our very being when the divinity encounters humanity in this grace context, it is not instantaneous.
Rather, Clement implies, it is a recurring and continuous refashioning : 'We will one day become God, yes even now are being made like to him.' Divinization, then, is a learning process in which growth is commensurate to knowledge.' Strictly speaking, while it is possible 'for man to become a god while still moving about in the flesh',8 this must of necessity be only a partial realization, an eschatological anticipation of the ultimate possession of God in the Beatific Vision.
Although Clement is insistent that deification is God's work, he is careful not to neglect man's part. Since it is essentially by a progress in knowledge and understanding of God that the divine likeness is achieved, it is appropriate that God's instrument of deification imparted through grace is heavenly doctrine.°
The soul, Clement says, 'studies to be God',*° imitating the pattern set by the incarnate image." Yet this is not simply an intellectual
1 e.g. Protr. 86. 2, 122. 4; Str. vii. 3. 6, 86. 5, 95. 2; and cf. Stahlin, iv, 'Citatenregister', p. 50.
2 Gross, op. cit., p. 168, but cf. p. 343. W. Vélker notes that 'deification' is the last stage of the 'true Gnostic' in his progression towards the vision of God. This is the ultimate fulfilment of reAeiwous. (Der wahre Gnostiker nach Clemens Alexandrinus
(Berlin, 1952), p. 302.) 9 Str. vii. 3. 6. On this text, Stahlin notes: 'wohl Definition des Chrysippos'.
4 Protr. 86.2; Q.D.S. 21. 7.
, 5 Protr. 122. 4.
6 Str. vii. 3. 6.
7 Q.D.S. 7. 3.
8 Str. vii. 101. 4; cf. Epicurus, Fr. 141 Usener.
9 Protr. 114. 4: odpaviw diSacKarig Oeorodv.
10 Str. vi. 113. 3.
1r Str. vii.. 16. 6.
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discipline, but also a moral one. 'All those who are eager to be assimilated to the stamp given by him, strive to become free from desire by training',! for the deification of man is incompatible with perversions of the soul.? In order, then, to assimilate oneself to him who is by nature free from passion, the Christian Gnostic must necessarily reduce himself to a passionless state through unwavering love of the Lord. The road to divinization for the 'true Gnostic' was not through mystery rites and magical incantations as the heresiarchs suggested, but by way of apatheia and agape.3 From this discussion, we see that Clement's answer to the central question of the doctrine of Redemption, 'Cur Deus
Homo?', is that God became man so that man might ultimately become God,' a goal that was prepared for by close association with the humanity of the deifying Logos.s When deification is achieved, man is once again fully conformed to the 'image and likeness of God' ; he is immortal.
What this deification means vis-d-vis man and God is a new relationship, namely 'adoption' (vioecia).6 The gulf which had separated the Creator from his creatures has been bridged so that all together share a common life, a common grace, a common salvation, and are assimilated to God in a unity of being." The juridical relationship of slave and servitude which sin inaugurated has given way to one of sonship. Thus, from sin man is brought into a relationship of friendship and adoption.' The exact character of this adoption is described differently in various contexts,? but the essence remains the same: we are no longer slaves but are joint-heirs with Christ.!° Now the source which brings about this divinization of fallen humanity and incorporates man among the heavenly citizens,
I Str. vii. 72. 1.
2 Cf. Str. vii. 64. 6, 86. 5; Paed. i. 99. 1.
3 Str. vii. 13-14. Cf. Gross, op. cit., p. 172; I. H. Dalmais, art. 'Divinisation' (II.
Patristique grecque), D.S.A.M. iii, col. 1378.
4 Protr. 8. 4; cf. Str. vii. 101. 4.
5 Q.D.S. 37. 3. Cf. Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. iii. 18. 7.
6 Clement sees 'sonship' as logically following on 'deification' as a result of his exegesis of Ps. 82: 6. Cf. Protr. 123. 1; Str. iv. 149. 8. (Note, however, that Clement admits that that which has something by adoption is not equal to that which has it by nature (Str. ii. 77. 4).) 7 Paed. i. 10. 2.
8 Str. vi. 114. 6 (cf. Eph. 1: 5).
9 Father-child relationship (Q.D.S. 1. 4; Protr. 82. 4-7, 88. 3; cf. Paed. i. 21. 2,
32, 53. 1); father-son (Protr. 82. 2 (cf. Homer, Odyssey ii. 47); Paed. i. 26. 1, 33.
4); master—disciple (Protr. 113. 3, 115. 4).
10 Protr. 83. 1, 113. 5, 115. 4 (cf. Rom. 8:17, cvy«Anpovduor).
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Clement identifies as grace (xydpis). In essence, Clement understands this divinizing favour as an expression of God's love for mankind! which was inaugurated by the Incarnation and Redemption, the primary grace-events.? In this manner, God imparted something that was peculiarly his own; namely, a participation in the divine nature.3 In Clement, grace appears as a 'divine emanation' which because of its spiritual quality5 transforms man's body into a spiritual temple® so that he becomes holy and divine, 'carrying God within him and being carried by God.'7 In this manner desire is satiated and apatheia, that prerequisite for deification, achieved.8
In his theology of grace, Clement maintains a delicate balance between the primacy of God, on the one hand, and man's free acceptance, on the other. Since grace is none other than God's giving himself to man, its characteristics bespeak its divine origin.®
It is a spiritual,' eternal," transcendental gift which comes from above.' Because its source, the Eternal One, is infinite, grace superabounds in the created order, 'like rain which falls on the just and unjust alike' (an agrarian image which reinforces its co-operative aspect). What is more, Clement says that this participation in the divine life is utterly gratuitous.!5 It is not distributed equally, nor even necessarily by request, but solely
1 Cf. Protr. 82. 3.
2 Q.D.S. 8; cf. Paed. i. 60. 1.
3 Protr. 25. 3; cf. Str. vii. 3. 1. The classical expression of this idea in 2 Pet. 1:
3 f. seems to go unnoticed by Clement. There are two possible explanations for this: (i) Clement did not ascribe this text to the canon of Scripture (though
Stahlin sees conceivable allusions to 2 Pet. in the text; cf. vol. iv, 'Citatenregister', p. 25); and (ii) it may have sounded too much like Stoic pantheism and was avoided on those grounds.
