So we cut up as far as Chapter 6 in the Pedagogue of Clement on page 215. With any luck we should be able to finish this Book 1 of the Pedagogue today. Remember, the Pedagogue is connected even linguistically with the Child, with the Christ. In the first few chapters he was talking about the Instructor, the Pedagogue, and what he does. And then in Chapter 5 there's a long, really quite theological treatment of our character as children. And that moves right into Chapter 6 where he talks about baptism, and the argument here is the problem is that it would seem that a child somehow is, in some way, imperfect. And he's trying to say that our very perfection is childhood, and our childhood is perfection. And it's an anti-Gnostic polemic, of course, by God.

[01:04]

The whole chapter is about that, even the business about the milk and the meat and the blood later on, as an anti-Gnostic background. And it's all about these different levels of enlightenment. Whether there's a superior class who knows something that the common run of Christians don't know or not. And Clement actually is really beautiful in the way that he cuts right through that, saying that our illumination, our complete perfect enlightenment, somehow is in baptism. And yet he has to make room for the fact that there is a progress, that there is a further development. So, we'll see how he does that. And this is something, of course, that's been worked on now for 2,000 years. But still, it's not... There's no really precise, verbal explanation of how you get those two sides of the paradox together. We've already covered a couple of passages on 2.15, but let's just touch them as we move through. So, straightway on our regeneration.

[02:08]

Now, there are several words that are just simply synonyms for baptism. The technical words for baptism, that's one of them. Regeneration. We attained that perfection after which we aspired. For we were illuminated. And illumination, fotus most, also is a synonym for baptism. Which is to know God. He is not that imperfect who knows what is perfect. Now, there's an assumption in there, isn't there? A philosophical assumption in that he who knows what is perfect in some way is perfect. That knowledge perfects him. There's a whole lot of presupposition on that. But that's not the point that he's making. What the point is, is that your knowledge is perfect as soon as you have faith. As soon as you have the enlightenment of faith and baptism. And then later on he talks about the baptism of Jesus and he talks about our baptism. And he uses a curious argument of which takes a little sympathy to be convincing. Nevertheless, it's very strong. Theologically, it's very strong. Logically, theology and logic are not always the same thing.

[03:10]

Theologically, it's very strong. Logically, it may not impress as being very strong. In the ordinary sense of the word, logic. It's a different logic. But the logic of Jesus' argument about the resurrection of God and the evolution of God is a part of the living of today. Now, we call that perfect which wants nothing. But what is it wanting to him who knows God? Now, there's something here that's been expressed differently by different people. For instance, St. John on the cross says the act of faith possesses God. See, the act of faith, even in darkness, an act of empty faith in the night of the soul possesses God fully. Whereas an act of knowledge can only possess him partially. So this is another development of the Clementist. That dark contemplation of John on the cross is directly in line with this. But Clement doesn't talk in terms of darkness. He talks in terms of light, which is typical. Typical Clement.

[04:12]

Being perfectly, he constantly bestows perfect gifts. Now, what kind of logic is that? It doesn't clinch at all. Except when you hear the deeper note underneath what he's saying. In other words, he gives himself. God gives himself. His perfection is not only in what he gives, but in the fact that his gift is himself. And that gift of himself is through the knowledge of himself which is given in his word, which is Christ. Into whom we enter, into whom we are born and baptized. It's the whole thing. Further release from evils is the beginning of salvation. That's from Plato, according to our reading. Then, what follows needs... This is on the top of 216, the left-hand column. The translation that follows there isn't quite good. But it says, When we have merely touched the boundaries of life, already we are perfect. You see the paradox, which doesn't appear in the English translation. It says, we then, who first have touched the confines of life,

[05:16]

are already perfect. As soon as we cross the boundary line of life, we're already perfect. Because there's no grey area between darkness and light, between sin and faith. That's what he's saying. What was the better translation? Let me see if I can find it in the French. Ah. We have hardly attained the frontiers of life and behold, we're perfect. And behold it, we live. We are separated from death. See? The idea of a total passing hope. Salvation, according to the following, is the price for that which is in one's life. Thus, believing alone in regeneration is perfection in life. For God is never weak. Then what follows is a little fuzzy also, exactly what's intended.

[06:16]

His will is work, and this is named the world. You have a sense there that he's not getting through the translation. So, also his counsel, but the word in the Greek also means will. So there are two different wills. Two different words. Thelima and bulima. But it's rather rather refined in order to try to get the difference between these two wills. There's something there that we can't really follow up on in any case. His counsel, notice, one will is effectiveness, work, and this is named the world. And this other will, which is, the first is called bourgeois, the second, volonté, French translation. I don't know the distinction between those two words in French. Is the salvation of man, and this has been called the church. Note the theological structure between the creation and the revelation of salvation in the church. The world and the church. The church is a new world. The seed of a new world. We are taught of God. It is not then

