I have often characterized these beliefs as 'intellectual laziness' because they seem to be little more than attempts to put Clement in some convenient 'box' so that we can ultimately ignore his testimony. Those who want people to believe that Morton Smith's discovery is a hoax do so principally based on the fact that to Theodore contradicts inherited assumptions from our Roman 'Catholic' tradition. In other words, it contradicts the world historical view developed for us by Irenaeus and so the question of whether Clement fully bought into Irenaeus system becomes an unnecessary distraction for these people (for they too have 'faith' in Irenaeus and his Roman tradition rather than Clement and his Alexandrian tradition).
But this is precisely where I have my difficulties with these most of these 'hoaxers' because at bottom they are not interested in the tradition associated with the man who ultimately determines whether or not the work is authentic or a fraud. Getting a 'feel' for whether the Mar Saba document is a fake based on inherited assumptions from Rome is like getting a 'feeling' about whether or not a woman is a lesbian based on her willingness to have sex with you and you alone.
The fact that Clement develops arguments from the Roman 'Catholic' scriptures - i.e. that he references 'the Gospel according to Luke,' the Acts of the Apostles, the Pastoral Epistles, the Pastor of Hermas and the like - does not prove that he held them in the same esteem that Irenaeus did. Clement references a lot of 'scripture.' Irenaeus by contrast has a very limited notion of what is acceptable and what is not.
To use the former analogy, a rapist is someone who learned how to make himself 'irresistable' to women through the use of violence. However for this rapist to infer from the new found 'willingness' of women to engage in sexual relations that he is more attractive would be a sign of mental delusion of the highest order.
In the same way then we have to ask ourselves whether or not Clement's use of literary material in his works are all 'voluntary' or indeed were done in order to appease 'the powers that be' - whomever that might be. I am especially interested in the Paedagogue (or 'the Instructor' as it is sometimes referenced) for the simply fact that it is must have been written during the reign of the Emperor Commodus (177 - 192 CE). Eusebius describes Commodus's rule as nothing short of a golden age for the Roman 'Catholic' tradition, while for the rest of the world it was one of the darkest periods in recorded history.
I don't want to get too deeply involved in the details of this historical situation. It is enough to cite the brief report in the Catholic Encyclopedia:
His reign, was the turning-point in the greatness of Rome. Some historians have attempted to exonerate Commodus from the charge of innate depravity and to attribute the failure of his career to weakness of character and vicious associates. It is, however, undeniable that a condition, which resulted in the slow but inevitable destruction of the Roman power, was brought about by the lack of capacity and evil life of Commodus, coupled with the overcentralization in Roman administration by which, since the time of Augustus, the most absolute power in the State and religious affairs had been gradually vested in the person of the emperor.
Every stage in the career of Commodus was marked by greed and suspicion, producing, as might be expected in those times, wholesale confiscation and numerous murders. One result of his cruel policy was to divert attention for a time from the Christians and to lead to a partial cessation of persecution. No edicts were issued against the Christians who, though persecuted by the proconsuls in some provinces, enjoyed a period of respite and comparative immunity from pursuit. There were many Christians at the court of Commodus and in the person of Marcia, the concubine or morganatic wife of the emperor, they had a powerful advocate through whose kind offices on one occasion many Christian prisoners were released from the mines in Sardinia. Commodus was murdered by strangling, one of the conspirators being Marcia. There is no evidence that the Christians were in any way connected with his death.
It is very significant in my mind that Clement's Stromateis seems to have been written immediately following Commodus's death. Commodus died on December 31, 192 CE. Clement's repeated reference to this event in Book One can be used to argue for a date of tbe composition of the whole book before Egypt ultimately accepted Sepitimius Severus as Emperor on February 13, 194 CE. If the Paedagogue was written sometime before these dates (as is almost universally acknowledged) then it was written during the reign of Commodus, the son of Marcus Aurelius. The persecutions referenced in Book Two, are in my opinion, allusions to things which took place in the Commodian period rather than the unprecedented assumption that Clement wrote the Stromateis stretching over ten years.
