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| Chapter VI.—The Name Children Does Not Imply Instruction in Elementary Principles.
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We have ample means of encountering those who are given
to carping. For we are not termed children and infants with reference
to the childish and contemptible character of our education, as those
who are inflated on account of knowledge have calumniously alleged.
Straightway, on our regeneration, we attained that perfection after
which we aspired. For we were illuminated, which is to know God. He
is not then imperfect who knows what is perfect. And do not reprehend
me when I profess to know God; for so it was deemed right to speak to
the Word, and He is free.1082
For at
the moment of the Lord’s baptism there sounded a voice from
heaven, as a testimony to the Beloved, “Thou art My beloved
Son, to-day have I begotten Thee.” Let us then ask the wise,
Is Christ, begotten to-day, already perfect, or—what were most
monstrous—imperfect? If the latter, there is some addition He
requires yet to make. But for Him to make any addition to His knowledge
is absurd, since He is God. For none can be superior to the Word,
or the teacher of the only Teacher. Will they not then own, though
reluctant, that the perfect Word born of the perfect Father was begotten
in perfection, according to œconomic fore-ordination? And if He
was perfect, why was He, the perfect one, baptized? It was necessary,
they say, to fulfil the profession that pertained to humanity. Most
excellent. Well, I assert, simultaneously with His baptism by John,
He becomes perfect? Manifestly. He did not then learn anything more
from him? Certainly not. But He is perfected by the washing—of
baptism—alone, and is sanctified by the descent of the Spirit? Such
is the case. The same also takes place in our case, whose exemplar Christ
became. Being baptized, we are illuminated; illuminated, we become sons;
being made sons, we are made perfect; being made perfect, we are made
immortal. “I,” says He, “have said that ye are gods, and
all sons of the Highest.”1083
This work is variously called grace,1084
and illumination, and perfection, and washing: washing, by which
we cleanse away our sins; grace, by which the penalties accruing to
transgressions are remitted; and illumination, by which that holy light
of salvation is beheld, that is, by which we see God clearly. Now we call
that perfect which wants nothing. For what is yet wanting to him who
knows God? For it were truly monstrous that that which is not complete
should be called a gift (or act) of God’s grace. Being perfect,
He consequently bestows perfect gifts. As at
His command all things were made, so on
His bare wishing to bestow grace, ensues the perfecting of His grace. For
the future of time is anticipated by the power of His volition.
Further release from evils is the beginning of
salvation. We then alone, who first have touched the confines of
life, are already perfect; and we already live who are separated
from death. Salvation, accordingly, is the following of Christ:
“For that which is in Him is life.1085
“Verily, verily, I say
unto you, He that heareth My words, and believeth on Him that sent Me,
hath eternal life, and cometh not into condemnation, but hath passed
from death to life.”1086
Thus believing alone, and regeneration, is
perfection in life; for God is never weak. For as His will is work,
and this1087
| 1087 viz., the result
of His will. | is named the world; so also His counsel is
the salvation of men, and this has been called the church. He knows,
therefore, whom He has called, and whom He has saved; and at one and
the same time He called and saved them. “For ye are,” says
the apostle, “taught of God.”1088
It is not then allowable to
think of what is taught by Him as imperfect; and what is learned from Him
is the eternal salvation of the eternal Saviour, to whom be thanks for
ever and ever. Amen. And he who is only regenerated—as the name
necessarily indicates—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; or rather, as those who try to remove a film
that is over the eyes, do not supply to them from without the light which
they do not possess, but removing the obstacle from the eyes, leave the
pupil free; thus also we who are baptized, having wiped off the sins which
obscure the light of the Divine Spirit, have the eye of the spirit free,
unimpeded, and full of light, by which alone we contemplate the Divine,
the Holy Spirit flowing down to us from above. This is the eternal
adjustment of the vision, which is able to see the eternal light, since
like loves like; and that which is holy, loves that from which holiness
proceeds, which has appropriately been termed light. “Once
ye were darkness, now are ye light in the Lord.”1089
Hence
I am of opinion man was called by the ancients φώς.1090
| 1090 φως, light; φώς, a
man. | But he has not yet received, say they, the perfect
gift. I also assent to this; but he is in the light, and the darkness
comprehendeth him not. There is nothing intermediate between light
and darkness. But the end is reserved till the resurrection of those
who believe; and it is not the reception of some other thing, but the
obtaining of the promise previously made. For we do not say that both take