[07:20]

allowable to think of what is taught by him as imperfect, and what is learned from him is the eternal salvation, the eternal salvation. He who is only regenerated as the name necessarily indicates, remember this is baptism, and is enlightened, is delivered forthwith from darkness and on the instant receives the light. As then those who have shaken off sleep forthwith become all awake within. For removing a film from your eyes, no, it's not a kind of external enlightenment that happens, but your eyes themselves become your source of light. You see how the image doesn't quite carry it because when the film is removed from your eyes well, that's what's obstructing you from seeing what's outside yourself, but he's almost saying like your eyes become, your eyes come into being and the light that you have is within your eyes, it's yourself, it's inside of you, not something else. You're not seeing something that's outside of you. You embrace

[08:22]

grace, I bring grace, I am the spirit ... Yes ... ... That's right, that's the ... And there's a truth to it, there's a reality to that, there's an energy in the human being, an energy of intelligence, or a vision, or something that is already seized by the world, rather than just a external violence or strengthening. Father, be it with Father, it's not the same. A good answer. Yes, it is. Father, you spoke to me about Bhushan. Bhushan? So, moving from the weaker to the stronger, in those two levels of this, in up above, from the stronger to the weaker, so that the creation is simply a fact, the salvation,

[09:43]

however, is a wish which takes some kind of completion, takes some kind of cooperation from us, a suggestion, an invitation for us, something like that. And that's the Church, is that invitation, that freedom, that free will in themselves. Yes. Now, this passage here about the eye of the spirit is really very deep in which, and as always, the concrete image contains more than will be drawn out of it with abstract words. The idea that what happens is that something is removed from you, not something is added to you, but something is removed from you in such a way that you receive yourself in that kind of luminous power which is your own being, that power of luminosity, or that power of vision, or that, whatever you want to call it, that is yourself.

[10:43]

It's very deep. Now, Rahner talks about the luminosity of being, so it's as if the luminosity of your own being is unveiled by baptism, having been obscured by sin. And in the luminosity of your own being you see everything else, everything else. And that same luminosity is a participation in the light which is love. Now, when Clement says, see, a little lower down, he says, man was called by the ancients phos. I'm not enough of a Greek linguist to say anything about that. You see, the same word, I suppose a different accent, a different pronunciation, means both light and man, as if to say... I'd better use another piece of language... As if to say the human person is light and is a participation in the light which is love. It's a very Greek kind of theology, a great truth, I think. By which alone we contemplate the divine, the Holy Spirit flowing down to us from above. When, as it were, the Holy Spirit flows down to us from above in Jesus' vision.

[11:50]

There's an allusion to Plato there, too, in the idea of the eye of the Spirit, according to him. This is the eternal, not adjustment, but ointment of the vision, ointment or anointing. You see, the Holy Spirit which somehow anoints our vision, which is itself the ointment, which is able to see the eternal light, since light loves light and the Spirit is God. That which is holy loves that from which holiness proceeds, which is appropriately called light. So, God is light, the Lord is light, and we are light, too. And that somehow, even in our creation, baptism restores it. So there's a great profundity there. And I think he's right on when he's talking about baptism. And the way in which baptism is the premise of enlightenment. But it's a virtual enlightenment in that we may not know anything in particular. It's the receiving of our very power of vision, participating in that light which is God,

[12:53]

and a power of vision which is not just of things outside of ourselves, but also of ourselves, a reflective power of knowledge, and it's something that knows God in the very light which is God, which we can't look at tonight. What they say, that is the Gnostics, he has not yet received the perfect gift. He has no way of everything. I also ascend to this, but he is in the light and the darkness comprehends him not. There's nothing intermediate between light and darkness. See, that's a very precise and important theological point about baptism and about grace. On the other hand, on the other side of it, you see, that's what theologians can really be concerned about, the question of whether there is such a thing as a mortal sin. It doesn't have to be a mortal sin. It's a venial sin. It's the sin that cuts you off from the light. It doesn't remove faith. But the end is reserved to the resurrection.

[13:55]

So now he's making room for the other pole, okay, for that development. It is not the reception of some other thing but the attaining of a promise previously made and something which is already in you. For eternity and time are not the same, neither is the attempt and the final result. I think attempt... Attempt is not the right word. The French is élan, so orme is the Greek, so it's thrust and movement and the final result. You get the idea of something, a dynamism and then rest. And they're the same, substantially in some way, mythologically. Eternity and time are neither the thrust to the movement, the dynamism and the final result, but both have reference to the same thing and one and the same person is concerned with both. Faith is the dynamism generated in time. The final result is the attainment of the promise you gave for eternity, rest. I was reminded in that section there, perhaps, that it was not the final result, but the attempt is not the same as the final result, if they are in some sense.

[14:59]

It is similar to the idea of the future of God being present in Christ and at the same time it's something moving towards God. So there's a kind of a mystery, right? The kingdom of God is not present in Jesus as he's walking around here and at the same time all this Christ is something that would be incarnated in the future. Right, right. There are two questions at the end here. One is the permanence of faith in heaven, which probably everybody has come to know about. Not today, but earlier. And the other is, did Christ have faith? They overlap, in a sense. Did his faith move him to heaven or the completeness of his existence? I mean, it does, it seems as important, 1 Corinthians 13. These three remain, faith, hope and love. And the greatest of all, the faith remains to some inside part. And on the other hand, did Christ have faith when he was on earth? He was the Word.