What makes the Paedagogue so interesting is that it betrays a pattern already noted by us in our examination of the Stromateis - namely that Clement has a marked tendency to embrace opinions connected with Commodus's father Marcus Aurelius. We noted in our analysis of Stromateis 7.16 that Clement seems to go out of his way to reference Aurelius's Meditations immediately after describing Christians as being under the orders of 'Christ the commander':
As, then, in war the soldier (τῷ στρατιώτῃ) must not abandon (λειπτέον) the arrangement (τάξιν = 'post') which the commander has arranged (ἔταξεν), so neither must we desert that given by the Word (ὁ λόγος), whom we have received as the guide of knowledge (ἄρχοντα εἰλήφαμεν γνώσεώς) and of life. But the most (οἱ πολλοὶ) have not even inquired, if there is one who should direct us (ἐξητάκασιν), and who this is, and how he is to be followed (ἀκολουθητέον). For as is the Word (ὁ λόγος), such also must the believer's life be (ὁ βίος εἶναι τῷ πιστῷ), so as to be able "to follow God" (ὡς ἕπεσθαι δύνασθαι τῷ θεῷ), who brings all things to end from the beginning "by the right course." (ἐξ ἀρχῆς τὰ πάντα εὐθεῖαν περαίνοντι).The original passage that Clement is citing from the beloved Emperor speaks of the necessary independence of the true philosopher:
Acquire the contemplative way of seeing how all things change into one another, and constantly attend to it, and exercise thyself about this part of philosophy. For nothing is so much adapted to produce magnanimity. Such a man has put off the body, and as he sees that he must, no one knows how soon, go away from among men and leave everything here, he gives himself up entirely to just doing in all his actions, and in everything else that happens he resigns himself to the universal nature. But as to what any man shall say or think about him or do against him, he never even thinks of it, being himself contented with these two things, with acting justly in what he now does, and being satisfied with what is now assigned to him; and he lays aside all distracting and busy pursuits, and desires nothing else than to accomplish the straight course through the law, and by accomplishing the straight course to follow God (καὶ οὐδὲν ἄλλο βούλεται ἢ εὐθεῖαν περαίνειν διὰ τοῦ νόμου καὶ εὐθεῖαν περαίνοντι ἕπεσθαι τῷ θεῷ) [Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 10.11]Clement's attempt to reconfirm that Alexandrian Christianity was consistent with the former Emperor at the very end of the Stromateis cannot be accidental. If the work is acknowledged to have been written c. 193 - 194 CE - it is nothing short of a confession of loyalty to the Empire in an age of uncertainty.
It is important to note that while Septimius Severus was promoted to the command of legions of Pannonia under Commodus in 191 CE, the new Emperor went out of his way to correct the corruptions and excesses of the son of Marcus Aurelius. Perhaps the reference then is some acknowlegement that relations between Alexandria and the Roman government had suffered during Commodus's reign and Clement was attempting to restore relations to their original state before 175 CE. Whatever the case may be this is not our only example of Clement 'flattering' the opinions and beliefs associated with Marcus Aurelius.
One can't overstate how disingenuous Clement's attack against the alleged 'wife swapping' of the Carpocratians is in Stromateis Book Three. Clement claims that the 'sect' has misinterpreted Plato's ideas in the Republic. But as John Ferguson notes in his superior English translation of Book Three of the Stromateis, the interpretation that Clement foists onto the Carpocratians is the misrepresentation of Plato's ideal in writings of the Stoic Epictetus, the teacher of Marcus Aurelius. It is in Epictetus that we read the basis for the attack against the Alexandrian heretics:
"What then, are not women common by nature?" So I say also; for a little pig is common to all the invited guests, but when the portions have been distributed, go, if you think it right, and snatch up the portion of him who reclines next to you, or slyly steal it, or place your hand down by it and lay hold of it, and if you cannot tear away a bit of the meat, grease your fingers and lick them. A fine companion over cups, and Socratic guest indeed! "Well, is not the theatre common to the citizens?" When then they have taken their seats, come, if you think proper, and eject one of them. In this way women also are common by nature. When, then, the legislator, like the master of a feast, has distributed them, will you not also look for your own portion and not filch and handle what belongs to another. "But I am a man of letters and understand Archedemus." Understand Archedemus then, and be an adulterer, and faithless, and instead of a man, be a wolf or an ape: for what is the difference? (Discourses 2.4.8-10)
In Plato, of course the "communism" applies only to the ruling class where men and women have equal status, and neither possesses the other; there is sexual abstinence and no promiscuity; copulation is permitted at festivals with a partner allocated by lot.
Now the ultimate question would have to be - why would Clement attack the 'Carpocratians' for 'misinterpreting' Plato when, in fact, their views are clearly misrepresented here? In other words, no one could actually develop a faith around Epictetus's attack against the Platonic ideal of the Republic. This is simply impossible. Instead - as I noted before - there must have been an original attack against the 'over-Platonizing' of the Alexandrian Christianity community which was in turn 'deflected' by Clement as representative only of this small and ultimately 'insignificant' sect.
Clement's point would be something like - yes, these things which are reported of Alexandrian Christians are true but they apply only to 'them' (i.e. the Carpocratians). However what I want my readership to see is that this is another form of 'dishonesty' on the part of Clement. Instead of confronting the misrepresentation head on (presumably by the pagan critic Celsus using Epictetus to humiliate the religious communism of contemporary Alexandria) Clement accepts it, or goes along with it but redirects it to an imaginary (or semi-historical) group.
It is worth noting also at this point that Chadwick remarks that Clement often borrows attacks developed by Celsus against the heresies for his own treatise. This seems to suggest widespread pattern of 'going along' with this contemporary 'bullying.' I would like to add that Clement's apparent 'cowardice' goes beyond merely reusing insults directed against the so-called 'heresies.' One can find countless examples of Clement literally appropriating things said by Clement against the Alexandrian Church - not merely the heretics - and reusing them in his own work.
