H 5 Clement of Alexandria Jatfjcrs for e a myth. It is, however, a fact, that Alexander dealt very leniently with the Jews, to whom he granted their ancient privileges and liberties. And when a few months afterwards he founded his cjty of Alexandria in Egypt, he gave the Jewish settlers the preference. For a long period tfhe Jewish colony in Egypt had rest, and multiplied ; and as usual grew very rich, and lent large sums of money at interest to the uncircum- C 34 CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA cised. They were governed by one of their own princes, called the Alabarch, and by a Sanhedrim, and occupied two of the five districts (Nomi) of the city. Moreover, Ptolemy Philadelphia conferred additional advantages upon the flourishing house of Israel. Nor were they long without a temple. For during the dark days when Antiochus the Syrian was working off his rage on the country of Judea, and seeking by every indignity, pollution, and oppression, to destroy the Jewish Law and Worship, we read that Onias, the son of the high-priest, escaped to Egypt, and there obtained the permission of Ptolemy Philometer to erect a temple in the Heliopolitan nome, after the same pattern as the Temple of Jerusalem, and to con- secrate Levites and priests to its service. It is said that Onias quoted the following prediction of Isaiah (xix. 1 8, 19) to Ptolemy as a plea for the building of this temple " In that day shall five cities in the land of Egypt speak the language of Canaan, and swear to the Lord of hosts ; one shall be called, The city of Heres.l In that day shall there be an altar to the Lord in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar at the border thereof to the Lord." This temple of Heliopolis, built by Onias, though somewhat smaller, was similar in design to the ancient fane in Jerusalem. It stood t on a foundation 60 feet high, but instead of the massive golden candle- 1 The city of Heres = the city of the Sun (Heliopolis). CLEMENT AND THE JEWS 35 stick, a golden lamp was suspended by a golden chain from the vaulted roof; it was also adorned with votive gifts. This temple remained standing until the time of Vespasian, who ordered it to be demolished in consequence of a tumult raised by the Jews in Egypt. Moreover, the Jews had a celebrated synagogue in Alexandria, which was built on a magnificent scale, and in which seventy golden chairs, studded with gems, were placed for the Sanhedrim. This edifice was burnt down in the time of Trajan. Needless to say, the Jews in Egypt soon forgot their ancient tongue, and the recension of their scriptures by Ezra. They found it more convenient to have a translation in the Greek language. This translation the origin of which is wrapt in mystery is called the Septuagint version, from the tradition (now uni- versally rejected) of Aristeas, who stated that it was made in seventy-two days by seventy learned Jews. These, the story goes, were sent by Eleazar the high- pries^t to Ptolemy Philadelphus, who was then engaged in founding his magnificent library at Alexandria (283 B.C.). On their arrival, the Egyptian monarch, with a view to test their inspiration, shut them up by pairs in cells, and on the completion of the translations, which agreed verbatim with one Another, is said by Josephus to have given the translators half a million sterling for their worlc. Clement, following Irenseus (L. 3, c. 25), gives 36 CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA the same account of the origin of the Septuagint version of the Old Testament. In the Stromateis (i. xxii.) he writes : " They say that the Scriptures both of the law and of the prophets were translated from the Hebrew into the Greek language in the reign of Ptolemy, the son of Lagos, or according to others in that of Ptolemy Philadelphus, and that Demetrius Phalereus displayed the greatest zeal and accuracy in superintending this work." He then proceeds to relate the story we have just told, which he firmly believed, regarding such an origin as the result of a special intervention of Provi- dence on behalf of the Greeks. "For it need not occasion wonder," he says, "that the God who inspired the prophecy should inspire the translation. For when the Scriptures had been lost in the captivity of Nabuchodonosor, Esdras (Ezra) the Levite and priest under divine inspiration restored them in the reign of Artaxerxes." Clement then quotes from the work of Aristobulus, addressed to Philometor, in order to show that Plato was versed in the Jewish law. The passage runs to the effect that even before the time of Demetrius, previous to the time of the Persians and of Alexander, the account of the Exodus from Egypt and the Jewish code of laws had'been translated into