[16:00]

According to his brother, the Hebrews, he did. He was a pioneer, the author and the perfecter of our faith. And somebody who walked in faith is the model of faith. Even though you can say that faith in Hebrews is not the same as faith in Romans or something like that, I think it's basically the same. Now this theology, I think, finally comes from experience. It's not something that's been worked out in school or something. It's simply a kind of reflective insight of the Christians themselves as to what they were experiencing at that position. Close reading of St. Paul, reading the Scriptures. Wherefore, he says, he that believes in the Son has everlasting life, says Jesus himself. If then those who have believed have life, what remains beyond the possession of eternal life? That sense of the completeness of the gift. Nothing is one unto faith as it is perfect in concluding itself.

[17:03]

It explains how Paul can talk the way he does in the other Apostles, as if everything is right here, everything is among us. The life of God is poured out among us. John's first letter. Even though it still walks among us. And after the resurrection, what is now future in faith, we receive as present. So that in illumination, what we receive is knowledge, and the end of knowledge is rest. Illumination is darkness disappearing. Darkness is ignorance through which we fall into sins. Note the connection of ignorance and sin. It's a Greek kind of thinking which is of course also available. Knowledge then is the illumination we receive which makes ignorance disappear and endows us with pure vision. What ignorance has bound, healed, was by knowledge loosed by the notion of liberation and by the light.

[18:04]

Sin is bonded. And ignorance bonded sin, Moses. That clusters through ideas. Our transgressions are taken away, our bonds released by one... What was his name? Theonius, or whatever his name was. He was the great healer and God. The baptism of the Word. You don't hear that today. The baptism of the Word. The merging of the notion of baptism and the notion of the Word. See, notice how the idea is that somehow baptism, immersion in the water, immerses you in the Logos. You're plunged into the Logos, you're plunged into the Word. And hence you're plunged into the source of light and you're plunged into God. Now that notion, notice that strong notion of the Word in the Logos. As well as the way the sacrament is immediately rooted into the Logos. And it would be the same thing later on with the Eucharist, in a different way,

[19:07]

in which the bread of life is both the sacramental bread and is Christ himself, the Logos, as knowledge. So the sacrament and this enlightenment, this knowledge, are inseparable. They're still inseparable. And later they get split so you don't even know they're connected. Yes. Yes, yes, yes. Yeah. And then when they're plunged into the water, somehow they're plunged into the fullness of the Word so that the light comes and the Word should be one for them. Certainly. Very much so.

[20:09]

Very much. If something was lost, it wasn't recovered, perhaps it should have been recovered in another way. Like the charismatic movement is largely an attempt to recover that sense of the experience and the fullness of baptism. But in itself, culturally it's limited. So it comes across more as the Holy Spirit than as the Word, than as the Logos. So the theological fullness has been lost, and so it can be very narrowed down so that the experience of this Spirit, without all of this relationship, without the totality of the mystery of being presently, but that's what the charismatic movement is. With its baptism in the Holy Spirit, that's what it goes to. Trying to elicit the experience of that Spirit that's already in us by baptism, in the Word too. I was just trying to direct your mind on how the advantages of the baptism are in people, how they mark their choice into the heart of people,

[21:12]

and then this other side of it, which is letting out some kind of experience prior to baptism. We really don't know how it would have been. It's very difficult. You don't know. Confirmation. It is with early initiation. Confirmation is given at the same time, folks. Confirmation. The sacraments of initiation are all given at once. Not for us. In the West, it's been strung out because of baptism. In the East, even when we have entered into baptism, we get it at once. Baptism, anointing, and first communion, all at the same time. You can do that with confirmation, but it's not the original form of being in the early Church. Since they were together, it seems, in the beginning. But confirmation doesn't appear very distinctly. It wasn't. So you can use confirmation for that, but its meaning doesn't seem to be there.

[22:22]

It seems to be, in the sense that it seems to be more distinct than anointing, because anointing is supposed to point back. But it can be used that way to scale it out. And I think they go back to something. See, the anointing with the Spirit is considered to be the same time as baptism. The anointing with Christm and the elimination with the Spirit. I don't know when the first talk of confirmation was held this way. Without a catechumen. Without a catechumen. Without a catechumen. We've lost the sense of initiation.

[23:46]

Which means the whole time scale of provision. Okay, baptism of the Word. This is the one grace of illumination that our characters are not the same. The translation is, we are not the same as before our worship. And since knowledge springs up with illumination. Now, here the translation doesn't quite bring it through. It means, along with the illumination, that is, along with baptism comes knowledge. With baptism comes gnosis. Shedding its beams around the mind. The moment we hear, we who were untaught become disciples. Let's see if I can find it. Thank you. Here we are. We are entirely washed from our faults, from our sins, and in one sole coup, one blow, one stroke.