We have provided a number of examples of this already but here is one which I found just yesterday in the Pedagogue:
It is not, then, the aspect of the outward man, but the soul that is to be decorated with the ornament of goodness; we may say also the flesh with the adornment of temperance. But those women who beautify the outside, are unawares all waste in the inner depths, as is the case with the ornaments of the Egyptians; among whom temples with their porticos and vestibules are carefully constructed, and groves and sacred fields adjoining; the halls are surrounded with many pillars; and the walls gleam with foreign stones, and there is no want of artistic painting; and the temples gleam with gold, and silver, and amber, and glitter with parti coloured gems from India and Ethiopia; and the shrines are veiled with gold-embroidered hangings. But if you enter the penetralia of the enclosure, and, in haste to behold something better, seek the image that is the inhabitant of the temple, and if any priest of those that offer sacrifice there, looking gave, and singing a paean in the Egyptian tongue, remove a little of the veil to show the god, he will give you a hearty laugh at the object of worship. For the deity that is sought, to whom you have rushed, will not be found within, but a cat, or a crocodile, or a serpent of the country, or some such beast unworthy of the temple, but quite worthy of a den, a hole, or the dirt. The god of the Egyptians appears a beast rolling on a purple couch.[Paed. 3.2]This might sound rather innocent or something which Clement developed from his own experience living in Alexandria, but the reality is that it is taken from Celsus criticism of the Alexandrian Church. For Origen cites a long passage from Celsus's original work - and which was known to Clement - exactly to this effect:
But what the legends are of every kind which [they] gather together, or the terrors which [they] invent, [they] weave together erroneous opinions drawn from ancient sources, and trumpet them aloud, and sound them before men, as the priests of Cybele clash their cymbals in the ears of those who are being initiated in their mysteries [which are like] those of the Egyptians; among whom, as you approach their sacred edifices, are to be seen splendid enclosures, and groves, and large and beautiful gateways, and wonderful temples, and magnificent tents around them, and ceremonies of worship full of superstition and mystery; but when you have entered, and passed within, the object of worship is seen to be a cat, or an ape, or a crocodile, or a goat, or a dog!The question of course is not whether or not Clement read and made reference to Celsus's attack on his own tradition - he certainly did - but what could possibly justify the use of material which was plainly hostile to its very existence?
In the next place, referring to the statements of the Egyptians, who talk loftily about irrational animals, and who assert that they are a sort of symbols of God, or anything else which their prophets, so termed, are accustomed to call them, Celsus says that “an impression is produced in the minds of those who have learned these things; that they have not been initiated in vain;” while with regard to the truths which are taught in our writings to those who have made progress in the study of Christianity Celsus does not seem even to have formed an idea, judging not only from what he has already said, but from what he subsequently adds in his attack upon the Christian system, when he asserts that Christians “repel every wise man from the doctrine of their faith, and invite only the ignorant and the vulgar;” on which assertions we shall remark in due time, when we come to the proper place. He says, indeed, that “we ridicule the Egyptians, although they present many by no means contemptible mysteries for our consideration, when they teach us that such rites are acts of worship offered to eternal ideas, and not, as the multitude think, to ephemeral animals; and that we are silly, because we introduce nothing nobler than the goats and dogs of the Egyptian worship in our narratives about Jesus.” [Origen Contra Celsum 3.16 - 19]
Of course, almost no one has ever taken up this question. It has been useful - as noted above - to see Clement as simply 'the first Catholic representative' in Alexandria. But my question now is clearly, how can we be so sure that if Clement would go along with a bully like Celsus, reusing his insults against the very holiest of buildings, i.e. the Church of St. Mark (for what other building in Christendom could Celsus be referencing as a place which resembled an Egyptian temple?) that his tacit acceptance of foreign books like 'the Gospel of Luke,' 'the Acts of the Apostles' and the Pastoral Epistles wasn't a product of similar bullying on the part of an Imperial conspiracy with the Roman Church?
I know people generally like to stay away from the idea that the Roman Church 'conspired' with the Roman government against the influence and power and tradition of Alexandrian Christianity. However, my difficulty here is that people fail to take into account that it is almost universally acknowledged that Septimius Severus's government was wholly favorable to Roman Christianity while at the same time - by 202 CE - he was initiating a vicious slaughter of Egyptian churches. There is absolutely no evidence that the Roman Church ever underwent such a holocaust in the period. So the question is whether the precarious situation the Alexandrian Church found itself in during the age of Commodus necessarily led to Clement's acquiescent demeanour. I think one more example might prove helpful here.
The German scholar Paul Wendland noted over a century ago that most of Books Two and Three of the Paedagogue contains vast ammounts of material from Epictetus's teacher Musonius superficially layered over Christian references. The material here amounts to being a response to an accusation that the Alexandrian love feasts are sordid affairs filled with aphrodisia - i.e. over-eating, over-drinking and over-sexing (including homosexuality). Now most people who read the material without taking into consderation Wendland's arguments simply see them as reflective of Clement's 'high moral standing.' In other words, it was 'the heresies' (no specific heretical group is ever referenced in the Paedogogue) which were the real moral reprobates. Clement is again trying to deflect criticism - presumably from Rome - over the licentious character of the Alexandria Agape.
If you have ever read the material in Book Two and Three you will immediately see how difficult it is to believe any of what Clement is saying. There are endless digressions on the right manner to treat guests at a dinner party, the right way to dress for a dinner party, the right way to behave interwoven between references to the material that immediately precedes the first addition to Secret Mark according to the Diatessaronic arrangement of the Gospel (see previous posts on the work of C A Phillips in this regard). Wendland's work makes it clear that Clement is literally taking a commentary written by the 'spiritual grandfather' of Marcus Aurelius's Meditations in order to answer the charges of an anti-Christian treatise (the obvious choice here is again the True Account of Celsus).
