Clement of Alexandria · a new plain-English translation from the original language
Among those led astray by heresy, we mentioned Marcion of Pontus, who rejects the use of worldly things out of opposition to the Demiurge. Yet the very Demiurge against whom this god-fighting giant imagines he is arrayed becomes, unwillingly, the cause of his continence—if indeed this ought to be called continence—since even while running down both creation and the created order he remains unwillingly continent. And should his followers make use of the Lord's word spoken to Philip, "Let the dead bury their own dead, but you follow me," let them consider that Philip too bore the same fleshly form and yet had no dead thing polluting him. How then, though he had a body of flesh, did he have nothing dead in it? Because he had risen from the tomb, the Lord having put to death the passions while making him alive to Christ. We also mentioned Carpocrates' lawless community of wives, but in discussing the saying of Nicolaus we left something out. This man, they say, having a beautiful wife, was reproached by the apostles for jealousy after the Savior's ascension; so he brought his wife forward and gave leave for anyone who wished to marry her. For they say this act followed logically from that saying, that one must make ill use of the flesh; and indeed, following both what was done and what was said simply and without examination, those who pursue his heresy fornicate without restraint.
I myself have learned that Nicolaus used no other woman besides the one he married, that his daughters grew old as virgins, and that his son remained uncorrupted. Since this is so, the bringing of his jealously-guarded wife before the apostles and presenting her publicly was a renouncing of passion, and his continence in the face of eagerly sought pleasures taught that one should make only such use of the flesh as necessity requires. For he did not wish, I think, in accordance with the Savior's command, to serve two masters, pleasure and God. They say, at any rate, that Matthias too taught in this way: to fight against the flesh and make only necessary use of it, granting it nothing toward unrestrained pleasure, but to make the soul grow through faith and knowledge.
There are some who proclaim promiscuous Aphrodite's communion to be a mystical fellowship, doing outrage even to the very word; for "to do" can mean to do something evil, just as it can mean, by the same word, to do something good, and likewise "communion" is a good thing when it means the sharing of money, food, and clothing—but these people impiously call any coupling of sexual acts whatever "communion." They say, at any rate, that one of them approached a virgin of ours, beautiful in appearance, and said, "It is written, 'Give to everyone who asks of you,'" and that she, very solemnly, not understanding the man's licentiousness, answered, "But discuss marriage with my mother." O what godlessness—these partners in licentiousness, these brothers in lust, falsify the Lord's very words; a disgrace not only to philosophy but to all of life, they counterfeit the truth, or rather tear it down as far as lies in their power. For these thrice-wretched men make sacred rites of fleshly and carnal communion, and imagine that this leads them into the kingdom of God.
Such communion as this leads to the brothels, and indeed its true partners would be pigs and goats; and in their grander hopes it would be the prostitutes who preside over the brothel roof, admitting without restraint all who wish it. But you did not so learn Christ, if indeed you heard him and were taught in him, as is the truth in Christ Jesus—that you should put off, with respect to your former way of life, the old man who is being corrupted through the desires of deceit; have your thinking made new at its very core, and clothe yourselves with the new humanity, fashioned after God's pattern in the righteousness and holiness that truth brings, matching the divine image. Become, then, imitators of God, as beloved children, and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave himself up for us as an offering and a sacrifice to God for a fragrant aroma. But let fornication and all impurity or greed not even be named among you, as is fitting for saints, nor shameful talk nor foolish speech. For it is precisely from the mouth that the apostle, teaching us to practice purity, writes: "For know this and understand, that no fornicator" and so on down to "but rather expose them."
Their doctrine flowed to them from some apocryphal book, and I will set down the very wording, the mother of their licentiousness—whether they themselves are the authors of the book (see the madness of it, if they falsify things even about God through their intemperance), or whether they came across it in others and, having heard it perversely, took this fine doctrine as their own. The wording runs thus: "All things were one; but since it seemed good to its unity not to be alone, a breath went forth from it, and it had communion with it, and made the Beloved; from this a breath went forth from him, and having communion with it he made powers that could neither be seen nor heard, each existing under a name of its own." Now if these people, like the followers of Valentinus, posited spiritual unions, perhaps one might grant their supposition some hearing; but to trace fleshly outrage back to a holy prophecy is the mark of one who has despaired of salvation.
Such also are the doctrines taught by the followers of Prodicus, who falsely proclaim themselves "Gnostics," saying that they are by nature sons of the first God; and abusing their noble birth and freedom, they live as they please. And what they please is a life of pleasure, since they have persuaded themselves they can be mastered by nothing, as though they were lords of the Sabbath and by nature superior to every race, royal children—and for a king, they say, the law is unwritten. But in the first place, they do not do everything they wish, for many things will hinder them even when they desire and attempt them; and what they do, they do not as kings but as whipped slaves, for they commit adultery in secret, fearing to be caught, shunning condemnation, and dreading punishment. How can intemperance and foul speech be freedom? For "everyone who sins," the apostle says, "is a slave."
But how can one live according to God who has given himself up as a slave to every desire, when the Lord has said, "But I say to you, do not desire"? And does someone wish to sin willingly, and make it a doctrine to commit adultery and live in pleasure and ruin the marriages of others—when we pity even others who sin unwillingly? And if they have come into a foreign world, having proven unfaithful in what is not their own, they will not possess the truth either. Does a stranger insult the citizens and wrong them, rather than living, as a sojourner using necessary things, without giving offense to the citizens? And how can those who do the very same things as the unjust, the intemperate, the greedy, and adulterers—people hated by the nations for not doing what the laws prescribe—claim to be the only ones who have known God? They ought rather to live well even while present among strangers, so that they might truly display their royal character.