[24:51]

We're not evil anymore. This is the unique grace of illumination, that is, of baptism. We are no longer the same than before the baptism of death. Now, as gnosis comes at the same time as the illumination, that is, of baptism, and enlightens or eclairs, enlightens, clarifies the intelligence, it follows that without having learned anything, we hear ourselves called disciples. The instruction has already come to us anteriorly, and one doesn't know at what moment. He's not referring there to the catechism, he's referring to the kind of quantum of instruction that we get by the enlightenment of baptism, the totality of receiving the whole organism of the faith in the baptismal world. Catechesis, then, leads progressively to faith. Faith, at the moment of holy baptism, receives the instruction of the Holy Spirit, which is what he's talking about, total instruction, quantum.

[25:54]

As faith is the unique and universal means of salvation, of humanity, and he just and good communicates himself equally and in the same way to all. The Apostle has clearly exposed himself in the Catechism of the Holy Spirit. Then, before faith came, we were kept under the law. Now, that's a tricky passage, and we've got to be careful, because that's where St. Paul uses the word pedagogue. So, it would be easy to relegate the pedagogue to the Old Testament, and we need something new, then, in baptism. So, he has to walk carefully. Shut up into the faith which should afterward be revealed, so that the law became our schoolmaster, a pedagogue, the same word in Greek, to bring us to Christ that we might be. So, if law is a pedagogue, then Christ is the real pedagogue, justified by faith. But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a pedagogue, a schoolmaster. Do you not hear that we are no longer under that law which was accompanied with fear,

[26:58]

but under the word, a master of free choice? It's a beautifully compact passage. Whatever we think of the fear thing is something new. The fact that you move from law to the fullness of the word, do you see the power of that? You move from a kind of law written in stone, these precepts, these distinct commandments, which are largely meditators, to a knowledge of the word, somehow by being one with the word, through your baptism into the word, in which liberates your power of free choice, it liberates your will in some way. So, in some way, you begin to live from within, rather than from outside. You live from spontaneity, rather than from instinct. Remember the law on the heart, and so on. For you are all the children of God, through faith in Christ Jesus, as many as you are baptized in Christ, through faith in Christ. There are not then, now here directly it turns to the Gnostics, in the same word, in the same logo, some illuminated Gnostics, in some animal, unnatural,

[27:59]

remember they had three classes, the psychic core, the psychic core, the psychic core, and the mad core. But all who have abandoned the desires of the flesh, are equal and spiritually equitable. That surprises us, to find out about the abandonment of the desires of the flesh. It seems to be out of context. And yet, that somehow is necessary for the state of Gnosis. Not for the illumination of baptism. By one spirit are we all baptized in the one blood, we have all drunk of one cup. Actually, it's the impulsiveness of one spirit. This idea of the filtration of the spirit, I think that was a Gnostic notion. It takes too long always to chase him down with his references. But he says that expression can be applied to baptism.

[29:04]

That baptism is a filter, and passing through that filter, we are purified. And it's as if what's filtered out is the passions, what's filtered out is the color of sin. The spirit in the contents traces its steps, and whoever they are, they're the Gnostics. In the same way also we, depending on our senses, renouncing our iniquities, purified by baptism, the filter, think of it as something that passed through. Speed back to the eternal light, children to the Father. And then he quotes a passage from St. Luke, where Jesus rejoices in the Holy Spirit, and marvelous what he says here. He exclaims in exultation and exceeding joy, as if lisping with the children. Like a child, Jesus himself exults. And it really, he's right, because when you read it in Luke and Matthew,

[30:09]

Jesus is talking about the Father and the Son. Nobody knows the Father but the Son. Nobody knows the Father but the Child. Somehow the one who is able to exult like a child. The whole context of freedom, of spontaneity, the yoke which is right, and so on. And the relation between the Son, the Child, and the Father, resonates with what he says. Therefore, those things which have been sealed from the wise and imprisoned in this world, that would be the Gnostics' work. Let them be guilty of those. Truly, then, are you the children of God. You have put aside the old man. What is the contrast between the Child and the old man? Which is not what St. Paul means, of course. Putting an old man doesn't mean an aged man. It means the old Adam. But here, the contrast works. Put on the immortality of the present, the Holy Spirit. Keep the man under trial. As a babe, as God's little one, as punishment for his wickedness. Then he gets into these texts from St. Paul.

[31:11]

Now, here it gets a little bit tangled. The texts that he's talking about are from 1 Corinthians 13, 1 Corinthians 14, and then Galatians chapter 4. In 1 Corinthians 13, remember, when I was a child, I thought like a child, I spoke like a child, I had the things of a child, and when I became a man, I gave that up. Then the second passage, in 1 Corinthians 14, is a short one, where he says, Brethren, do not be children in your thinking, be babes in evil, but in thinking be mature. Now, I think you can take that in parallel with the first one, 1 Corinthians 13. It's moving from a state of immaturity, Christian immaturity, you can say, to Christian maturity. However, the other passage from Galatians doesn't fit in so easily, Galatians 4. It's Galatians 4, 1 to 5. I mean, the heir, as long as he is a child, is no better than a slave.