4 Protr. 68. 2: dmdppova BeiKn.
5 Str. v. 83. 13 cf. Str. 80. 9.
® Paed. i. 6. 2; Str. vii. 64. 7. Cf. the Pauline idiom, 1 Cor. 3: 16, 6: 19; 2 Cor.
6: 16.
7 Str. vii. 82. 2. Cf. Epictetus, ii. 8, 12; Ignatius of Antioch, Ad. Eph. 'proem'.
In Q.D.S, 34. 1, this divine indwelling seems to be the cohabitation of the Trinity.
8 Str. vii. 82. 4. On apatheia, see G. Bardy, art. 'Apatheia' (III. Clément d'Alexandrie et Origéne), D.S.A.M. i, col. 729-33. In contrast to Clement, Bardy says that for Origen this notion is more of an ideal than a reality.
9 Cf. Str. vii. 25. 4, things act according to their nature.
10 Str. v. 26. 5 (cf. Rom. 1:11).
TINOEDISSe73
12 Protr. 104. 2.
*3 Cf. Rom. 5:20 f. and the repetition of dnép; Protr. 85. 1.
4 Str. v. 18. 7 (Isa. 45: 8). 'Dew' is also a recurring metaphor for grace; Q.D.5S.
34. 1; Paed. iii, "Hymn to Christ' (v. 51); Protr. 114. 3; cf. Ignatius of Antioch,
Ad. Magn. 14.
ISTE. gL Tor Q5. 1, ak 2oualy
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as a result of divine foresight.! At God's mere wish, it is bestowed.2
Thus, man is drawn to God by God? (almost unawares),+ for as its author and dispenser God is the first to begin the kindness which he confers with 'open hands and heart' on those who, as a result of the Fall, are in need of it.5
Yet, this emphasis on the primacy of God does not invalidate the freedom of man. In a real sense, it is God's will, Clement says,° that we should be saved by ourselves. This point is important, for otherwise grace would be no solution to the problem of evil, but only another way of looking at gnostic determinism.
Therefore, as evil entered the world as a result of man's free will, it is only fitting that the way of salvation should be through a similar free response; namely, to that transcendent quality of human freedom, the grace of God. A theology of grace, then, provides for Clement a logical antithesis to the treatment of sin.
They are, as it were, the positive and negative sides of the same coin: the one is the path to God; the other, the road away.
Clement characterizes man's role in a twofold manner. Firstly, man must dispose himself for the reception of grace through the acquisition of particular virtues.? Secondly, he must actively co-operate with God.' Clement sees this as accepting with thanks the favour that God grants and returning the kindness with love.9
In short, what is expected of man is an act of deliberate free choice that actively seeks God's grace.!° God only breathes his grace into souls when they desire it; if, and when, the desire ceases, he says,!! the Spirit is withdrawn. To save men against their will is an act of force ; to save them when they choose, an act of grace.'2
Moreover, Clement adds that it is consonant with a suitable mental and spiritual disposition which invites the grace of God that man betray outwardly the divine indwelling by good works.
The surest test of free acceptance is that one does the things which I Str. vil. 73. 4.
2 Paed. 1. 26. 3.
3 Str. iv. 138. 4 (cf. John 6: 44).
4 Paed. i. 30. 1 f.; cf. the illuminating anchor image in Sir. iv. 152.
5 Str. ii. 84. 4 (cf. Philo, Virt. 83).
6 Str. vi. 96. 2. However, elsewhere Clement cautions against a quid pro quo interpretation of grace and merit, Sér. vii. 21. 5, but cf. Str. v. 7. 2.
7 e.g. humility (Str. iv. 106. 4; cf. Prov. 3: 34; Jas. 4: 6; 1 Pet. 5: 5); faith and docility (Protr. 85. 1); obedience (Protr. 95. 2); agape (Str. iv. 112. 4); purity of heart (Q.D.S. 16. 2; Str. vii. 19. 2, 49. 1).
8 Str. vii. 48.
9 Str. vii. 21. 2, 35. 3.
10 Protr. 123. 2; Q.D.S. 10. 2.
11 Q.D.S. 21. 2.
12 Tbid.
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are pleasing to God! in a manner worthy of the grace received.?
This, then, is how Clement attempts to reconcile the gratuitousness of grace with the necessary co-operation of man. The conquest of evil then, is, in a manner of speaking, an act of grace.
'The Saviour comes to us himself and suffers on our account, running his human course from birth to the cross',3 thereby lifting human life out of a setting which is primarily defeating and allowing union with the very life and character of the Triune
God. for which man was originally made.+ The Incarnation— Redemption cycle did not restore the universe to its paradisal state. Evil persists, but it serves a purpose.
I Str. vil. 21. 3.
2 Sir jAVil. 025 7
3 Q.D.S. 8. 2.
4 Cf. Protr. 100. 3, man by nature a 'heavenly plant'.