I know it will be difficult for most of my readership to come to an appreciation of why Wendland comes to the conclusion that Clement was appropriate large parts of Musonius given that his arguments have never been translated from German. What we can bring forward is the confirmation of Wendland's theory by Musonius expert Charles Pomeroy Parker in the Harvard Journal of Classical Studies Parker cites the opening chapter of Book Two as a clear example of Clement superficially adapting a commentary by Marcus Aurelius's 'spiritual grandfather' against Roman dinner parties for the defence of the Alexandrian Agape. Here is the section cited in full:
Keeping, then, to our aim, and selecting the Scriptures which bear on the usefulness of training for life, we must now compendiously describe what the man who is called a Christian ought to be during the whole of his life. We must accordingly begin with ourselves, and how we ought to regulate ourselves. We have therefore, preserving a due regard to the symmetry of this work, to say how each of us ought to conduct himself in respect to his body, or rather how to regulate the body itself. For whenever any one, who has been brought away by the Word from external things, and from attention to the body itself to the mind, acquires a clear view of what happens according to nature in man, he will know that he is not to be earnestly occupied about external things, but about what is proper and peculiar to man--to purge the eye of the soul, and to sanctify also his flesh. For he that is clean rid of those things which constitute him still dust, what else has he more serviceable than himself for walking in the way which leads to the comprehension of God.Parker - like Wendland before him - notes that Clement has merely superificially substituted key terminologies such as 'Christian' for 'philosopher' and 'agape' for 'dinner' as well frequent insertions of unoriginal scriptural references in order to make his 'new treatise.' This pattern clearly extends throughout the work as a whole, as noted above, where long digressions, serve no other purpose other than to confirm that Clement's Alexandrian tradition conforms in every way with the social mores of Roman society.
Some men, in truth, live that they may eat, as the irrational creatures, "whose life is their belly, and nothing else." But the Instructor enjoins us to eat that we may live. For neither is food our business, nor is pleasure our aim; but both are on account of our life here, which the Word is training up to immortality. Wherefore also there is discrimination to be employed in reference to food. And it is to be simple, truly plain, suiting precisely simple and artless children--as ministering to life, not to luxury. And the life to which it conduces consists of two things--health and strength; to which plainness of fare is most suitable, being conducive both to digestion and lightness of body, from which come growth, and health, and right strength, not strength that is wrong or dangerous and wretched, as is that of athletes produced by compulsory feeding.
We must therefore reject different varieties, which engender various mischiefs, such as a depraved habit of body and disorders of the stomach, the taste being vitiated by an unhappy art--that of cookery, and the useless art of making pastry. For people dare to call by the name of food their dabbling in luxuries, which glides into mischievous pleasures. Antiphanes, the Delian physician, said that this variety of viands was the one cause of disease; there being people who dislike the truth, and through various absurd notions abjure moderation of diet, and put themselves to a world of trouble to procure dainties from beyond seas.
For my part, I am sorry for this disease, while they are not ashamed to sing the praises of their delicacies, giving themselves great trouble to get lampreys in the Straits of Sicily, the eels of the Maeander, and the kids found in Melos, and the mullets in Sciathus, and the mussels of Pelorus, the oysters of Abydos, not omitting the sprats found in Lipara, and the Mantinican turnip; and furthermore, the beetroot that grows among the Ascraeans: they seek out the cockles of Methymna, the turbots of Attica, and the thrushes of Daphnis, and the reddish-brown dried figs, on account of which the ill-starred Persian marched into Greece with five hundred thousand men. Besides these, they purchase birds from Phasis, the Egyptian snipes, and the Median peafowl. Altering these by means of condiments, the gluttons gape for the sauces. "Whatever earth and the depths of the sea, and the unmeasured space of the air produce," they cater for their gluttony. In their greed and solicitude, the gluttons seem absolutely to sweep the world with a drag-net to gratify their luxurious tastes. These gluttons, surrounded with the sound of hissing frying-pans, and wearing their whole life away at the pestle and mortar, cling to matter like fire. More than that, they emasculate plain food, namely bread, by straining off the nourishing part of the grain, so that the necessary part of food becomes matter of reproach to luxury. There is no limit to epicurism among men. For it has driven them to sweetmeats, and honey-cakes, and sugar-plums; inventing a multitude of desserts, hunting after all manner of dishes. A man like this seems to me to be all jaw, and nothing else. "Desire not," says the Scripture, "rich men's dainties;" for they belong to a false and base life. They partake of luxurious dishes, which a little after go to the dunghill. But we who seek the heavenly bread must role the belly, which is beneath heaven, and much more the things which are agreeable to it, which "God shall destroy," says the apostle, justly execrating gluttonous desires. For "meats are for the belly," for on them depends this truly carnal and destructive life; whence some, speaking with unbridled tongue, dare to apply the name agape, to pitiful suppers, redolent of savour and sauces. Dishonouring the good and saving work of the Word, the consecrated agape, with pots and pouring of sauce; and by drink and delicacies and smoke desecrating that name, they are deceived in their idea, having expected that the promise of God might be bought with suppers. Gatherings for the sake of mirth, and such entertainments as are called by ourselves, we name rightly suppers, dinners, and banquets, after the example of the Lord. But such entertainments the Lord has not called agapoe. He