Greek, so that they were well known both to Pythagoras and to Plato, "the Atticizing Moses, as Noumenius the Pythagorean philosopher styled him. CLEMENT AND THE JEWS 37 This story, however, although attested by such an authority as Clement, is evidently an invention. The translation was originally made for the use of the Alexandrian Jews, and was the work of various authors, who, to judge from the introduction of Coptic words, were natives of Egypt. Dr. Edersheim suggests (History of Jewish Nation, p. 425) that both the Samaritan and the Septuagint translations of the Pentateuch are based on an old Aramaean Targum or Paraphrase. He cites several passages in the LXX. version, which can only be understood with the help of the Hagada, the apo- cryphal Prophets, and the Halacah, the apocryphal Pentateuch. For example, he takes the translation of the book of Joshua, and shows that the Greek of chapter xiii. 22 ;al roy BaXaoyi TOV TOV Btijp TOV pdvnv a.irtKTtirav iv TT) pony (in the/rt//) can only be understood in the light of the Hagadic story, that Balaam had by magic flown into the air, but that Phinehas threw him to the ground and killed him in the fall. And the remark- able addition in the Septuagint version to Joshua xxiv. 30 "There they placed with him on the tomb, in which they buried him there, the stone knives with which he had the children of israel circumcised in Galilee, when he led them out of Egypt, as the Lord had appointed^hem " is also due to the same source of legend the Jewish Hagada. These passages prove that this Greek translation 38 CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA was made under the combined influences of the Jewish Targums, ancient paraphrases of the text, and the Talmud, the collection of oral traditions and interpretations on the law, and were only committed to writing in the second century after Christ, but existed for centuries before in the memory of indi- viduals. Be this as it may, the translation shows abundant traces of mistakes, corrections, additions, and omissions. Though it was, at first, intended only for the Egyptian, it came to be used very largely by the Palestinian, Jews ; and came to be regarded as a work of the highest authority until that sacred race, unable to answer the arguments which the Christians based upon it, disowned it, and made use of a very literal version by Aquila, especially written from the national standpoint, about 160 A.D. A well-known version of this work, which had gradually become full of errors by reason of the inaccuracy of transcribers, was undertaken by Origen in the beginning of the third century. This great scholar of Alexandria spent twenty-eight years in collating the Greek text with the original Hebrew, and three other Greek translations, the literal rendering of Aquif'a, the moderate one of Theodotion, and the free one of Symmachus, Ebionite Jews. This recension is variously termed the Tetrapla (which contains the four Greek versions of Aquila, Symmachus, the Septuagint, and Theodotion), and the CLEMENT AND THE JEWS 39 Hexapla (which contains two additional columns, the Hebrew text in its original characters, and also in Greek characters). Origen marked all the changes he made in the text very carefully. A long time after his death, Eusebius and Pamphilus found this great work in an obscure place in the city of Tyre, and removed it to the library of Pamphilus the martyr, where Jerome saw it a hundred years later. IMS supposed to have perished in the sack of the city by the Arabs, A.D. 653. There were three further recensions of the Septua- gint, one by Eusebius from the Hexaplar text of Origen, one revision of the common Greek text by Lucian, and another by Hesychius. Upon these three recensions all MSS. and printed editions of the Septuagint now in use are based. This much will suffice to show the important posi- tion of the great Jewish colony in Alexandria (in the world of letters as well as in worldly riches), and to prepare us for the great problem its noblest sons endeavoured to solve the reconciliation of Greek philosophy and Jewish tradition. CHAPTER VI CLEMENT AND PHILO'S PHILOSOPHICAL PROBLEM IN order to understand the position and influence of an Alexandrian Jew, let us take the case of Philo (who was already advanced in years, A.D. 40), when he undertook an embassy to Caligula on behalf of the Jews. He was a man of wealth, position, and learning, and the brother of the Alabarch Alexander, who lent fabulous sums of money to Agrippa. Brought up from his infancy to believe in the divine source of every letter of the Septuagint version of the Old Testament, made by the Jews of Alexandria, and in after years becoming a firm adherent of the Platonic philosophy, he found