EXPERIENCE OF CLEMENT. 25 thoughts, I visited the school of the philosophers, in order to attain some certain knowledge, and found there nothing but the building up and pulling down of systems, a confused strife of opinions. For example, sometimes the opinion triumphed, that the soul was immortal, at other times that it was mortal. In the first instance I rejoiced, in the second I was troubled, and at last nothing fixed remained in my soul. When I perceived that things did not appear as they really were, but as were represented by men, my mental confusion was worse than ever. I sighed from the depths of my soul, for I could gain nothing fixed, and yet I could not free myself from their speculations, although I wished, as I said before; for though I often imposed silence on myself, yet I knew not how it came to pass that such thoughts again found their way into my mind, and I felt pleasure in them. "Involved in fresh doubt, I asked myself why I troubled myself in vain, since the matter was clear. If after death I shall cease to be, I need not trouble myself about it while I live. I will rather defer my anxiety for that time when I shall cease to be, and therefore be unable to feel anxious. And then another thought intruded, for I said to myself,Perhaps I shall suffer then something worse than my present anxiety, in case I have not led a pious life, and if, according to the doctrine of some philosophers, I am delivered to eternal punishment!' I then rejoined,- But it is not so;' and then again I said,—But if it should be so?' Since, therefore, the matter is uncertain, it is the surest way for me to lead a pious life. And looking at an uncertain hope, how shall I be able, in order to will what is good, to conquer the sensual desires? Nor have I a confident conviction what is good and well-pleasing to God. I know not whether the soul be mortal or immortal; I can find no certain doctrine, and yet cannot rest satisfied with such thoughts. 66 What must I do now? I will travel into Egypt to make friends with the Hierophants and Prophets of the Mysteries; I will seek out a magician, and when I have found one, I will induce him by a large sum of money to raise a spirit for me, as if I wished to question him respecting some worldly matter; but my question shall relate to the immortality of the soul. I shall not wait for the answer of the spirit, but his look, his appearance, will be to me a 6 sufficient proof, and uncertain words cannot overthrow what I experience by actual eyesight. But when I stated my intention to a philosopher of my acquaintance, he suggested many reasons why I should not venture to execute it. For,' said he, if the spirit will not obey the call of the magician, you will live in constant terror for having broken the laws which forbid the practice of magic. But if the spirit complies with the call, then, along with distress of conscience, you will have no more satisfaction in the things of religion, having been so daring; for the Divinity must be displeased with those who disturb the souls of the departed.' 66 Having heard this, I was no longer desirous to make the experiment, but yet did not abandon my earlier resolution; I was only grieved to see myself prevented from carrying it into effect." In this state of seeking, wishing, doubting, and wavering, Clement found himself, when he heard of the Son of God appearing in Palestine, who promised eternal happiness to all who believed on him, and regulated their lives by his teaching, and confirmed his declarations by undoubted acts of divine power. And hence he became acquainted with the gospel, and found in it the rest he had sought for. In this representation of Clement's inner life, even if fictitious, we see the course of the inner life of many persons in that age; perhaps we may find in it a mirror for our own times. Thus Justin Martyr, after he had sought satisfaction in many philosophic systems, and last of all in the Platonic, which most strongly attracted him, was brought at last to Christianity. He says of himself, after he had become a Christian instead of a heathen philosopher: "I found first in Christianity the only certain and salutary philosophy. Gladly would I impart to all the same disposition which I now possess, not to forsake the instructions of the Saviour; for these instructions have in them something worthy of veneration, a power to shame those who have wandered from the right way, while they furnish the most delightful refreshment to those who practise them." (Dialog. c. Tryph. § 8.) Speaking from his own experience, he calls Christ the glorious rock from which living water flows into the hearts of those who through him love the Father of all, and which he gives DIONYSIUS, BISHOP OF ALEXANDRIA. 27 to those who desire to drink the water of life. Elsewhere he speaks of "the word of truth and of wisdom, burning and shining brighter than the sun, penetrating and shining into the depths of the heart and soul." Thus Dionysius, bishop of Alexandria in the third century, a man distinguished for pious zeal and philosophic knowledge, was brought to Christianity by the examination of various systems. The examination and trial of all things was, as he says, the way of faith for him. In the system of many Christian theosophists in the east (Gnostics), which had been formed from a combination of Christian ideas with existing oriental modes of thought, evident traces may be found that these eminent men had examined with an anxiety stretching beyond the bounds of humanity the mysterious fragments of religious systems that belonged to a venerable antiquity, until they were attracted by the surpassing