says accordingly somewhere, "When thou art called to a wedding, recline not on the highest couch; but when thou art called, fall into the lowest place;" and elsewhere, "When thou makest a dinner or a supper;" and again, "But when thou makest an entertainment, call the poor," for whose sake chiefly a supper ought to be made. And further, "A certain man made a great supper, and called many." But I perceive whence the specious appellation of suppers flowed: "from the gullets and furious love for suppers"--according to the comic poet. For, in truth, "to many, many things are on account of the supper." For they have not yet learned that God has provided for His creature (man I mean) food and drink, for sustenance, not for pleasure; since the body derives no advantage from extravagance in viands. For, quite the contrary, those who use the most frugal fare are the strongest and the healthiest, and the noblest; as domestics are healthier and stronger than their masters, and husbandmen than the proprietors; and not only more robust, but wiser, as philosophers are wiser than rich men. For they have not buried the mind beneath food, nor deceived it with pleasures. But love (agape) is in truth celestial food, the banquet of reason. "It beareth all things, endureth all things, hopeth all things. Love never faileth." "Blessed is he who shall eat bread in the kingdom of God." But the hardest of all cases is for charity, which faileth not, to be cast from heaven above to the ground into the midst of sauces. And do you imagine that I am thinking of a supper that is to be done away with? "For if," it is said, "I bestow all my goods, and have not love, I am nothing." On this love alone depend the law and the Word; and if "thou shalt love the Lord thy God and thy neighbour," this is the celestial festival in the heavens. But the earthly is called a supper, as has been shown from Scripture. For the supper is made for love, but the supper is not love (agape); only a proof of mutual and reciprocal kindly feeling. "Let not, then, your good be evil spoken of; for the kingdom of God is not meat and drink," says the apostle, in order that the meal spoken of may not be conceived as ephemeral, "but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost." He who eats of this meal, the best of all, shall possess the kingdom of God, fixing his regards here on the holy assembly of love, the heavenly Church. Love, then, is something pure and worthy of God, and its work is communication. "And the care of discipline is love," as Wisdom says; "and love is the keeping of the law." And these joys have an inspiration of love from the public nutriment, which accustoms to everlasting dainties. Love (agape), then, is not a supper. But let the entertainment depend on love. For it is said, "Let the children whom Thou hast loved, O Lord, learn that it is not the products of fruits that nourish man; but it is Thy word which preserves those who believe on Thee." "For the righteous shall not live by bread." But let our diet be light and digestible, and suitable for keeping awake, unmixed with diverse varieties. Nor is this a point which is beyond the sphere of discipline. For love is a good nurse for communication; having as its rich provision sufficiency, which, presiding over diet measured in due quantity, and treating the body in a healthful way, distributes something from its resources to those near us, But the diet which exceeds sufficiency injures a man, deteriorates his spirit, and renders his body prone to disease. Besides, those dainty tastes, which trouble themselves about rich dishes drive to practices of ill-repute, daintiness, gluttony, greed, voracity, insatiability. Appropriate designations of such people as so indulge are flies, weasels, flatterers, gladiators, and the monstrous tribes of parasites--the one class surrendering reason, the other friendship, and the other life, for the gratification of the belly; crawling on their bellies, beasts in human shape after the image of their father, the voracious beast. People first called the abandoned aswtous, and so appear to me to indicate their end, understanding them as those who are (aswsous) unsaved, excluding the S. For those that are absorbed in pots, and exquisitely prepared niceties of condiments, are they not plainly abject, earth-born, leading an ephemeral kind of life, as if they were not to live [hereafter]? Those the Holy Spirit, by Isaiah, denounces as wretched, depriving them tacitly of the name of love (agape), since their feasting was not in accordance with the word. "But they made mirth, killing calves, and sacrificing sheep, saying, Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." And that He reckons such luxury to be sin, is shown by what He adds, "And your sin shall not be forgiven you till you die," --not conveying the idea that death, which deprives of sensation, is the forgiveness of sin, but meaning that death of salvation which is the recompense of sin. "Take no pleasure in abominable delicacies," says Wisdom. At this point, too, we have to advert to what are called things sacrificed to idols, in order to show how we are enjoined to abstain from them. Polluted and abominable those things seem to me, to the blood of which, fly "Souls from Erebus of inanimate corpses."
"For I would not that ye should have fellowship with demons," says the apostle; since the food of those who are saved and those who perish is separate. We must therefore abstain from these viands not for fear (because there is no power in them); but on account of our conscience, which is holy, and out of detestation of the demons to which they are dedicated, are we to loathe them; and further, on account of the instability of those who regard many things in a way that makes them prone to fall, "whose conscience, being weak, is defiled: for meat commendeth us not to God." "For it is not that which entereth in that defileth a man, but that which goeth out of his mouth." The natural use of food is then indifferent. "For neither if we eat are we the better," it is said, "nor if we eat not are we the worse." But it is inconsistent with reason, for those that have been made worthy to share divine and spiritual food, to partake of the tables of demons. "Have we not power to eat and to drink," says the apostle, "and to lead about wives"? But by keeping pleasures under command we prevent lusts. See, then, that this power of yours never "become a stumbling-block to the weak."