place together at the same time—both the arrival at the end, and
the anticipation of that arrival. For eternity and time are not the same,
neither is the attempt and the final result; but both have reference to
the same thing, and one and the same person is concerned in both. Faith,
so to speak, is the attempt generated in time; the final result is the
attainment of the promise, secured for eternity. Now the Lord Himself has
most clearly revealed the equality of salvation, when He said: “For
this is the will of my Father, that every one that seeth the Son, and
believeth on Him, should have everlasting life; and I will raise him
up in the last day.”1091
As far as possible in this world, which is what
he means by the last day, and which is preserved till the time that
it shall end, we believe that we are made perfect. Wherefore He says,
“He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life.”1092
If, then,
those who have believed have life, what remains beyond the possession of
eternal life? Nothing is wanting to faith, as it is perfect and complete
in itself. If aught is wanting to it, it is not wholly perfect. But faith
is not lame in any respect; nor after our departure from this world
does it make us who have believed, and received without distinction
the earnest of future good, wait; but having in anticipation grasped
by faith that which is future, after the resurrection we receive it
as present, in order that that may be fulfilled which was spoken,
“Be it according to thy faith.”1093
And where faith is, there is
the promise; and the consummation of the promise is rest. So that in
illumination what we receive is knowledge, and the end of knowledge is
rest—the last thing conceived as the object of aspiration. As,
then, inexperience comes to an end by experience, and perplexity by
finding a clear outlet, so by illumination must darkness disappear. The
darkness is ignorance, through which we fall into sins, purblind as
to the truth. Knowledge, then, is the illumination we receive, which
makes ignorance disappear, and endows us with clear vision. Further,
the abandonment of what is bad is the adopting1094
| 1094 Migne’s text has ἀποκάλυψις.
The emendation ἀπόληψις
is preferable. | of what is better. For what ignorance has
bound ill, is by knowledge loosed well; those bonds are with all speed
slackened by human faith and divine grace, our transgressions being
taken away by one Pœonian1095
medicine, the baptism of the Word. We
are washed from all our sins, and are no longer entangled in evil. This
is the one grace of illumination,
that our characters are not the same
as before our washing. And since knowledge springs up with illumination,
shedding its beams around the mind, the moment we hear, we who were
untaught become disciples. Does this, I ask, take place on the advent
of this instruction? You cannot tell the time. For instruction leads to
faith, and faith with baptism is trained by the Holy Spirit. For that
faith is the one universal salvation of humanity, and that there is the
same equality before the righteous and loving God, and the same fellowship
between Him and all, the apostle most clearly showed, speaking to the
following effect: “Before faith came, we were kept under the law,
shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed, so that
the law became our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, that we might
be justified by faith; but after that faith is come, we are no longer
under a schoolmaster.”1096
| 1096
Gal. iii. 23–25. [Here the schoolmaster should be the
child-guide; for the law leads us to the Master, says Clement,
and we are no longer under the disciplinary guide, but “under the
Word, the master of our free choice.” The schoolmaster then is
the Word, and the law merely led us to his school.] | Do you
not hear that we are no longer under that law which was accompanied
with fear, but under the Word, the master of free choice? Then he
subjoined the utterance, clear of all partiality: “For ye are
all the children of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many as
were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor
Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female:
for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.”1097
There are not, then,
in the same Word some “illuminated (gnostics); and some animal
(or natural) men;” but all who have abandoned the desires of the
flesh are equal and spiritual before the Lord. And again he writes in
another place: “For by one spirit are we all baptized into one
body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether bond or free, and we have all
drunk of one cup.”1098
Nor were it absurd to employ the expressions
of those who call the reminiscence of better things the filtration
of the spirit, understanding by filtration the separation of what is
baser, that results from the reminiscence of what is better. There
follows of necessity, in him who has come to the recollection of what
is better, repentance for what is worse. Accordingly, they confess
that the spirit in repentance retraces its steps. In the same way,
therefore, we also, repenting of our sins, renouncing our iniquities,
purified by baptism, speed back to the eternal light, children to the
Father. Jesus therefore, rejoicing in the spirit, said: “I thank
