Clement of Alexandria · a new plain-English translation from the original language
Amphion the Theban and Arion of Methymna were both singers -- and both are legend, and this song of theirs is still sung by a chorus of Greeks -- who by the art of music, the one enticed a fish, the other walled Thebes. And another sophist, a Thracian (this too is a Greek legend), tamed the wild beasts by song alone, unaided, and even transplanted the trees, the oaks, by his music. I could also relate to you another legend and singer, a brother to these: Eunomus the Locrian and the Pythian cicada. A Greek festival was being held at Pytho over a dead serpent, Eunomus singing the funeral dirge of the reptile -- whether the song was a hymn or a lament for the snake I cannot say -- and it was a contest, and Eunomus was playing the cithara in the heat of summer, at the time when the cicadas were singing beneath the leaves on the mountains, warmed by the sun. And they were singing, it seems, not to the dead serpent, the Pythian one, but to the all-wise god, a self-taught song, better than the laws (nomoi) of Eunomus. A string breaks for the Locrian; the cicada flies onto the crossbar; it chirped as if perched on a branch, upon the instrument; and the singer, matching himself to the cicada's song, filled out the missing string. So it is not by the song of Eunomus that the cicada is led, as the legend would have it, in setting up a bronze statue at Pytho of Eunomus himself with his cithara, and of the Locrian's fellow contestant, the cicada; rather the cicada flies onto it of its own will and sings of its own will, and to the Greeks it seemed to have become an actor in the contest of music.
Why then have you believed empty legends, supposing that animals are charmed by music? But truth's bright face alone, it seems, appears to you to be counterfeit, and has fallen under the eyes of unbelief. And so Cithaeron and Helicon and the mountains of the Odrysians and of the Thracians, the initiation-grounds of error, have been deified and celebrated in hymns for the sake of the mysteries. For my part, even though these are only legends, I am indignant at so many calamities dramatized in tragedy; but for you the records of these evils have become dramas, and the actors of the dramas spectacles for your delight. But come -- the dramas, and the poets who rave like Bacchic revelers, already thoroughly drunk, let us crown them with ivy somewhere, madmen in their outlandish Bacchic rite, together with the satyrs themselves and the frenzied company, and with the rest of the chorus of demons besides -- let us shut them up on Helicon and Cithaeron, now grown old, and let us instead bring down from heaven above Truth, together with most radiant wisdom, to the holy mountain of God and to the holy prophetic choir. And let her, shining forth with the most far-reaching light possible, illumine on every side those rolling in darkness, and deliver mankind from error, reaching out her supreme right hand, understanding, unto salvation. But let those who lift up their heads and look upward abandon Helicon and Cithaeron, and dwell instead in Zion: "for from Zion the ordinance will issue, and from Jerusalem the utterance of the Lord" -- a heavenly word, the true contestant crowned upon the theater of the whole world. And my Eunomus sings not the strain of Terpander, nor that of Capion, nor indeed the Phrygian or Lydian or Dorian mode, but the eternal strain of the new harmony, the strain that bears the name of God, the new song, the Levitical song, "banishing grief and bile, and causing forgetfulness of all ills" -- a sweet and true medicine of sorrow is mixed into that song.
To me, then, that Thracian [Orpheus], and the Theban, and the man of Methymna, seem to have been -- men who were no men -- deceivers, who under the pretense of music ruined human life, possessed by some artful sorcery unto corruption, celebrating outrages as sacred rites, deifying griefs; the first to lead men by the hand to idols, yes, and indeed with stones and wood, that is, with statues and shadow-paintings, to build up the crookedness of custom, enslaving in the utmost bondage, by songs and incantations, that truly noble freedom of those who dwell beneath heaven.