it hard to reconcile his reason and his faith. He instinctively held to the Scriptures, while his reason assented to the philosophy. To deliver himsejf from this dilemma, he set himself to seek for universal principles of thought in the Old Testament. Needless to say, he* did not find them. And this failure was due in a large measure to his uncritical method* of study. For he did not adhere 40 PHILO'S PHILOSOPHICAL PROBLEM 41 to the recognized rules of interpretation, and paid no heed whatever to the grammar, history, logical de- velopment, textual and comparative criticism of the works he studied. Having failed, then, to find the principles of Greek philosophy in the Pentateuch of Moses, he arrived at the extraordinary conclusion that everything in Scripture was allegorical ; that nothing was to be literally interpreted, but that the most abstruse and, far-fetched meaning was the most probable. Thus the letter of the text was spirited away by Philo, while the so-called spirit was retained. In this way Philo thought he would be able to find his Greek universals in the law of Moses, and so to defend the sacred literature of his countrymen from the sneers of heathen moralists and the jeers of Pagan sceptics. While, on the other hand, he fondly hoped to satisfy the narrow-minded literalism of the Pharisees, who worshipped the letter, but disregarded the spirit of the law. IShe succeeded in doing this, he would achieve the darling project of his heart the reconciliation of Greek philosophy and Jewish tradition. But, of course, consistently with the Greek theories he incorporated in his system, Philo^could not conceive the Deity as having any sensible or human quality or feeling. He identified Him with the Absolute Being, undefinable and supreme, Who manifests Himself to the mind that soars upwards, disengaging itself from 42 CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA everything sensible, and so attains to an intellectual intuition of Him. Such a one loves the Supreme Being for His own sake, and longs to do His will because he apprehends Him not as man but as God. There are others, Philo writes, who know God only after the analogy of man, and attribute to Him feelings of anger, etc. These have to be trained to virtue by the hope of reward or fear of punishment, whereas the members of the former class apprehend God im- mediately rising to an intellectual insight of His Being, and so are actuated by love ; while they who form the second class know God only indirectly through the medium of His Creation and His revealed word, and so are sons of the word rather than of the true Being. Thus Philo held that there was an inner and an outer circle of believers, and introduced the Pagan distinction of esoteric and exoteric into that religion which is for all alike, the millionaire and the beggar, the peasant and the peer, the ignorant and the learned. This spiritualistic conception of God was directly opposed to the materialistic view the Alexandrian Jews, in general, had of their Jahveh. One extreme had led to the other; and in this case, the mean, as ever,, is right. For the objective qualities of the Heavenly Father, which were dimly revealed to the Old Testament saints, but in these latter days more fully revealed in the person of His Only-Begotten Son, cannot be PHILO'S PHILOSOPHICAL PROBLEM 43 explained away in this manner. And, after all, the religion of Philo and his school was but an intellectual interpretation of Judaism, with all the features of a spiritualized worship, asceticism, contemplation, rapture, and isolation. Intimately connected with this new departure of Judaism, which presented many attractions to the philosophical, however distasteful it may have been to the Conservative, Jew, was the sect of the Therapeutae, which some identify with the older Essenes, but which is, perhaps with more reason, to be regarded as a practical exposition of the contemplative life, solemnly advocated by many of the Jews in Egypt, the land of the mystic and the anchorite. These Therapeutaa were the Contemplatists. They lived, like the later anchorites, in cells by the Lake Mareotis. To this place, from all quarters men and women had come, leaving their households and breaking with all their natural ties, in order to meditate together upon the Being of God, and to study the law according to the new allegorical method. They used to fast for three days out of the seven, and every Sabbath-day met together to hold a solemn convocation and to partake of a simple meal. Such was the soil in which Gnosticism naturally took root. For when, influenced by the new doctrine, the members of this sect professed Christianity, as a general rule, they understood it only after an unreal 