Thee, O Father, God of heaven and earth, that Thou hast hid these things
from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them to babes;”1099
the Master
and Teacher applying the name babes to us, who are readier to embrace
salvation than the wise in the world, who, thinking themselves wise,
are inflated with pride. And He exclaims in exultation and exceeding
joy, as if lisping with the children, “Even so, Father; for
so it seemed good in Thy sight.”1100
Wherefore those things which
have been concealed from the wise and prudent of this present world have
been revealed to babes. Truly, then, are we the children of God, who
have put aside the old man, and stripped off the garment of wickedness,
and put on the immortality of Christ; that we may become a new, holy
people by regeneration, and may keep the man undefiled. And a babe,
as God’s little one,1101
| 1101
[Clement here considers all believers as babes, in the sense he
explains; but the tenderness towards children of the allusions
running through this chapter are not the less striking.] |
is cleansed from fornication and wickedness. With the greatest
clearness the blessed Paul has solved for us this question in his
First Epistle to the Corinthians, writing thus: “Brethren, be
not children in understanding; howbeit in malice be children, but in
understanding be men.”1102
And the expression, “When I was a child,
I thought as a child, I spake as a child,”1103
points out his mode of
life according to the law, according to which, thinking childish
things, he persecuted, and speaking childish things he blasphemed
the Word, not as having yet attained to the simplicity of childhood,
but as being in its folly; for the word νήπιον
has two meanings.1104
“When I became a man,” again Paul says, “I put away
childish things.”1105
It is not incomplete size of stature, nor a
definite measure of time, nor additional secret teachings in things that
are manly and more perfect, that the apostle, who himself professes to be
a preacher of childishness, alludes to when he sends it, as it were, into
banishment; but he applies the name “children” to those who
are under the law, who are terrified by fear as children are by bugbears;
and “men” to us who are obedient to the Word and masters of
ourselves, who have believed, and are saved by voluntary choice, and are
rationally, not irrationally, frightened by terror. Of this the apostle
himself shall testify, calling as he does the Jews heirs according to the
first covenant, and us heirs according to promise: “Now I say,
as long as the heir is a child, he differeth nothing from a servant,
though he be lord of all; but is under tutors and governors, till the
time appointed by the father. So also we, when we were children, were in
bondage under the rudiments of the world: but when the fulness of the time
was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to
redeem them that were under
the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons”1106
by Him. See how He has admitted those to be children who are under
fear and sins; but has conferred manhood on those who are under faith,
by calling them sons, in contradistinction from the children that are
under the law: “For thou art no more a servant,” he says,
“but a son; and if a son, then an heir through God.”1107
What,
then, is lacking to the son after inheritance? Wherefore the expression,
“When I was a child,” may be elegantly expounded thus: that
is, when I was a Jew (for he was a Hebrew by extraction) I thought as
a child, when I followed the law; but after becoming a man, I no longer
entertain the sentiments of a child, that is, of the law, but of a man,
that is, of Christ, whom alone the Scripture calls man, as we have said
before. “I put away childish things.” But the childhood
which is in Christ is maturity, as compared with the law. Having
reached this point, we must defend our childhood. And we have still to
explain what is said by the apostle: “I have fed you with milk (as
children in Christ), not with meat; for ye were not able, neither yet
are ye now able.”1108
For it does not appear to me that the expression
is to be taken in a Jewish sense; for I shall oppose to it also that
Scripture, “I will bring you into that good land which flows with
milk and honey.”1109
A very great difficulty arises in reference to
the comparison of these Scriptures, when we consider. For if the infancy
which is characterized by the milk is the beginning of faith in Christ,
then it is disparaged as childish and imperfect. How is the rest that
comes after the meat, the rest of the man who is perfect and endowed
with knowledge, again distinguished by infant milk? Does not this, as
explaining a parable, mean something like this, and is not the expression
to be read somewhat to the following effect: “I have fed you
with milk in Christ;” and after a slight stop, let us add,
“as children,” that by separating the words in reading we
may make out some such sense as this: I have instructed you in Christ
with simple, true, and natural nourishment,—namely, that which is
spiritual: for such is the nourishing substance of milk swelling out
from breasts of love. So that the whole matter may be conceived thus:
As nurses nourish new-born children on milk, so do I also by the Word,
the milk of Christ, instilling into you spiritual nutriment.