But my singer is not of that sort, nor has he come to put an end, after a long delay, to the bitter slavery of the tyrant demons; rather, by leading us over into the gentle and kindly yoke of the fear of God, he calls back again to the heavens those who had been cast down to earth. He alone, indeed, of all who have ever lived, has tamed the most intractable of wild beasts -- human beings: the light-minded among them as birds, the deceitful as reptiles, the wrathful as lions, the pleasure-loving as swine, the rapacious as wolves. And the senseless are stones and wood; indeed, a man sunk in ignorance is more insensate than stones. Let the prophetic voice come forward as our witness, in harmony with truth, taking pity on those worn down by ignorance and folly: "For God has power, even from these very rocks, to bring forth offspring for Abraham." He who, having compassion on the great ignorance and hardness of heart of those who were petrified against the truth, raised up from those very stones -- the nations who had put their faith in stones -- a seed of piety, one that could perceive virtue. Again, then, he has somewhere called certain venomous and treacherous hypocrites, who go about wrapped in righteousness, "offspring of vipers"; but even of these serpents, if any should willingly repent, following indeed the Word, he turns into "a person belonging to God." And other men he allegorically calls "wolves" clothed in sheep's fleece, hinting at those who under human form are rapacious. And so all these most savage beasts, and such stones as these, the heavenly song itself has transformed into gentle men. "For we too were once foolish, disobedient, going astray, enslaved to pleasures and to various desires, passing our days in spite and jealousy, detestable and detesting each other," as the apostolic writing says; "but when the kindness and love for mankind of God our Savior appeared, not by works done in righteousness which we ourselves had done, but according to his own mercy he saved us." See how great is the power of this fresh song: from stones it has fashioned human beings, and from wild beasts likewise, human beings. And those who were otherwise dead, who had no share in the life that truly is, merely by becoming hearers of the song came back to life. Indeed it is this same song that has ordered the whole universe harmoniously, and has stretched the discord of the elements into an order of concord, so that the whole cosmos might become for it a harmony: the sea it let loose but forbade to encroach upon the land, while the land, conversely, which had been drifting, it made firm, and fixed it as a boundary for the sea; yes, and it tempered the impulse of fire with air, blending, as it were, the Dorian harmony with the Lydian; and it tamed the harsh coldness of air by interweaving it with fire, mingling harmoniously these lowest notes of the universe. And indeed the pure and undefiled song, the foundation of the universe and the harmony of all things, stretched from the middle to the extremities and from the outermost points to the middle, has attuned this whole universe -- not according to the Thracian music, the sort resembling Jubal's, but according to the ancestral will of God, which David emulated. And he who came from David, and existed before him, the Word of God, disdaining lyre and cithara, lifeless instruments, has tuned by the Holy Spirit this cosmos, and indeed also the small cosmos, man -- his soul and body together -- and makes music to God upon this instrument of many voices, and sings in accompaniment to the instrument, man. "For you are to me a cithara and a flute and a temple": a cithara for its harmony, a flute for its breath, a temple for the Word, that the one may resound, the other breathe, and the third contain the Lord. Indeed David the king, the harpist, whom we mentioned a little before, urged men on toward truth and turned them away from idols; far indeed was he from hymning the demons, since they were driven off by him with true music -- by which, when Saul was worked upon by them, merely by singing he healed him. The Lord fashioned man, a beautiful instrument, full of breath, after his own image; and indeed he himself is an all-harmonious instrument of God, melodious and holy, wisdom above the world, the heavenly Word.
So what is it that this instrument -- God's Word, our Lord -- together with the new song, is aiming to accomplish? Its purpose is that the eyes of blind persons be opened, that deaf ears be unstopped, and that those who stumble on their feet, or who have gone astray, be guided by the hand into righteousness; to display God to foolish men; to put an end to corruption; to conquer death; to reconcile disobedient sons to their father. The instrument of God is a lover of mankind. The Lord shows mercy, disciplines, exhorts, admonishes, saves, guards, and promises us, out of his abundance, as the wage of our learning, the kingdom of heaven -- enjoying from us this alone, that we are saved. For wickedness feeds upon the corruption of men, but truth, like the bee, doing harm to nothing that exists, delights only in the salvation of mankind. You have, then, the promise; you have his love for mankind: partake of the grace. And do not suppose that this song of salvation I bring is new the way a jar or a dwelling might be freshly made; for it "existed before the daystar," and "at the origin the Logos already was, and the Logos was present with God, and the Logos was divine"; deception is ancient, whereas truth shows itself as new. Whether, then, the legendary goats teach that the Phrygians are the oldest of peoples, or whether in turn the poets who record the Arcadians as older than the moon teach that they are, or whether again the Egyptians, who dream that this land of theirs was the first to bring forth both gods and men -- yet not one of these is older than this world; but we, before the foundation of the world, we who were destined to be in it, were born beforehand for God -- we are the rational creatures of God the Word, on whose account we are archaic, because "in the beginning was the Word." But whereas the Word was from above, a divine beginning of all things, both was and is; yet because he has now received the name which of old was consecrated and worthy of his power, Christ, he is called by me a new song. The Word, then, Christ, is the cause both of our existing long ago (since he dwelt in God) and of our existing well; and now this very Word has appeared to men, he alone being both, God and man, the cause to us of all good things; from whom, being taught to live well, we are sent forward into everlasting life. For as that God-inspired envoy of the Lord puts it, "the redeeming favor of God has been shown to every person, schooling us so that, rejecting impiety and the cravings of this world, we might live with self-control, justice, and devotion in the present era, looking ahead to that blessed expectation, the manifestation of the splendor belonging to our great God and Savior Jesus Christ." Here is the new song: the manifestation that has now shone forth among us of that Word who was in the beginning and who pre-existed; the