44 CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA manner, and imagined that their intellectual know- ledge of God was sufficient to atone for all their sin. It was essentially the mystical nature of the rising religion which commended it to them, and so the truth, when they did embrace it, became in their hands imbued with such extraneous elements as theosophy, angel worship, legal righteousness, the prerogatives of high descent, and the mystery of numbers. We must bear in mind that there was a certain class of Jews always hostile to Christianity the proselytes of righteousness who had been circumcised, and who conformed to the stern ritual of Moses in the strictest way. Of these Justin Martyr wrote " They do not only not believe, but, twice as much as the heathen, blas- pheme the name of Christ." Whereas the proselytes of the Gate, who simply pledged themselves to abstain from the worship of idols and pagan excesses, and to adore the one God, found an especial attraction in the new Gospel, which threw a fuller light upon the nature and work of God. Moreover, Philo had prepared the way for the doctrine of the Incarnation and Redemption by his idea of a mediating divine Word which he, however, regarded as a manifestation of a person rather than as a personal manifestation through which, according to him, the world was connected witfc God. It is very instructive, indeed, to compare this imperfect Logos-theory of Philo with the true theory PHILO'S PHILOSOPHICAL PROBLEM 45 of "the Word become flesh " in the Gospel of St. John. The Logos of St. John is real, present, and sub- stantial, while the word of Philo is shadowy, distant, and indistinct. The Alexandrian philosopher indeed spoke of the Word as the First-born Son, but on the subject of His Personality he is altogether silent or vague. According to Dorner and Dollinger he did not speak of this Word (Logos) as if He were a distinct Person ; while Dr. Jowett declared that Philo had not made up his own mind on the subject, for at one time he treated his Word as personal, and at another as impersonal. In this controversy we must bear in mind that the word " person " is applied to God in a different sense from that in which it is applied to man. And yet there is bound to be one element at least in common between the personality of God and the personality of man, and that is self-consciousness. The argument therefore turns on this, whether or no the Word (Logos) of Philo was regarded by him as a self-cpnscious Being, aware of His distinctness and individuality as the Word of St. John manifestly was. The Word of Philo, as has been said already, is a mediating Word, through which God the Abstract, the Intangible One, deals with men and'manifests Himself in the world. But ir^ another passage he spoke of this Word as the "Shadow of God, by which, as an instru- ment, he used to make the worlds," that is, a shadowy 46 CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA instrument, which can be nothing more than a mani- festation of God. The Word, Philo goes on to say, fills all things, is the "bond " of creation, is the " Eldest Son " and the "Archangel." He is the "spiritual food of man," and the "Intercessor" by whose mediating words the Creator is brought into touch with His Creation. Yet we can hardly believe that Philo is speaking here of anything more than a certain attribute of God, as, for example, His wisdom made incarnate in the world. If we take another definition of this Word, " The word of God is the Idea of Ideas," we have a reminiscence, or rather a reproduction of the Platonic theory of the Intelligence (nous). The " Intelligence " is the centre of causality, the agent of creation in the system of the Greek, while the Word (Logos) is the centre of causality, the agent of creation in the system of the Jew. But the Nous, 1 " the Royal Mind," in the philosophy of Plato is merely a principle of Intelligence in the nature of the Supreme God, ?nd is not therefore a self-conscious personality. Now the 1 Plato, Philebus, 30, C.D. " In the nature of Zeus (the living organism of the Cosmos) you will say that there is a royal psyche^ but that a royal mind evinces itself on account of the power of the cause " OVKOVV ei> TT\ rov Aibs epets v dyye'Xwv), but Christians were instructed by the ministry of the Son. Acting on this principle, he lectured his junior classes on the Greek Philosophy. The lecturer thus describes his method of teaching : " As plowmen cast the seed into the ground only after watering it, so we take out of the writings of the Grecians wherewith to water what is. earthly in those we instruct, to prepare them for the seed of the Gospel. The light of nature is presupposed by the light of the Gospel. Christ and his Apostles did not undertake to give a new system of philosophy, which would show up every error by contrast. They took for granted that we were already supplied with several principles of thought upon which we could reason." The Stromateis is his most ambitious work. It . is, as the name suggests, a compilation of principal miscellaneous notes, arranged without rftethod which 1 " or taste, as the author himself tells us. For Christian ^ e a ptly compared it with " a thickly planted and Greek mountain where fruit and other trees are phyare" grouped, in a confused way together, so as to blended, baffle the plunderer ; whereas the careful gardener would be able to find out and arrange in their natural orders such as were wholesome for the palate or adapted for ornamentation." EDUCATION AND PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES 59 " For it is thus, that the mysteries of the Christian faith, veiled from impertinent and ignorant curiosity in this work (which was especially written for those who had already been initiated in the faith), will only discover their rich treasures to the honest and diligent seeker of the Truth." The number of paradoxes, which bristle through the treatise, recall the aphorisms of the Stoics, which he knew so well. For example : " No one but a Christian is rich," seems indeed to be an echo of " The wise man alone is rich, and a king." The arguments and theories of Plato, whose works he had studied, are also inwoven in a wonderful manner with the principles of the Christian faith. Indeed Clement seemed to think that Plato's doctrine of the Trinity, which was afterwards very carefully reproduced in the Enneades of Plotinus, was identical with that of the Christian. Porphyry tells us that Plato taught that the divine essence extended itself to three hypostases, to wit, the Supreme Divinity or the Good*itself : then, the Creator ; and, thirdly, the Soul of the World. And Plotinus, in the century after Clement, wrote an elaborate treatise on the Trinity of Plato, consisting of the Being, the Spirit or the Reason of Being, and the Soul of the World, three principles essentially united but practically separate. Our author spoke *of the Divinity of our Lord as these Platonists spoke of " Reason." " The nature of the Son," according to him, "is the most perfect, 60 CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA the most holy." " He is that excellent nature which governs all things according: to the Father's Influence of Plato will, which rules the world well, which acts by an unexhausted and unwearied power, and peculiar which sees the most secret thoughts." More- opinions, over, Clement always endeavoured to eluci- date a Christian doctrine by a parallel from the Greek philosophers. He believed that the " fire," which is spoken of in the New Testament, was the same as that " fiery ordeal " which Plato imagined was finally destined to purge the sin from the soul. And when the pagan writers spoke of Hades and Tartarus, he held that they were speaking prophetically of Gehenna. A strange conception of the humanity of Christ is to be found in the writings of this teacher. Not considering, as he said, that his Lord was inferior to the heathen deities, who only required ambrosia, he believed that Jesus Christ needed no milk when He came into the world, and was not nourished by the meat of which He partook in condescension to humanity. In many respects Clement was decidedly the and in the child, of his age. He was not fettered by general mediae vaj doctrines of fatalism and necessity. of his The will is perfectly free, according to him. lought. \3ii by Clement, the blessed presbyter, a man of approved integrity, whom ye do know already, and shall know more intimately. By the providence of God he hath been with us, and hath much established and aug- mented the Church." .From this letter we learn thaL Clement was a wise administrator as well as a devout scholar. We also gather from it that he had already paid a visit to the HIS LIFE AND CHARACTER 67 Syrian capital, and that he was about to return there. For it would materially strengthen the hands of the new Bishop of Antioch to have by his side, when taking up his diocesan duties, a man of the weight and judgment of the Alexandrian Clement. It is said that after finishing his work in Antioch, the catechist returned to his school, and died in his native city, 222 A.D. This is practically all that we know of the life of one who lived in the light of the Word of life, and laboured modestly and with great success for the Church of Christ. His general temper may be inferred from the tone of his writings, which is at once mild and exalted, generous and strong. Indeed, it might be