Thus, then, the milk which is perfect is perfect
nourishment, and brings to that consummation which cannot cease. Wherefore
also the same milk and honey were promised in the rest. Rightly,
therefore, the Lord again promises milk to the righteous, that the
Word may be clearly shown to be both, “the Alpha and Omega,
beginning and end;”1110
the Word being figuratively represented
as milk. Something like this Homer oracularly declares against his
will, when he calls righteous men milk-fed (γαλακτοφάγοι).1111
| 1111 [Iliad,
xiii. 6. S.] | So also may we take the Scripture: “And
I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto
carnal, even as unto babes in Christ;”1112
so that the carnal
may be understood as those recently instructed, and still babes in
Christ. For he called those who had already believed on the Holy Spirit
spiritual, and those newly instructed and not yet purified carnal;
whom with justice he calls still carnal, as minding equally with the
heathen the things of the flesh: “For whereas there is among
you envy and strife, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?”1113
“Wherefore also I have given you milk to drink,”
he says; meaning, I have instilled into you the knowledge which,
from instruction, nourishes up to life eternal. But the expression,
“I have given you to drink” (ἐπότισα),
is the symbol of perfect appropriation. For those who are full-grown are
said to drink, babes to suck. “For my blood,” says the Lord,
“is true drink.”1114
In saying, therefore, “I have given you
milk to drink,” has he not indicated the knowledge of the truth,
the perfect gladness in the Word, who is the milk? And what follows next,
“not meat, for ye were not able,” may indicate the clear
revelation in the future world, like food, face to face. “For
now we see as through a glass,” the same apostle says, “but
then face to face.”1115
Wherefore also he has added, “neither yet
are ye now able, for ye are still carnal,” minding the things of the
flesh,—desiring, loving, feeling jealousy, wrath, envy. “For
we are no more in the flesh,”1116
as some suppose. For with it
[they say], having the face which is like an angel’s, we shall
see the promise face to face. How then, if that is truly the promise
after our departure hence, say they that they know “what eye hath
not known, nor hath entered into the mind of man,” who have not
perceived by the Spirit, but received from instruction “what ear
hath not heard,”1117
or that ear alone which “was rapt up into
the third heaven?”1118
But it even then was commanded to preserve
it unspoken.
But if human wisdom, as it remains to understand,
is the glorying in knowledge, hear the law
of Scripture: “Let not the
wise man glory in his wisdom, and let not the mighty man glory in
his might; but let him that glorieth glory in the Lord.”1119
But we are God-taught, and glory in the name
of Christ. How then are we not to regard the apostle as attaching this
sense to the milk of the babes? And if we who preside over the Churches
are shepherds after the image of the good Shepherd, and you the sheep,
are we not to regard the Lord as preserving consistency in the use of
figurative speech, when He speaks also of the milk of the flock? And
to this meaning we may secondly accommodate the expression, “I
have given you milk to drink, and not given you food, for ye are not yet
able,” regarding the meat not as something different from the milk,
but the same in substance. For the very same Word is fluid and mild as
milk, or solid and compact as meat. And entertaining this view, we may
regard the proclamation of the Gospel, which is universally diffused,
as milk; and as meat, faith, which from instruction is compacted into
a foundation, which, being more substantial than hearing, is likened
to meat, and assimilates to the soul itself nourishment of this kind.