pre-existing Savior has newly appeared; he who is has appeared, being he who truly is, because "the Logos was present alongside God," acting as teacher; he by whom all things have been made has appeared as Word, and having granted life in the beginning, together with forming us, as creator, he has taught us to live well by appearing as teacher, so that afterward, as God, he might supply us with living forever. And it was not now for the first time that he pitied us for our error, but from of old, from the beginning; yet now, when we were already perishing, he has appeared and saved us completely. For that wicked and serpentine beast, working by sorcery, still even now enslaves and torments men, taking vengeance on them, as it seems to me, after the barbarous fashion of those who are said to bind their captives to dead bodies until they rot away together with them. This wicked tyrant and dragon, then -- whomever he is able to appropriate from birth -- having bound them fast to stones and wood and statues and idols of that sort, by the wretched bond of superstition, has, as the saying goes, buried them alive by bringing this upon them, until they too are corrupted together with these things. For this reason (for it is one and the same deceiver who from of old brought Eve, and now also brings the rest of mankind, down to death) it is one and the same helper and ally to us, the Lord, foretelling from the beginning by the prophets, and now already openly calling us to salvation. Let us flee, then, obedient to the apostolic command, "the ruler of the authority of the air, the spirit that now works in the sons of disobedience," and let us run to the Savior, the Lord, who both now and always has urged us toward salvation -- through wonders and signs in Egypt, and in the desert through the bush and through the loving-kindness that followed by grace, serving the Hebrews after the fashion of a handmaid, as a cloud. By dread of such things he spurred on those hardened in heart; and now already, through all-wise Moses and truth-loving Isaiah and the entire chorus of prophets, he redirects, on a more rational course, toward the Word all who have ears to hear; and in some places he reproaches, in others he threatens; some men he even laments, but to others he sings, just as a good physician, in dealing with sick bodies, in some cases applies a poultice, in others smooths, in others pours on liniment, and in others cuts with the knife, and cauterizes others, and in some cases even amputates, if by any means, even piecemeal or limb by limb, he might heal the man. The Savior is indeed many-voiced and many-mannered for the salvation of men: threatening, he admonishes; reproaching, he converts; lamenting, he pities; singing, he exhorts; speaking through the bush (for they needed signs and wonders), he even frightens men with fire, kindling the flame from a pillar, a sign at once of grace and of fear: if you obey, the light; if you disobey, the fire. But since flesh is more precious even than pillar and bush, after these the prophets speak, the Lord himself speaking in Isaiah, himself in Elijah, himself in the mouth of the prophets; but if you do not believe the prophets, and suppose both the men and the fire to be a legend, the Lord himself will speak to you, "who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but emptied himself" -- the God who loves mercy, yearning to save man; and now the Word himself already speaks to you openly, putting your unbelief to shame -- yes, I say, the Word of God, having become man, in order that you too might learn from a man how it is that a man may become god. Is it not absurd, then, my friends, that God should be ever urging us on to virtue, while we shrink back from what benefits us and put off our salvation? For does not John also call us to salvation, and does not the whole of him become an exhorting voice? Let us then ask him: "who are you, and from where among men?" He will not say Elijah; he will deny being Christ; but he will confess himself to be a voice crying in the wilderness. Who then is John? To take it in figure, let it be said: a voice of the Word, exhorting, crying in the wilderness. What do you proclaim, O voice? "Tell us as well." "Level out the paths of the Lord." John is a forerunner, and the voice is the forerunner of the Word, a voice that calls and comforts, preparing beforehand for salvation, a voice exhorting to the inheritance of the heavens, on whose account the barren and desolate woman is no longer childless. This childbearing an angel's voice foretold to me; that voice too was a forerunner of the Lord, announcing good news to a childless woman, just as John proclaimed it to the desert waste. Because of this voice of the Word, then, the barren woman bears good children, and the desert bears fruit; the two forerunning voices of the Lord, the angel's and John's, hint to me at the salvation laid up for us -- that, once this Word has appeared, we should carry off, as the fruit of good childbearing, life eternal. Bringing both voices together into one, the Scripture makes the whole matter plain: "Let her who does not bear listen; let her who is not in labor break forth into a voice, because the children of the desolate woman are more than the children of her who has a husband." To us an angel brought good news; us John exhorted to understand the husbandman, to seek the husband. For he is one and the same, the husband of the barren woman, the husbandman of the desert, who filled both the barren woman and the desert with divine power. For since the children of the noble woman were many, yet the Hebrew woman, of old so fruitful, was childless on account of disobedience, the barren woman receives her husband, and the desert its husbandman; then the one becomes mother of fruits, the other of the faithful, and both are mothers because of the Word; but to the unbelieving even now barren woman and desert alike remain. John, then, the herald of the Word, in this way was exhorting men to be ready for the coming of God, of Christ; and this was what the silence of Zechariah hinted at, awaiting the forerunning fruit of Christ, so that the light of truth, the Word, might release the mystical silence of the prophetic riddles, becoming good news. But you, if you desire truly to see God, partake of purifications befitting God -- not of laurel leaves and certain fillets woven of wool and purple, but binding on righteousness and wrapping about you the leaves of self-control; seek earnestly after Christ. "For I am the door," he says somewhere; which those who wish to understand God must learn thoroughly, so that he may throw open for us all at once the gates of the heavens; for the gates belonging to the Word are rational ones, unlocked by faith's own key. "No one has come to know God except the Son, and whoever the Son chooses to disclose him to." And I am well aware that it is a door which, being closed until now, he who opens it later reveals the things within, and shows what it was not even possible to know before, except to those who have journeyed through Christ, through whom alone God is beheld.
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