For it were not seemly that we, after the fashion of the rich man's son in the Gospel, should, as prodigals, abuse the Father's gifts; but we should use them, without undue attachment to them, as having command over ourselves. For we are enjoined to reign and rule over meats, not to be slaves to them. It is an admirable thing, therefore, to raise our eyes aloft to what is true, to depend on that divine food above, and to satiate ourselves with the exhaustless contemplation of that which truly exists, and so taste of the only sure and pure delight. For such is the agape, which, the food that comes from Christ shows that we ought to partake of. But totally irrational, futile, and not human is it for those that are of the earth, fattening themselves like cattle, to feed themselves up for death; looking downwards on the earth, and bending ever over tables; leading a life of gluttony; burying all the good of existence here in a life that by and by will end; courting voracity alone, in respect to which cooks are held in higher esteem than husbandmen. For we do not abolish social intercourse, but look with suspicion on the snares of custom, and regard them as a calamity. Wherefore daintiness is to be shunned, and we are to partake of few and necessary things. "And if one of the unbelievers call us to a feast, and we determine to go" (for it is a good thing not to mix with the dissolute), the apostle bids us "eat what is set before us, asking no questions for conscience sake." Similarly he has enjoined to purchase "what is sold in the shambles," without curious questioning?
We are not, then, to abstain wholly from various kinds of food, but only are not to be taken up about them. We are to partake of what is set before us, as becomes a Christian, out of respect to him who has invited us, by a harmless and moderate participation in the social meeting; regarding the sumptuousness of what is put on the table as a matter of indifference, despising the dainties, as after a little destined to perish. "Let him who eateth, not despise him who eateth not; and let him who eateth not, not judge him who eateth." And a little way on he explains the reason of the command, when he says, "He that eateth, eateth to the Lord, and giveth God thanks; and he that eateth not, to the Lord he eateth not, and giveth God thanks." So that the right food is thanksgiving. And he who gives thanks does not occupy his time in pleasures. And if we would persuade any of our fellow-guests to virtue, we are all the more on this account to abstain from those dainty dishes; and so exhibit ourselves as a bright pattern of virtue, such as we ourselves have in Christ. "For if any of such meats make a brother to stumble, I shall not eat it as long as the world lasts," says he, "that I may not make my brother stumble." I gain the man by a little self-restraint. "Have we not power to eat and to drink?" And "we know"--he says the truth--"that an idol is nothing in the world; but we have only one true God, of whom are all things, and one Lord Jesus. But," he says, "through thy knowledge thy weak brother perishes, for whom Christ died; and they that wound the conscience of the weak brethren sin against Christ." Thus the apostle, in his solicitude for us, discriminates in the case of entertainments, saying, that "if any one called a brother be found a fornicator, or an adulterer, or an idolater, with such an one not to eat;" neither in discourse or food are we to join, looking with suspicion on the pollution thence proceeding, as on the tables of the demons. "It is good, then, neither to eat flesh nor to drink wine," as both he and the Pythagoreans acknowledge. For this is rather characteristic of a beast; and the fumes arising from them being dense, darken the soul. If one partakes of them, he does not sin. Only let him partake temperately, not dependent on them, nor gaping after fine fare. For a voice will whisper to him, saying, "Destroy not the work of God for the sake of food." For it is the mark of a silly mind to be amazed and stupefied at what is presented at vulgar banquets, after the rich fare which is in the Word; and much sillier to make one's eyes the slaves of the delicacies, so that one's greed is, so to speak, carried round by the servants. And how foolish for people to raise themselves on the couches, all but pitching their faces into the dishes, stretching out from the couch as from a nest, according to the common saying, "that they may catch the wandering steam by breathing it in!" And how senseless, to besmear their hands with the condiments, and to be constantly reaching to the sauce, cramming themselves immoderately and shamelessly, not like people tasting, but ravenously seizing! For you may see such people, liker swine or dogs for gluttony than men, in such a hurry to feed themselves full, that both jaws are stuffed out at once, the veins about the face raised, and besides, the perspiration running all over, as they are tightened with their insatiable greed, and panting with their excess; the food pushed with unsocial eagerness into their stomach, as if they were stowing away their victuals for provision for a journey, not for digestion. Excess, which in all things is an evil, is very highly reprehensible in the matter of food. Gluttony, called oyoFagia, is nothing but excess in the use of relishes (oyon); and laimargia is insanity with respect to the gullet; and gastrimargia is excess with respect to food--insanity in reference to the belly, as the name implies; for margos is a madman. The apostle, checking those that transgress in their conduct at entertainments, says: "For every one taketh beforehand in eating his own supper; and one is hungry, and another drunken. Have ye not houses to eat and to drink in? Or despise ye the church of God, and shame those who have not?" And among those who have, they, who eat shamelessly and are insatiable, shame themselves. And both act badly; the one by paining those who have not, the other by exposing their own greed in the presence of those who have. Necessarily, therefore, against those who have cast off shame and unsparingly abuse meals, the insatiable to whom nothing is sufficient, the apostle, in continuation, again breaks forth in a voice of displeasure: "So that, my brethren, when ye come together to eat, wait for one another. And if any one is hungry, let him eat at home, that ye come not together to condemnation."