Elsewhere the Lord, in the Gospel according to John, brought this
out by symbols, when He said: “Eat ye my flesh, and drink
my blood;”1120
describing distinctly by metaphor the drinkable
properties of faith and the promise, by means of which the Church,
like a human being consisting of many members, is refreshed and grows,
is welded together and compacted of both,—of faith, which is the
body, and of hope, which is the soul; as also the Lord of flesh and
blood. For in reality the blood of faith is hope, in which faith is
held as by a vital principle. And when hope expires, it is as if blood
flowed forth; and the vitality of faith is destroyed. If, then, some
would oppose, saying that by milk is meant the first lessons—as
it were, the first food—and that by meat is meant those spiritual
cognitions to which they attain by raising themselves to knowledge, let
them understand that, in saying that meat is solid food, and the flesh
and blood of Jesus, they are brought by their own vainglorious wisdom to
the true simplicity. For the blood is found to be an original product in
man, and some have consequently ventured to call it the substance of the
soul. And this blood, transmuted by a natural process of assimilation in
the pregnancy of the mother, through the sympathy of parental affection,
effloresces and grows old, in order that there may be no fear for the
child. Blood, too, is the moister part of flesh, being a kind of liquid
flesh; and milk is the sweeter and finer part of blood. For whether it
be the blood supplied to the fœtus, and sent through the navel of
the mother, or whether it be the menses themselves shut out from their
proper passage, and by a natural diffusion, bidden by the all-nourishing
and creating God, proceed to the already swelling breasts, and by the
heat of the spirits transmuted, [whether it be the one or the other] that
is formed into food desirable for the babe, that which is changed is the
blood. For of all the members, the breasts have the most sympathy with the
womb. When there is parturition, the vessel by which blood was conveyed
to the fœtus is cut off: there is an obstruction of the flow, and
the blood receives an impulse towards the breasts; and on a considerable
rush taking place, they are distended, and change the blood to milk in a
manner analogous to the change of blood into pus in ulceration. Or if, on
the other hand, the blood from the veins in the vicinity of the breasts,
which have been opened in pregnancy, is poured into the natural hollows
of the breasts; and the spirit discharged from the neighbouring arteries
being mixed with it, the substance of the blood, still remaining pure, it
becomes white by being agitated like a wave; and by an interruption such
as this is changed by frothing it, like what takes place with the sea,
which at the assaults of the winds, the poets say, “spits forth
briny foam.” Yet still the essence is supplied by the blood.
In this way also the rivers, borne on with
rushing motion, and fretted by contact with the surrounding air,
murmur forth foam. The moisture in our mouth, too, is whitened
by the breath. What an absurdity1121
| 1121 The emendation ἀπολήρησις
is adopted instead of the reading in the text. | is it, then,
not to acknowledge that the blood is converted into that very bright and
white substance by the breath! The change it suffers is in quality,
not in essence. You will certainly find nothing else more nourishing,
or sweeter, or whiter than milk. In every respect, accordingly, it is
like spiritual nourishment, which is sweet through grace, nourishing as
life, bright as the day of Christ.
The blood of the Word has been also exhibited as milk.
Milk being thus provided in parturition, is supplied to the infant;
and the breasts, which till then looked straight towards the husband,
now bend down towards the child, being taught to furnish the substance
elaborated by nature in a way easily received for salutary nourishment.
For the breasts are not like fountains full of milk, flowing in ready
prepared; but, by effecting a change in the nutriment, form the milk in
themselves, and discharge it. And the nutriment suitable and wholesome
for the new-formed and new-born babe is elaborated by God, the nourisher
and the Father of all that are generated and regenerated,—as manna,
the celestial food of
angels, flowed down from heaven on the
ancient Hebrews. Even now, in fact, nurses call the first-poured drink
of milk by the same name as that food—manna. Further, pregnant
women, on becoming mothers, discharge milk. But the Lord Christ, the
fruit of the Virgin, did not pronounce the breasts of women blessed, nor
selected them to give nourishment; but when the kind and loving Father had
rained down the Word, Himself became spiritual nourishment to the good. O
mystic marvel! The universal Father is one, and one the universal Word;
and the Holy Spirit is one and the same everywhere, and one is the only
virgin mother. I love to call her the Church. This mother, when alone,
had not milk, because alone she was not a woman. But she is once virgin
and mother—pure as a virgin, loving as a mother. And calling her
children to her, she nurses them with holy milk, viz., with the Word for
childhood. Therefore she had not milk; for the milk was this child fair
and comely, the body of Christ, which nourishes by the Word the young
brood, which the Lord Himself brought forth in throes of the flesh, which
the Lord Himself swathed in His precious blood. O amazing birth! O holy
swaddling bands! The Word is all to the child, both father and mother and
tutor and nurse. “Eat ye my flesh,” He says, “and drink
my blood.”1122
Such is the suitable food which the Lord ministers, and
He offers His flesh and pours forth His blood, and nothing is wanting
for the children’s growth. O amazing mystery! We are enjoined
to cast off the old and carnal corruption, as also the old nutriment,
receiving in exchange another new regimen, that of Christ, receiving
Him if we can, to hide Him within; and that, enshrining the Saviour in
our souls, we may correct the affections of our flesh.
But you are not inclined to understand it thus, but
perchance more generally. Hear it also in the following way. The flesh
figuratively represents to us the Holy Spirit; for the flesh was created
by Him. The blood points out to us the Word, for as rich blood the Word
has been infused into life; and the union of both is the Lord, the food of
the babes—the Lord who is Spirit and Word. The food—that is,
the Lord Jesus—that is, the Word of God, the Spirit made flesh,
the heavenly flesh sanctified. The nutriment is the milk of the Father,
by which alone we infants are nourished. The Word Himself, then,
the beloved One, and our nourisher, hath shed His own blood for us,
to save humanity; and by Him, we, believing on God, flee to the Word,
“the care-soothing breast” of the Father. And He alone,
as is befitting, supplies us children with the milk of love, and those
only are truly blessed who suck this breast. Wherefore also Peter says:
“Laying therefore aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisy,
and envy, and evil speaking, as new-born babes, desire the milk of the
word, that ye may grow by it to salvation; if ye have tasted that the
Lord is Christ.”1123
And were one to concede to them
that the meat was something different from the milk, then how shall they
avoid being transfixed on their own spit, through want of consideration
of nature?1124
| 1124 [Clement here
argues from what was scientific in his day, introducing a curious, but
to us not very pertinent, episode.] | For in winter, when the
air is condensed, and prevents the escape of the heat enclosed within,
the food, transmuted and digested and changed into blood, passes into the
veins, and these, in the absence of exhalation, are greatly distended,
and exhibit strong pulsations; consequently also nurses are then fullest
of milk. And we have shown a little above, that on pregnancy blood passes
into milk by a change which does not affect its substance, just as in
old people yellow hair changes to grey. But again in summer, the body,
having its pores more open, affords greater facility for diaphoretic
action in the case of the food, and the milk is least abundant, since
neither is the blood full, nor is the whole nutriment retained. If,
then, the digestion of the food results in the production of blood, and
the blood becomes milk, then blood is a preparation for milk, as blood
is for a human beings, and the grape for the vine. With milk, then, the
Lord’s nutriment, we are nursed directly we are born; and as soon
as we are regenerated, we are honoured by receiving the good news of the
hope of rest, even the Jerusalem above, in which it is written that milk
and honey fall in showers, receiving through what is material the pledge
of the sacred food. “For meats are done away with,”1125
as the
apostle himself says; but this nourishment on milk leads to the heavens,
rearing up citizens of heaven, and members of the angelic choirs. And
since the Word is the gushing fountain of life, and has been called a
river of olive oil, Paul, using appropriate figurative language, and
calling Him milk, adds: “I have given you to drink;”1126
for
we drink in the word, the nutriment of the truth. In truth, also liquid
food is called drink; and the same thing may somehow be both meat and
drink, according to the different aspects in which it is considered,
just as cheese is the solidification of milk or milk solidified; for
I am not concerned here to make a nice selection of an expression,
only to say that one substance supplies both articles of food. Besides,
for children at the breast, milk alone suffices; it serves both for meat
and drink. “I,”
says the Lord, “have meat
to eat that ye know not of. My meat is to do the will of Him that
sent Me.”1127
You see another kind of food which, similarly
with milk, represents figuratively the will of God. Besides, also,
the completion of His own passion He called catachrestically “a
cup,”1128
when He alone had to drink and drain it. Thus to Christ
the fulfilling of His Father’s will was food; and to us infants, who
drink the milk of the word of the heavens, Christ Himself is food. Hence
seeking is called sucking; for to those babes that seek the Word, the
Father’s breasts of love supply milk.