[32:12]

He is the owner of the estate, but he is under guardians and trustees until the date set by the father. Remember, the pedagogue fits into that in Galatians. So with us, when we were children, we were slaves to the elemental spirits of the universe. But when the time had fully come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the Lord, to redeem those who were under the Lord so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the spirit of his Son into our fathers crying, Our Father. So through God, you are no longer a slave, but a son, and a son, and an heir. No longer a mere child under a slave, in some way, no longer a slave, but you're in some way grown, a son, mature, and in possession of your heritage. Now, notice the difficulty that Conant can get into there, because those are two different situations. One is moving from immaturity in Christianity to Christian maturity through a deep faith. The other is moving from the law to the gospel, and they're not the same. And I think he confuses the two of them quite a bit.

[33:14]

His point is fighting against the Gnostics and saying, well, there isn't any traditional esoteric doctrine that we get as we move from immaturity to maturity in Christianity. Then he uses the parallel of Paul, when he says, was a child when he was a Jew. This comes up on the next page. When I was a child, this is 2.18, the left-hand column at the top. Wherefore the expression, when I was a child, may be elegantly expounded thus, that is, when I was a Jew, I thought as a child, when I followed the law. Now, that doesn't correspond to what St. Paul is saying in 1 Corinthians 13. Although, if you go a little deeper, there is enough continuity to it so that there's a meaning. In that the movement from the things of a child for a Christian is very much like the movement from the things of a child which are the things of the law. It's a failure to fully grasp

[34:19]

the simplicity and power, the liberating power of the gospel. A failure to fully grasp the meaning of Christ in faith. So, there is a parallel, but it's dangerous to combine the two. In 1 Corinthians 13? Let's take a look. It's almost the opposite, in a sense, of the law when it comes to the same thing. Because he was talking about those gifts, those charismatic gifts that the Corinthians have. If you've got the spirit of prophecy, if you've got the gift of tongues, if you've got knowledge, gnosis, if you've got all these things, and you don't have love, then you're on the level of a child. So, the things that are the things of a man are faith, hope, and love. And love is the greatest of these. And those are the things that are greatest. The things that are grown up of a man endure. The things of a child pass away. And those things are the charismatic gifts. Knowledge will pass away, tongues will cease, prophecy won't be anymore.

[35:20]

But love, faith, faith and hope and love. So, there's a strong parallel between that and the relations thing. But they're coming from two different angles. One is coming from the constriction of the law. The other is coming from the superabundance of gifts of the spirit, which are, however, the kind of accidental gifts or marginal gifts. They're not the essence of the gift. And that's why he has to say this. He's trying to get them out of the essence. Back to the essence. From the essence. But I see this... Hmm? I see this, uh, the, uh, the Sanskrit. Oh, yeah. It's the powers. Yeah. Yeah. That's it. That's it. I'm wondering whether in a way that there are two different kinds of possibilities or so. probably it doesn't work seeing the movement from the, from the old man to the, to the child. That's right. They are apt to use

[36:27]

two different metaphors, aren't they? The two opposite sets of metaphors. They're, the thrust of their metaphors in two opposite directions because Paul has a preference for maturity and for strength. And in moving from Old Testament to New Testament, he tends to prefer the idea of growing up rather than the idea of becoming younger. Whereas Clement is the opposite. And part of the reason is that he's fighting Gnostics, of course, so he has to come back and press on, as it were, square one. Paul is sometimes doing that, but he seems to, uh, like in Colossians and Ephesians, they say that he has Gnostics in one, Gnostics in another place. He has three Gnostics. But he tends to choose another imagery when he does it. He's, he's bought, once and for all, as it were, that idea of growing up, I think, into Christ and maturity. And that notion of the body of Christ is somehow growing to fullness. He's got that image so firmly in his mind that it's difficult to come to a conclusion and go back and replay the chapter. I think it's more convincing the idea

[37:27]

that you all have in your time because the, uh, Native mysteries have definitely emerged as so prevalent and I think it's about, uh, it's about both conversability but also trying to convert people who are interested in that. How often was that in anything? Because you must have definitely heard history about, uh, it is. It doesn't seem so. He, he talks a lot about the, uh, they say sometimes that false theology, false mysticism is a death, resurrection, mysticism. But the idea of rebirth in the sense of freshness and child-likeness and simplicity is not so present. Simplicity because of the reality he's talking about is not his line of metaphor. So, moving from the law, the child, to the man that is a Christ whom alone the Scripture calls man. St. Paul talks most of the time in that expression. I put away

[38:28]

childlessness. The childhood which is in Christ is maturity as compared to the law. So, he, uh, sort of rolls the whole paradox up into that one expression. And that's marvelous. Childhood which is in Christ is maturity as compared to the law. The marvel of that is the liberating simplicity of the maturity of Christian maturity for a very knowing Christ. So that, so that immaturity becomes a complex thing and maturity becomes a simple thing. And therefore the three things are continuous. We are trying to think the opposite. That maturity is straight race perhaps. Very complex. So we move towards simplicity. Having reached this point we must defend our childhood. And now he starts our whole thing. I hope you didn't get bogged down in that long, I don't know what to call it. It's kind of a physiological theology. It's a liquid theology. He pulls out every possible liquid symbol that he can think of. It says something