Already they have made themselves hateful both to human lawgivers and to the divine, having chosen to live lawlessly. The man, at any rate, who ran through the fornicator is shown in Numbers to be blessed by God. "And if we say," John says in his epistle, "that we have fellowship with him"—that is, with God—"and yet walk in darkness, we lie and do not do the truth; but if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from sin."
How, then, are those who do such things better than worldly people, when they resemble the very worst of worldly people? For those who resemble one another in their deeds resemble one another, I think, in their natures too. Those whom they claim to surpass in nobility of birth, these same people they ought to surpass in character, so that they might escape being shut up in prison. For truly, as the Lord said, "Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of God"; and concerning restraint in foods, this is shown in Daniel. To sum it up, David, singing about obedience, says: "By what shall a young man keep his way pure?" And immediately he hears the answer: "By guarding your word with his whole heart." And Jeremiah says: "Thus says the Lord: Do not walk in the ways of the nations."
Moved by this, certain other vile and worthless men say that man was fashioned by different powers, the parts down to the navel being of a more godlike craft, and the parts below of the inferior one, and that this is why desire for intercourse arises. But it escapes them that the upper parts too crave food and lust after certain things, and moreover they contradict Christ, who said to the Pharisees that the same God made both the man outside us and the inner man. But even desire itself does not belong to the body, though it comes about through the body.
Others still, whom we also call Antitactae, say that the God who is Father of all is our Father by nature, and that all he has made is good; but one of his creatures sowed the tares, engendering the nature of evil things, in which he has enveloped all of us, setting us in opposition to the Father. Therefore, they say, we ourselves stand in opposition to him, to avenge the Father, acting against the will of the second one. Since, then, this second one has said, "You shall not commit adultery," we, they say, will commit adultery, to overthrow his commandment.
We might say to these people as well that we have received that false prophets and all who feign the truth are to be known by their works. But your works stand accused; how then will you still claim to hold fast to the truth? For either there is no evil at all, and the one you accuse as opposed to God deserves no blame—nor has he been the maker of anything evil (for the tree is destroyed along with its fruit)—or, if evil truly exists, let them tell us what they say the commandments given about righteousness, about self-control, about endurance, about patience under wrong, and the like, actually are—base or noble. And if the commandment forbidding most shameful acts is base, then wickedness will be legislating against itself, to its own destruction—which is impossible; but if it is good, then in setting themselves against good commandments they confess that they are setting themselves against the good and doing evil.
Moreover, the Savior himself, whom alone they claim to obey, has forbidden hatred and reviling, and says that when walking with one's adversary, one should try hard to be freed from him as a friend. So they must either deny Christ's own exhortation while opposing him whom they call the Opponent, or, becoming friends with him, they will not go to law with him. What then? Do you not know, noble sirs (for I would speak as though to those present), that in fighting against commandments that are rightly given you stand opposed to your own salvation? For it is not the things rightly declared that you overturn, but yourselves. The Lord said, "Let your good works shine"; but you make your own acts of licentiousness plain for all to see. Besides, if you wish to overturn the lawgiver's commandments, why is it that "you shall not commit adultery" and "you shall not corrupt children" and whatever else contributes to self-control—these you attempt to overturn on account of your own intemperance, yet you do not overturn the winter that he made, so as to make it summer while winter is still at its height, nor do you turn dry land into sea and sea into dry land passable on foot, as the historians say the barbarian Xerxes wished to do?
Why do you not oppose all the commandments alike? For when he said, "Increase and multiply," you, being in opposition, ought not to have made use of intercourse at all; and when he said, "I have given you all things for food and enjoyment," you ought to have enjoyed nothing. But also, when he said "an eye for an eye," you ought not to have repaid opposition with opposition, and when he commanded the thief to repay fourfold, you ought to have given even more to the thief; and likewise, in opposing the commandment "You shall love the Lord," you ought not even to have loved the God of all, and again, when he said, "You shall not make a carved image nor a molten one," it would have followed for you to worship carved images too. How then are you not impious, opposing the Demiurge, as you claim, yet zealously imitating the deeds of prostitutes and adulterers? And how do you not perceive that you make greater the one you consider weak, if what he wishes comes to pass, rather than what the Good One willed? For on the contrary, your own father, as you call him, is shown by your very conduct to be weak.
These men too gather up sayings culled from certain prophetic passages, patching them together badly, taking as literal what was spoken allegorically. For it is written, they say, "They resisted God and were saved." Some of them even add "the shameless God," and they take this saying as a counsel given to them, reckoning it salvation for themselves to resist the Demiurge. Now it is not written of "the shameless God"; but even if it were, understand, you fools, that the one called "devil" is called shameless either as slandering man, or as accuser of sinners, or as apostate. The people, at any rate, of whom this passage speaks, being disciplined for their sins, bore it heavily and, groaning, murmured the saying in question—that while the other nations transgressing the law are not punished, they alone are chastised at every turn—just as Jeremiah too said, "Why does the way of the ungodly prosper?" Similar to this is the passage in Malachi already mentioned, "They resisted God and were saved"; for the prophets, receiving oracles, are shown not only saying that they hear something from God, but also, in delivering their message, reporting by way of anticipated objection what was being murmured by the people, bringing forward, as it were, certain complaints raised by men—and it is from these that the saying in question happens to come.
And is it not perhaps against these people that the apostle, writing in his letter to the Romans, directs himself: "And not, as we are slanderously reported and as some claim we say, 'Let us do evil that good may come'? Their condemnation is just." These are the ones who twist the scriptures, in the reading of them, by tone of voice, to their own pleasures, and by shifting certain accents and punctuation marks, force what was declared prudently and to our advantage into serving their own love of pleasure. "Those who provoke God with your words," says Malachi, "and you say, 'In what way have we provoked him?' In your saying, 'Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and he delights in them'; and 'Where is the God of justice?'"
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