From all slavish habits" and excess we must abstain, and touch what is set before us in a decorous way; keeping the hand and couch and chin free of stains; preserving the grace of the countenance undisturbed, and committing no indecorum in the act of swallowing; but stretching out the hand at intervals in an orderly manner. We must guard against speaking anything while eating: for the voice becomes disagreeable and inarticulate when it is confined by full jaws; and the tongue, pressed by the food and impeded in its natural energy; gives forth a compressed utterance. Nor is it suitable to eat and to drink simultaneously. For it is the very extreme of intemperance to confound the times whose uses are discordant. And "whether ye eat or drink, do all to the glory of God," aiming after true frugality, which the Lord also seems to me to have hinted at when He blessed the loaves and the cooked fishes with which He feasted the disciples, introducing a beautiful example of simple food. That fish then which, at the command of the Lord, Peter caught, points to digestible and God-given and moderate food. And by those who rise from the water to the bait of righteousness, He admonishes us to take away luxury and avarice, as the coin from the fish; in order that He might displace vainglory; and by giving the stater to the tax-gatherers, and "rendering to Caesar the things which are Caesar's," might preserve "to God the things which are God's." The staler is capable of other explanations not unknown to us, but the present is not a suitable occasion for their treatment. Let the mention we make for our present purpose suffice, as it is not unsuitable to the flowers of the Word; and we have often done this, drawing to the urgent point of the question the most beneficial fountain, in order to water those who have been planted by the Word. "For if it is lawful for me to partake of all things, yet all things are not expedient." For those that do all that is lawful, quickly fall into doing what is unlawful. And just as righteousness is not attained by avarice, nor temperance by excess; so neither is the regimen of a Christian formed by indulgence; for the table of truth is far from lascivious dainties. For though it was chiefly for men's sake that all things were made, yet it is not good to use all things, nor at all times. For the occasion, and the time, and the mode, and the intention, materially turn the balance with reference to what is useful, in the view of one who is rightly instructed; and this is suitable, and has influence in putting a stop to a life of gluttony, which wealth is prone to choose, not that wealth which sees clearly, but that abundance which makes a man blind with reference to gluttony. No one is poor as regards necessaries, and a man is never overlooked. For there is one God who feeds the fowls and the fishes, and, in a word, the irrational creatures; and not one thing whatever is wanting to them, though "they take no thought for their food." And we are better than they, being their lords, and more closely allied to God, as being wiser; and we were made, not that we might eat and drink, but that we might devote ourselves to the knowledge of God. "For the just man who eats is satisfied in his soul, but the belly of the wicked shall want," filled with the appetites of insatiable gluttony. Now lavish expense is adapted not for enjoyment alone, but also for social communication. Wherefore we must guard against those articles of food which persuade us to eat when we are not hungry, bewitching the appetite. For is there not within a temperate simplicity a wholesome variety of eatables? Bulbs, olives, certain herbs, milk, cheese, fruits, all kinds of cooked food without sauces; and if flesh is wanted, let roast rather than boiled be set down. Have you anything to eat here? said the Lord to the disciples after the resurrection; and they, as taught by Him to practise frugality, "gave Him a piece of broiled fish;" and having eaten before them, says Luke, He spoke to them what He spoke. And in addition to these, it is not to be overlooked that those who feed according to the Word are not debarred from dainties in the shape of honey-combs. For of articles of food, those are the most suitable which are fit for immediate use without fire, since they are readiest; and second to these are those which are simplest, as we said before. But those who bend around inflammatory tables, nourishing their own diseases, are ruled by a most lickerish demon, whom I shall not blush to call the Belly-demon, and the worst and most abandoned of demons. He is therefore exactly like the one who is called the Ventriloquist-demon. It is far better to be happy than to have a demon dwelling with us. And happiness is found in the practice of virtue. Accordingly, the apostle Matthew partook of seeds, and nuts, and vegetables, without flesh. And John, who carded temperance to the extreme, "ate locusts and wild honey." Peter abstained from swine; "but a trance fell on him," as is written in the Acts of the Apostles, "and he saw heaven opened, and a vessel let down on the earth by the four corners, and all the four-looted beasts and creeping things of the earth and the fowls of heaven in it; and there came a voice to him, Rise, and slay, and eat. And Peter said, Not so, Lord, for I have never eaten what is common or unclean. And the voice came again to him the second time, What God hath cleansed, call not thou common." The use of them is accordingly indifferent to us. "For not what entereth into the mouth defileth the man," but the vain opinion respecting uncleanness. For God, when He created man, said, "All things shall be to you for meat." "And herbs, with love, are better than a calf with fraud." This well reminds us of what was said above, that herbs are not love, but that our meals are to be taken with love; and in these the medium state is good. In all things, indeed, this is the case, and not least in the preparation made for feasting, since the extremes are dangerous, and middle courses good. And to be in no want of necessaries is the medium. For the desires which are in accordance with nature are bounded by sufficiency. The Jews had frugality enjoined on them by the law in the most systematic manner. For the Instructor, by Moses, deprived them of the use of innumerable things, adding reasons--the spiritual ones hidden; the carnal ones apparent, to which indeed they have trusted; in the case of some animals, because they did not part the hoof, and others because they did not ruminate their food, and others because alone of aquatic animals they were devoid of scales; so that altogether but a few were left appropriate for their food. And of those that he permitted them to touch, he prohibited such as had died, or were offered to idols, or had been strangled; for to touch these was unlawful. For since it is impossible for those who use dainties to abstain from partaking of them, he appointed the opposite mode of life, till he should break down the propensity to indulgence arising from habit. Pleasure has often produced in men harm and pain; and full feeding begets in the soul uneasiness, and forgetfulness, and foolishness. And they say that the bodies of children, when shooting up to their height, are made to grow right by deficiency in nourishment. For then the spirit, which pervades the body in order to its growth, is not checked by abundance of food obstructing the freedom of its course.