Further, the Word declares Himself to be the bread
of heaven. “For Moses,” He says, “gave you not that
bread from heaven, but My Father giveth you the true bread from heaven.
For the bread of God is He that cometh down from heaven, and giveth
life to the world. And the bread which I will give is My flesh, which I
will give for the life of the world.”1129
Here is to be noted
the mystery of the bread, inasmuch as He speaks of it as flesh, and as
flesh, 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 Church, as bread baked. But this will be shown by and
by more clearly in the chapter on the resurrection. But since He said,
“And the bread which I will give is My flesh,” and since
flesh is moistened with blood, and blood is figuratively termed wine,
we are bidden to know that, as bread, crumbled into a mixture of wine
and water, seizes on the wine and leaves the watery portion, so also
the flesh of Christ, the bread of heaven absorbs the blood; that is,
those among men who are heavenly, nourishing them up to immortality,
and leaving only to destruction the lusts of the flesh.
Thus in many ways the Word is figuratively described,
as meat, and flesh, and food, and bread, and blood, and milk. The Lord
is all these, to give enjoyment to us who have believed on Him. Let no
one then think it strange, when we say that the Lord’s blood is
figuratively represented as milk. For is it not figuratively represented
as wine? “Who washes,” it is said, “His garment in wine,
His robe in the blood of the grape.”1130
In His own Spirit He says
He will deck the body of the Word; as certainly by His own Spirit He
will nourish those who hunger for the Word.
And that the blood is the Word, is testified
by the blood of Abel,1131
the righteous interceding with God. For
the blood would never have uttered a voice, had it not been regarded as
the Word: for the righteous man of old is the type of the new righteous
one; and the blood of old that interceded, intercedes in the place of
the new blood. And the blood that is the Word cries to God, since it
intimated that the Word was to suffer.
Further, this flesh, and the blood in it, are by
a mutual sympathy moistened and increased by the milk. And the process
of formation of the seed in conception ensues when it has mingled with
the pure residue of the menses, which remains. For the force that is in
the seed coagulating the substances of the blood, as the rennet curdles
milk, effects the essential part of the formative process. For a suitable
blending conduces to fruitfulness; but extremes are adverse, and tend
to sterility. For when the earth itself is flooded by excessive rain,
the seed is swept away, while in consequence of scarcity it is dried
up; but when the sap is viscous, it retains the seed, and makes it
germinate. Some also hold the hypothesis, that the seed of an animal is
in substance the foam of the blood, which being by the natural heat of
the male agitated and shaken out is turned into foam, and deposited in
the seminal veins. For Diogenes Apollionates will have it, that hence
is derived the word aphrodisia.1132
| 1132 [i.e., Not from the ἀφρὸς, of the
sea, but of the blood.] |
From all this it is therefore evident, that
the essential principle of the human body is blood. The contents
of the stomach, too, at first are milky, a coagulation of fluid;
then the same coagulated substance is changed into blood; but when
it is formed into a compact consistency in the womb, by the natural
and warm spirit by which the embryo is fashioned, it becomes a living
creature. Further also, the child after birth is nourished by the same
blood. For the flow of milk is the product of the blood; and the source
of nourishment is the milk; by which a woman is shown to have brought
forth a child, and to be truly a mother, by which also she receives a
potent charm of affection. Wherefore the Holy Spirit in the apostle,
using the voice of the Lord, says mystically, “I have given you
milk to drink.”1133
For if we have been regenerated unto Christ, He
who has regenerated us nourishes us with His own milk, the Word; for it
is proper that what has procreated should forthwith supply nourishment to
that which has been procreated. And as the regeneration was conformably
spiritual, so also was the nutriment of man spiritual. In all respects,
therefore, and in all things, we are brought into union with Christ,
into relationship through His blood, by which we are redeemed; and into
sympathy, in consequence of the nourishment which flows from
the Word; and into immortality, through His
guidance:—
“Among men the bringing up of children
Often produces stronger impulses to love than the procreating of them.”