truly said of him, that the greatness of his heart was only sur- passed by the breadth of his mind. CHAPTER III THE MINOR WORKS OF CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA EUSEBIUS (If. E. vi. xiii) devotes a whole chapter to the writings of Clement. Of the Stromateis he tells us all the eight books are preserved, and bear this inscription, "Miscellaneous Gnostic notes by Titus Flavius Clement on the true philosophy." Rufinus translated the word Stromateis by opus varie contextum (Patchwork). Theodoret, in his book on the fables of the Heretics, tells us that Clement received the name of the Stromatist from this compilation. In the Stromateis we find not merely the flowers of Scripture, but a promiscuous collection of ever#.hing that has been well said by Greeks and barbarians. Moreover, Clement extends his historical investigation over a long period, confuting the false teaching of the heretics, and affording his readers abundant informa- tion on general topics. In the very first book he describes himself as one who ( has followed on the heels of the successors of the Apostles, and promises to write a commentary on the Book of Genesis. 68 MINOR WORKS OF CLEMENT 60 More will be said on the subject of the Stromateis in a following chapter. We shall also reserve for another occasion our remarks on the tract, Who is the Rich Man that is seeking Salvation 1 }, the Exhortation to the Gentiles (literally Greeks), and the three books of the Padagogite, and shall now tell all that we know about the Hypotyposeis, Outlines ; a name familiar to the student of philosophy as the title of the work of Sextus Empiricus on the system of Pyrrho. There were originally eight books of the Hypotyposeis, as Eusebius informs us. In these the author expressly mentions Pantaenus as his teacher, and quotes his expositions at length. " " The Outlines," Eusebius says, " consist more or less of abridged discourses on the canonical Scriptures, not omitting the disputed epistles, I mean that of Jude, and the other catholic epistles, as well as the Epistle of Barnabas and the so-called Apocalypse of Peter." The historian proceeds to retail some of the opinions of Clement, which he says were to be found in this work. First with reference to the Epistle to the Hebrews : this epistle, according to Eusebius, Clement said was from Paul, was written to the Hebrews in the Hebrew language, but Luke, with his usual zeal, interpreted it and brought out a Greek edition, somewhat similar in style to the Acts of the Apostles. Paul, however, did not com- mence with his usual form of address, " Paul 70 CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA apostle," and naturally enough, as Clement said : for when writing to the Hebrews, who had taken a prejudice against him and suspected him, he showed his wisdom in not offending them at the outset by mentioning his name. A little lower down Clement observes, " As the blessed presbyter used to say, since the Lord, the messenger of the Almighty, was sent to the Hebrews, Paul, by reason oi his modesty as one sent to the Gentiles, did not describe himself ' the Apostle of the Hebrews,' partly out of reverence for his Lord, and partly because it was a superfluous thing for him, an apostle and preacher to the Gentiles, to send a letter to the Hebrews as well." In this same work, Eusebius tells us that Clement gave an account of the order of the Gospels which he received from the presbyters before him. The genealogical portion, according to Clement, was written first. His remarks on the Gospel of St. Mark will be quoted in another chapter (c. viii.). Migne, in his Patrologia, has published some fragments of the Outlines of the Catholic Epistles. These consist of a Latin version of notes on separate verses of i Peter, Jude, and i and 2 John, most probably the work of Cassiodorus, who tells us (Inst. Div. Lift. 8) that Clement made some remarks on i Peter, i John, and James, which were often subtle, but sometimes so wild that (1 he had to modify them considerably when translating. This statement receives support from the fact that Photius though MINOR WORKS OF CLEMENT 71 we cannot trust him much condemned as impious most of the opinions expressed in these Outlines. There is a fragment of a work on Marriage in which this profound remark occurs : " A girl is not only ruined when deceived by man ; she is ruined when she is given in marriage before her time by her parents." Eusebius mentions the title of another book, the Ecclesiastical Canon, or a treatise against the Judaizers, which was dedicated to Alexander, bishop of Jeru- salem. All that we have left of it is a short passage, in which the transitory condition of Solomon's Temple is contrasted with the abiding