Indeed, when you really think about it, Clement is consistently attempting to demonstrate that his Church is fully in keeping with the cultural climate of the Imperial court during the reign of Marcus Aurelius (probably the last time that Alexandria had good relations with an Emperor). Henry Chadwick notes (Early Christian Thought and the Classical Tradition) that:
Clement's sex ethic owes much of its inspiration to Stoic moralists like Musonius Rufus, who likewise combines a vindication of marriage with an austere condemnation of self-indulgence and of unnatural practices like abortion and homosexual vice. Clement's opposition to the fanaticism of gnostic asceticism, which was often marked (as in Marcion's case) by a pathological recoil from sexuality, does not lead him into a naturalistic hedonism. (p. 60)Yet again, given Clement's repeated use of material from Celsus that was clearly directed against his own Church for the sole purpose of demonstrating that 'he was on the side of its bullies' - one has to wonder whether any of what appears in the Paedagoge (written in the darkest period in Roman history until that point) is a real reflection of what Clement and his Church believed or what he thought the Roman authorities wanted him to say. This is a very important question given that so many critics of the Mar Saba document can't believe that Clement would encourage peopel to lie in order to keep the mystic Gospel of Mark secret.
The point again is that I happen to come from a persecuted crypto-tradition which always reminds me that in ages of persecution, things don't necessarily have to be as they appear. I happen to think that the Stromateis for instance is a more honest portrait of Clement's actual belief system than the Paedogue simply because it was written after the horors of the rule of Commodus. I think that Sepitimius Severus ultimately walked into a situation where the Roman Church had already functioned as an arm of the Roman government and so it was only natural that persecutions would resume against Alexandria later in his reign. Yet for a brief period, Clement attempted at least to explain himself and his tradition to the world. As Neander acknowledges:
The political disorders which followed after the assassination of Commodus, in AD 192; the civil wars betwixt Pesceunias Niger in the East, Claudius Albinus in Gaul, and Septimius Severus, who finally obtained the sovereign power in Rome, would, like all other public calamities, be attended with injurious effects on the situation of the Christians. Clement of Alexandria, who wrote soon after the death of Commodus, says, " Many martyrs are daily burned, crucified, beheaded, before our eyes." (Strom. When Septimius Severus obtained the victory, and found himself in secure possession of the sovereignty, he manifested, it is true, a favorable disposition towards the Christians ; and Tertullian's account may doubtless be correct, that he was induced to this by an incident of a personal nature, having been restored to health by the skill of Proculus, a Christian slave, whom he received into his family, and retained constantly by his side. He knew that men and women of the highest rank in Rome, senators and their wives, were Christians ; and protected them from the popular indignation. [August Neander the General History of the Christian Religion and Church Volume 1 p. 120]
Indeed as subsequent archaeological evidence has shown, there were a great number of Christians sitting at his court but as Neander notes:
If in this reign the law against "close associations" was renewed, this circumstance must have operated, as under the government of Trajan, to the disadvantage of those whose union had not yet been declared to be a "collegium licitum." Finally Severus, in the year 202, passed a law which forbade, under severe penalties, a change, either to Judaism or to Christianity. [ibid]
Of course Neander avoids connecting this state of affairs to both Irenaeus's and Eusebius's confirmation that the previous age - i.e. the rule of Commodus - as one that was particularly favorable to the Roman Church. Clement's comments clearly can be taken with the references to Commodian persecutions of Alexandrian Christians to confirm that the period between 192 and 202 was a brief lull in misfortunes that were directed against the See of St. Mark.
Indeed one may even go one step further and remember that coziness that exists between Victor, the bishop of Rome, Marcia the Christian concubine of Commodus and the Emperor himself leads to Victor seeking to impose Roman 'rules' on other churches. While this is mostly reported with regards to the calculation of Easter and certain Asian churches, it is worth noting that the Liber Pontificalis mentions that the Alexandrian bishop was also summoned to Rome to 'correct' their misinterpretation of the correct way of celebrating Easter. The obvious question now before us is that if Rome was successfully imposing its will onto the rest of Christendom with regards to the calculation of the Pasch, how can it be even conceived that 'the idea' which comes to Irenaeus with regards to a 'four-faced gospel' in the very same period and which is quickly and universally accepted in most of the churches of the Empire was not pushed forward through a similar intimidation?
This is why it is so useful for us to use Clement's obvious recycling of abuse heaped up against his church from pagan sources as a yardstick to measure his ability to stand up against anyone from Rome in the period. It seems as if Clement was too eager to flatter, too eager to please even his Church's most embittered critic. This kind of a person would have found no way to resist the efforts of Irenaeus and Victor at establishing a uniform 'canon of scripture' save for establishing the tradition of Mark as a crypto-faith. Yet to understand these things, the reader has to have some personal contact with religious persecution - an experience unknown to most who live in the West.