[39:29]

about Clement and it's not to be, even though the intricacies of it can be very frustrating, but it's not to be totally despised. If you look at the Gospel of John actually there's a liquid metaphor, a liquid symbolism in John which is quite important. Just remember Jesus on the cross and the water and the blood and how important that is for John. The accent that he puts on it. And the importance of water itself in the Gospel of John from the beginning to the end. And how water and femininity relate in John. And I think that what we're looking at in Clement is a kind of symbolic sophiology, in other words a wisdom theology which is not fully reflective but which has a preference for these liquid symbols and for feminine symbols in some way. If you compared him with the metaphors and imagery of Irenaeus or Ignatius I think you'd find quite a difference. There's a maternal

[40:29]

flavor to all of this. And I think that there's a sophia trying to emerge here. I made a kind of tabulation of this whole thing this whole chemistry. And instead of going through the whole thing together let me read a series of statements. It sounds rather derogatory. And remember he's arguing against people who basically are saying that milk belongs to children and then something else, meat would be the strong food for the grown-up folks, for the nostril folks, for the mature person. So they would say that milk is a rather contemptible substance which is the elementary teaching and when you're a grown-up according to Saint Paul then you'll be eating something else, the solid food, which would be some kind of esoteric teaching. So whether the comparison is between milk and meat, solid food, or whether it's between milk and blood. So that's

[41:30]

where the perfect comment is, of course. So here's a series of statements. Now the word is the milk of Christ. The word is the milk of Christ. The word turns out to be everything. And what he's doing is exploring all of the different spokes of that wheel which is the symbolic representation of the word, or the incarnation of the word. And here the imagery is all of this liquid imagery. The word is both the beginning and the end, the alpha and the omega, and so is the milk. The milk is there at the beginning and the milk is there at the end because the land of promise of rest is flowing with milk and honey. And that's one of the problems he has to solve. And of course it's evident in him, and he should recognize it in the Old Testament, that there's a freedom of the imagery so that the same image can be used in very different ways. You can't expect a consistency of metaphor in poetry or Now, milk is knowledge. Drink, at

[42:31]

one point, is perfect, mature appropriation. At another point it doesn't seem like. Meat, for him, at one point, was the face-to-face vision in heaven. The word is both milk and solid food, both milk and meat. Now, this was milk, solid food, and solid food. Milk is the preaching of the gospel, at one point. There's a series of comparisons, milk is the preaching of the gospel, and one of its comparisons was meat, solid food, is faith, which is solidified within you. So the milk is the gospel poured out, and it becomes solidified in you through faith. The marriage of the faith that you have and that you give, and the word that comes in, solidifies in the solid food within you. So the idea of solid possession. The comment of John 6,

[43:31]

eat my flesh and drink my blood in a kind of amazing way, says the flesh, which is the body, is faith, the blood is the soul, is hope. So he says hope is the blood of faith. The body is faith, the blood is hope. And those are the flesh and blood of Jesus in John 6. Note the transposition, importantly, see people nowadays, they interpret it in terms of the Eucharist in John 6, there's a lot more in it than simply this. And what is it is based on this, I think. Now notice, you simply can't equate the consistency in the way that it is. It's a poetic point of play, it's a childlike point of play with this. And it's funny that he's arguing with him and playing with him at the same time. It's hard to make an argument in this world. The

[44:32]

blood of faith is hope, blood is liquid flesh, milk is the essence

[46:16]

all there, And it's completely present in the nearest place. Remember, Hernes has a couple of very strong passages in the fifth book about that. And that's the first time I know of it. They say that Hernes is the founder of mariology and of that kind of ecclesiology too. Because it seems to the fathers too. They won't talk about marriage without talking about the church in St. Bernard. I mother when alone had not milk because she was a virgin mother too. Pulling her children to her, she nurses them with holy milk, that is with the word, that surprises them. But there is so much stress on teaching, there's so much stress on wisdom, So, even at the expense of other dimensions that we are talking about,

[47:18]

the whole thrust is that the sacraments almost vanish, almost are swallowed up into this notion of wisdom or of teaching. Therefore, she had not milk, for the milk was this child. Shrana had some wisdom. The milk is this child, the word, you see, that becomes incarnate, and then somehow can be given to children of the Church. There's a whole confusion of images in which the child is this milk. The child, the body of Christ, which nourishes by the word, the young bird. Now, the sacrament is there, and it's not there at the same time, it's like a new age. I think sacramental theology would benefit a lot by getting this dimension back, in which it ties all of the teaching, all of the wisdom of the Church back into the sacrament. And here's another interpretation, down in the same column. Notice he moves from one angle to another. These don't fit together in any medical way.