The same blood and milk of
the Lord is therefore the symbol of the Lord’s passion and
teaching. Wherefore each of us babes is permitted to make our boast in
the Lord, while we proclaim:—
“Yet of a noble sire and noble
blood I boast me sprung.”1134
And that milk is produced from blood by a change,
is already clear; yet we may learn it from the flocks and herds. For
these animals, in the time of the year which we call spring, when the
air has more humidity, and the grass and meadows are juicy and moist,
are first filled with blood, as is shown by the distension of the
veins of the swollen vessels; and from the blood the milk flows more
copiously. But in summer again, the blood being burnt and dried up by
the heat, prevents the change, and so they have less milk.
Further, milk has a most natural affinity
for water, as assuredly the spiritual washing has for the spiritual
nutriment. Those, therefore, that swallow a little cold water, in addition
to the above-mentioned milk, straightway feel benefit; for the milk is
prevented from souring by its combination with water, not in consequence
of any antipathy between them, but in consequence of the water taking
kindly to the milk while it is undergoing digestion.
And such as is the union of the Word with baptism,
is the agreement of milk with water; for it receives it alone of all
liquids, and admits of mixture with water, for the purpose of cleansing,
as baptism for the remission of sins. And it is mixed naturally with
honey also, and this for cleansing along with sweet nutriment. For the
Word blended with love at once cures our passions and cleanses our sins;
and the saying,
“Sweeter than honey flowed the
stream of speech,”1135
seems to me to have been spoken of the Word,
who is honey. And prophecy oft extols Him “above honey and
the honeycomb.”1136
Furthermore, milk is mixed with sweet wine; and the
mixture is beneficial, as when suffering is mixed in the cup in order
to immortality. For the milk is curdled by the wine, and separated,
and whatever adulteration is in it is drained off. And in the same way,
the spiritual communion of faith with suffering man, drawing off as
serous matter the lusts of the flesh, commits man to eternity, along
with those who are divine, immortalizing him.
Further, many also use the fat of milk, called butter,
for the lamp, plainly indicating by this enigma the abundant unction
of the Word, since He alone it is who nourishes the infants, makes them
grow, and enlightens them. Wherefore also the Scripture says respecting
the Lord, “He fed them with the produce of the fields; they sucked
honey from the rock, and oil from the solid rock, butter of kine, and
milk of sheep, with fat of lambs;”1137
and what follows
He gave them. But he that prophesies the birth of the child says:
“Butter and honey shall He eat.”1138
And it occurs to me to
wonder how some dare call themselves perfect and gnostics, with ideas
of themselves above the apostle, inflated and boastful, when Paul even
owned respecting himself, “Not that I have already attained, or am
already perfect; but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for
which I am apprehended of Christ. Brethren, I count not myself to have
apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting the things which are
behind, and stretching forth to those that are before, I press toward
the mark, for the prize of the high calling in Christ Jesus.”1139
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. Wherefore also he adds,
“As many of us as are perfect, are thus minded,”1140
manifestly describing perfection as the renunciation of sin, and
regeneration into the faith of the only perfect One, and forgetting our
former sins.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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