nature of the true Temple, the Body of Christ. In the Sixth Book of the Stramateis (p. 803) he defines the Ecclesiastical Canon, which may have had some connection with this lost work, as " the harmony and . agreement of the law and the prophets with the covenant which was given at the appearance of our Lord." Antonius Melissa cites a fragment from Clement supposed to be a part of the Treatise on Scandal which Eusebius speaks of. "Never respect him," it runs, " who speaks evil of another to you ; but rather admonish him, saying, ' Cease, brother; daily I make more mistakes, and how can I blame him ? For so doing you will gain two, by one and the same salve, yourself and your neighbour. " Two very important fragments of the lost Treatise on the Passover have been preserved by Petavius. 72 CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA From these we learn that Clement did not look upon the Supper in the Upper Room as the Passover meal, but regarded it as that which was to take the place of and finally to supersede the Jewish Passover, being partaken of on the evening preceding the feast-day. " In former years," he says, " our Lord when keeping the Passover supped on the lamb that was sacrificed by the Jews. But now, when He pro- claimed Himself to be the Paschal Lamb of God, being led as a sheep to the slaughter, He taught His disciples the mystery of the type on the ijth day of Nisan, when they inquired of Him : ' Where wilt Thou that we prepare the Passover?' On this day the consecration of the unleavened bread and the preparation of the feast took place, and so John tells us that the disciples were prepared on that day by the washing of their feet. "And on the following day, the i4th Nisan, the Saviour suffered, being Himself the Passover, offered in sacrifice by the Jews. And on the i4th Msan, when the Lord suffered, early in the morning, the chief priests and scribes who led Him to Pilate would not enter the Prsetorium, lest they should be defiled, and prevented from eating the Passover that evening. " All the Scriptures agree in this point of chronology, and the Gospels are in harmony with them. The Resurrection is a further evidence : for He rose on the third day, which day fell on the first week of the MINOR WORKS OF CLEMENT 73 Harvest, on which the high-priest had to present the sheaf of first-fruits." There are some copious notes, supposed to be Clement's, on the Prodigal Son, among the works of Macarius Chrysocephalus. Antonius Melissa preserves these two important passages from the Treatise on the Soul: "The souls live freed from all unrest. Although separated from the body and yearning to be restored to it, they are borne immortal into the bosom of God; just as after rain the moisture of the earth, attracted by the rays of the sun, is drawn upwards towards it." And " All souls are immortal, even the souls of the impious ; but it were better for these latter that they were not everlasting. For being tortured by the endless punishment of the fire that is not quenched, they can not die nor end their existence." In the works of St Maximus we find this short passage of Clement's work on Providence : " There is substance in God. God is divine substance, ever- lasting and without beginning, incorporeal and unconfined, and the cause of all things. Substance is that which is everywhere existent. Nature is the reality of things or their substance : according to some it is the generation of the things which are brought into existence ; according to others it is the Providence of God infparting the fact and the manner of existence to the things that are created." There are some other works which have been 74 CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA ascribed to Clement, but without much authority. Of these, the Summaries of Theodotus contain a great many opinions concerning which we are un- certain whether Clement has put them forward to confute or confirm ; while the Selections from the Prophets consist of sundry reflections on Knowledge, Faith, and the Creation. We may bring this chapter to a close with a. few of Clement's aphorisms, which are as pointed as they are pregnant. Flattery is the bane of friendship. The majority are more attached to the possessions of their princes than to their persons. Moderate diet is a necessary good. God crowneth those who abstain from sin not from necessity but from settled purpose. It is not possible to be constant in virtue unless of freewill. He is not good who is compelled to be so. ... Goodness is a quality of the will. Lovers of sobriety avoid luxury as the ruin of btidy and mind. CHAPTER IV THE TRACT ON THE RICH MAN THE genuine character of this tract the Greek name of which is Tt's 6 o-wo//,evos TT\OV