[48:19]

Not quite compatible with one another. Let's play. The flesh figuratively represents to us the Holy Spirit, for the flesh was created by him. The blood points out to us the word. Now, instinctively, I think we'd be inclined to say the opposite, that the word, that its solidity, its distinctness, its very masculine quality, is more like the flesh. Its fluidity of the Spirit is more like the blood. As rich blood, the word has been infused into life, and the union of both is the Lord, the food of the caves. Sometimes they speak of some of the Russians of the dial, that the word and the Spirit have been subdued. The food that is the Lord Jesus, that is the word of God, the Spirit, and the flesh, the heavenly flesh, not the flesh. So, this kind of physiognomy of linguists, I think, it's a hinting of constellations, of conglomerations. The word is the rushing fountain of life,

[49:22]

and has been called a river of pure water of all of life. The same thing may be both meaning here. And then it talks about the word as being the bread of life. The mystery of the bread, which is his flesh. This is on 221 in left-hand column. Consequently, that has risen through fire as the wheat springs up from decay and germination. And in truth, it has risen through fire for the joy of the truth, for the joy of the church was bread baked. Now, the fire there is the fire of the passion of death. Notice the double meaning of risen. Bread rises and the Lord has risen. And in his rising somehow the bread becomes made for us, becomes finished for us. It's rather good. And it rises in the Spirit somehow, the bread rises. We can talk about that more in verse 2 as well. Then he gets to wine.

[50:26]

Thus in many ways the word is figuratively described as meat and flesh and food and bread and blood and milk. The Lord is always to give enjoyment to us who believe in him. So that's his summary. So before he was father and mother and through a nurse. It's the bread. Perfect. Amen. The blood of Abel. The blood is a word. The blood is the word. And therefore the blood cries out. And the blood of Abel cries out, prefiguring the passion of Jesus. You find that in more than one place in the scriptures. The blood cries out. The first killing. Baptism and teaching. This is on, let's see, 221. Right here on the right. Are blood and milk. So here we get the sacraments brought back. Connected with one another.

[51:28]

Baptism and the Eucharist are going to be connected with the teaching. And then the teaching and each of the sacraments get connected. Get sewn together, start woven together. The blood is the passion of Jesus. Therefore it's baptism for us. We receive it. We participate in baptism. And following that is the milk of the teaching. The milk of the bread. Milk is produced from blood, he says. And then milk has an affinity for water. It mixes with water. And so the word mixes with baptism. The word somehow. The word somehow. The word somehow. The word somehow comes in and fills the space. Opened in this part of baptism. Honey is mixed with milk. So love is mixed with the word. So the word is the word. Wine, that is suffering, is mixed with milk. That is the word. He even gets to butter.

[52:33]

He keeps mixing this around. He pounds the butter. This is amazing. He just mentions cheese in passing. He doesn't stress. Where's the butter? Further, many also use the fat of milk for butter for the lamb. Now notice. Oil and the lamb. Oil and the lamb. Enlightenment and baptism. And we're still in the word. The function of the word. Since he alone it is who nourishes the infants, makes them grow and enlightens them, who feeds them and enlightens them. The oil. He fed them. He sucked honey from the rock and oil from the solid rock. Butter of thine and milk of she. And then he, Christ, ate the same. The birth of the child.

[53:35]

He that prophesies the birth of the child says, butter and honey shall I eat. So he took a wheat. And then he takes it out to Damascus. And ends up back at St. Paul. I'll follow after if I may. I have to head back to China. Philippians 3. And yet he reckons himself perfect because he has been emancipated from his former life and strives after the better life. Not as perfect in knowledge, but as aspiring after perfection. Perfection as oppressed as a tendency. Perfection as the renunciation of sin and regeneration into the faith of the only perfect one and forgetting our former sins. So that's his conclusive definition. Later on in chapter 11, there's mustard. He talks about the word as being the mustard seed and he says that honey generates bile

[54:36]

which is anger. But mustard lessens bile and anger and stops inflammation. Now we get to chapter 7 where, once again, it seems like a repetition of an earlier chapter. He's speaking about who the instructor is. Before he said the instructor is the word, but now he seems to speak more of the word incarnate. That is, the instructor is Jesus, who is also the shepherd. That seems to be discussed here. And Jesus is the guide of all humanity. Now, here's something that sometimes you slip over without noticing. He's saying that Jesus was the guide of the Jews in the Old Testament. Abraham, and Jacob, and so on. And he extends that to say that Jesus, the word, is the guide of all humanity. Now notice that translation. Because often we consider that revelation of the Old Testament as being a singular thing.

[55:37]

And theologically, of course, we always do. That's the special revelation of God from Abraham on. But here, he's extending that in some way, that influence of the word, and therefore of Christ, to all humanity. And this seems to have been sort of in the back of his mind when he was writing for it. I'd say that's a common historical mentality of the time. Which has an importance for us today. It doesn't eliminate the specialness of the revelation, but it extends the power of the word. Well, not that. The fact that the way that when Clement says that he led, he guided the men of the Old Testament, then he will say, thus he is the guide of all humanity. Now see, today we would distinguish the Jews who had the special revelation of the word from all of humanity. You know, east and west and everywhere outside of the Jewish revelation.

[56:38]

But he's putting the two together. Making that extension. So the other way in which that comes up is when he talks about the Greeks, for instance, and then somehow they tune the logos. But then he can be kind of, he gets kind of, what do you call it, stingy about it at times and he'll say, well how do you know that that's from Moses? Like Plato and from Moses, how do you know that that's from Ephesians? But here he's kind of, you know, he doesn't take time to do it. So, here's the instructor of Abraham. This is very reminiscent of the Old Testament. The men of the Old Testament walked with the word. He was their instructor. So it is with Abraham, so it is that the word, Christ is the one who wrestled with Jacob.