splendour of the revelation of God in the gospel. And although they penetrated into Christianity only on that one side, according to which their whole intellectual life had been regulated, although they did not possess the self-denial to sacrifice or subordinate their former views and mental tendencies to the all-transforming creation which Christianity necessarily produces where it fully operates, yet we here see in a remarkable manner the mighty influence of Christianity on opposite tendencies of human nature; both on that giant (so to speak) mental tendency, striving upwards and despising as too narrow the common conceptions of human nature, wishing to penetrate far beyond into the depths of the hidden God, and on the other hand on that tendency cleaving to the earth, drawing down the heavenly to earth, and mingling it with the earthly; on both these opposite modes of speculation it was able to exert an overpowering and attractive force. CHAPTER II. THE INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY ON THE UNIVERSAL RELIGIOUS PRINCIPLE IN MAN. CHRISTIANITY in its operations connected itself with the existing consciousness of God, which it awoke from a dormant state, and released from its fetters, while it converted the dim apprehension of the existence of a hidden God into the clear and living consciousness of a God revealed in Christ. The idea of an originator and source of all existence, “in whom we live and move and have our being, whose offspring we are, and who is not far from any one of us;"—this idea is deeply founded in the intellectual and moral nature of man; but as long as it remains nothing more than an obscure sentiment in the back-ground of human consciousness, and does not pervade the whole life as a vital principle, and mould the whole life in conformity to it, it is absolutely barren, and by contact with the world which rules the consciousness of men, it is perpetually kept under, and degenerates into an idolatry of Nature. It was of no use that reflective men possessed the abstract knowledge of the highest Unity; this could not, as the ancient philosophers and lawgivers clearly perceived, be brought down to the popular mind, and infused into it as a practical principle of action. It was not by a traditionary abstract knowledge of God, but only by the life of every individual being brought into personal relation, not to a hidden deity dimly apprehended, but to a God made known in his living revelation, and immediately laying hold of human nature; only by such means could heathenism be completely vanquished. In the various and peculiar modes by which the converted heathens expressed the relation of that knowledge of God which filled and penetrated their whole souls to their former habits of thinking, we may again recognise the diversity of those tendencies and ways out of which they were brought to Christianity. To a question commonly put to Christians by heathens sunk in sensuality, "Who then is the God whom ye honour in secret without any visible cultus, without images, or temples, THEOPHILUS OF ANTIOCH. 66 29 or altars ?” Theophilus of Antioch replied: “ It is that Being whose breath animates all things; if he were to withdraw his breath, all would sink to nothing. Thou canst not speak without testifying of him; of him the breath of thy life testifies, and yet thou knowest him not. This ignorance is owing to the blindness of thy soul, the hardness of thy heart.* God is seen by those who are able to see him as soon as they have the eye of their souls open. All have eyes, but some eyes are darkened, and do not behold the light of the sun, and when the blind do not see, it does not follow that there is no sunshine the blind must accuse themselves and their own eyes. So also, oh man! the eyes of the soul are darkened by sin. Man must have a pure soul like a clear mirror. When sin is in man, like rust on a metal mirror, he cannot see God. But if thou art willing, thou canst be cured. Give thyself to the Physician, and he will open the eyes of thy soul and of thy heart. Who is the Physician? God who heals and makes alive by his words." Thus Theophilus points out to the heathen, that man by his estrangement from God, in consequence of his internal corruption, is prevented from understanding that revelation of God which is presented by the whole creation (Rom. i. 18, 20), and therefore he must first seek to be freed from this corruption in order that the image of a holy God may be reflected in a sanctified heart. He very properly refers to his own experience when he passed from heathenism to Christianity, and shows that the true knowledge of God is not to be communicated to men as something abstract, by certain ideas from without, but must proceed in a living manner by a regeneration of the inner life. Men, who before their conversion to Christianity, had * Βλέπεται γὰρ θεὸς τοῖς δυναμένοις αὐτὸν ορᾷν, ἐπὰν ἔχωσι τοὺς ὀφθαλμοῖς ἀνεωγμένους τῆς ψυχῆς. Πάντες μὲν γὰρ ἔχουσι τοὺς ὀφθαλμοῖς, ἀλλὰ ἔνιοι ὑποκεχυμένους, καὶ μὴ βλέποντας τὸ φῶς τοῦ ἡλίου· καὶ οὐ παρὰ τὸ μὴ βλέπειν τοὺς τυφλούς, ἤδη καὶ οὐκ ἔτι τὸ φῶς τοῦ ἡλίον φαἶνον· αλλα ἑαυτοὺς αἰτιάσθωσαν οἱ τυφλοὶ, καὶ τοὺς ἑαυτῶν ὀφθαλμοὺς. Οὕτω καὶ σὺ, ὦ ἄνθρωπε, ἔχεις ἀποκεχυμένους τοὺς ὀφθαλμοὺς τῆς ψυχῆς σου ὑπὸ τῶν ἁμαρτημάτων καὶ τῶν πράξεῶν σου τῶν πονηρῶν. Ὥσπερ ἔσοπτρον ἐστίλβωμένον, οὕτω δεῖ τον ἄνθρωπον ἔχειν καθαρὰν ψυχήν. Επὰν οὖν ἡ ἰὸς ἐν τῷ εσόπτρῳ, οὐ δύναται ὁρᾶσθαι τὸ πρόσωπον τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ἐν τῷ ἐσόπτρῳ. Οὕτω καὶ ὅταν ἡ ἁμαρτία εν τῷ ἀνθρώπῳ, οὐ δύναται ὁ τοιοῦτος ἄνθρωπο; θεωρεῖν τὸν θεόν.—Theoph. Antioch, ad Autolycum, 2 |