[57:40]

This is a nice passage here. 2.23, right hand and then we'll go on the next page. He is said too to have wrestled with him. And Jacob was left alone and there wrestled with him a man, the instructor to the one who was teaching him. This was the man who led and brought and wrestled with and anointed the athlete Jacob against evil. There's a whole sequence. Now that the word was at once Jacob's trainer and the instructor of humanity, he asked his name, tell me your name. He wouldn't answer him for he reserved a new name for the new people for they the child that was to be born and was as yet one name the Lord God not having become name yet. Now what is the name? What does he mean by the name? Does he mean the name of Jesus? Does it mean that Jesus the word is the name of God? He moves here into the theology, the biblical theology of the name of God

[58:41]

and then the idea of the face of God. It's implicit in some way. The word incarnate fills both of those places. Jacob called the name of the place the face of God. He's playing on words. For I have seen, he says, God face to face and my life is preserved. The face of God is the word of whom God is manifest. He saw the word. Now that's straight away nice that the face of God is the word. The word is the manifest of God and the father is the unmanifest. Then also was he named Israel because he saw God the Lord. As the instructor of the new people not by Moses but face to face. So we don't have time to detail what's there. And then there follows some other dry chapters which we can skip through.

[59:43]

I don't know if you had that one in your notes. No, excuse me. So the next few chapters are about chapters 8, 9, 10. An answer to those who refuse to consider justice good. It sounds mysterious but I think it's an anti-Gnostic thing. Chapter 9 goes through a whole rhetorical catalogue of different ways of approaching and approving for the sake of education. And 10 similarly the two modes of threat and of encouragement is by the way. Then we get to chapter 11 and we wanted to do something in the last few chapters and I guess we'll have to get to this one. Chapter 11 I would only point out the mustard seed. That's on page 234.

[60:46]

The mode of his love and his instruction is shown to be. Therefore he himself declaring himself very good at the likeness of God He mentioned himself to a grain of mustard seed and pointed out the spirituality of the word Productiveness of its nature The power of the seed Magnificence and conspicuousness of the power of the word But something else also The pungency and the purifying virtue of the punishment of profit. That's in the word too. After talking in these two long chapters on the threat and then on the persuasive encouragement of the word He sums it up in one of his books Especially in his book The pungency and the purifying virtue of the punishment Is that so much of Orson's idea of every punishment is always part of a larger educational process while the punishment in scripture usually has a personality Yeah I think so

[62:06]

It sounds like Irenaeus too Irenaeus always positive look at God's pedagogy you know But maybe he is getting something from the Greek or something from the side of Greek philosophy It seems there has to be a good deal Maybe I'm going to start I just worry that Clement might be a lot of it might start with Clement I don't know Origin and Clement really overlap in the contemporary They don't know if one is really Here we have our onion by a small musical From which word springs the true health of the soul? Ok And then we go on to chapter 12 And a little summary which sounds very much like Irenaeus Remember the

[63:09]

antinostic thing is still in the background What he teaches is not very formidable nor is it altogether easy The view I take is that he himself formed man of the dust and regenerated him by water and made him go by his spirit and famed him by his word for adoption and salvation Now remember there is a passage in Irenaeus towards the end of book 4 of this against the Pharisees where he sums up that whole image of God forming a human person gradually and the whole of history of man forming That's Irenaeus Clement changes it a little bit You notice that he introduces water into the creation of man That's not in the account of Genesis Although it's kind of implicit That spring that sprang up from water Transforming earth-born man into a holy and heavenly being by his admire I think Irenaeus would take more earth along He wouldn't comply with this

[64:11]

The earthliness was left behind It talks a lot about humility Let us make man in our own image and likeness and in truth Christ became the perfect realization of the gospel The rest of Irenaeus would seem to conclude merely his image And then, this is very much like Irenaeus Let us listen to the word and take on the impress of the truly saving life of our savior Let me read a little bit of that passage of Irenaeus This is in book 4, chapter 39 right towards the end of book 4 Offer to him your heart Let's see Await the hand of your maker which creates everything in a new time Your creation is being carried out Offer to him your heart in a soft and tractable state And preserve the form in which the creator has fashioned you Having moisture in yourself Thus by becoming hardened you lose the impression of his fingers Fulfill the father's will

[65:12]

Listen to the word Take on the impress of the truly saving life of our savior Notice that the hands, the fingers of God have disappeared Let us anoint ourselves with the perennial immortal bloom of gladness We ask if that's the Holy Spirit I don't know It probably refers to Psalm 44 The oil of gladness That depends on it And then Okay, let's go on We'll certainly finish next time And meanwhile I'll try to get some pages from the stromata for you And there I think we'll concentrate on the Gnostic and on Gnosis of the stromata We'll have to narrow down our focus very much and just treat one or two books of the stromata Any questions?

[66:05]

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