Clement of Alexandria · a new plain-English translation from the original language
To those who, under the fair-sounding name of self-control, are impious toward creation and toward the holy creator, the almighty and only God, and who teach that one ought not accept marriage and childbearing, nor bring into the world others destined to misfortune, nor supply nourishment to death, this must be said: first, the word of the apostle John — "even now many antichrists have arisen, whereby we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us." Next, one must also turn them aside by dissolving the sayings they themselves put forward, in some such way as this: when Salome asked, "Until when shall death prevail?" the Lord did not speak as though life were evil and creation wicked, when he said, "as long as you women bear children," but rather as teaching the natural sequence; for corruption certainly follows upon generation.
Now the law's aim was to lead us out of luxury and every disorder, and this is its end, to bring us out of injustice into righteousness, by our choosing temperate marriages and childbearing and civic life. And the Lord did not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it — to fulfill it not as though it were deficient, but by bringing to completion, at his own coming, the prophecies made according to the law, since the ordinances of right conduct had also been proclaimed through the Word even to those who lived justly before the law. The many, then, not knowing self-control, conduct their lives in body but not in spirit. And earth and ashes is the body without spirit. At once the Lord judges adultery from the very intention; for what then? Is it not possible to use marriage with self-control, and not to try to dissolve what God has joined together? For such things are what the dividers of the marriage-bond teach, on whose account the name itself is blasphemed. And these who say that intercourse is defiled, when they themselves also received their own constitution from intercourse, how could they not themselves be defiled?
Of those who have been sanctified, I hold that the seed too is holy. It is fitting, then, that not only the spirit be sanctified for us, but also the manner of life and the conduct and the body; since on what principle does the apostle Paul say that the wife has been sanctified by the husband, or the husband by the wife? And what is it that the Lord said to those inquiring about the certificate of divorce, whether it is lawful to put away a wife, since Moses permitted it? "Because of your hardness of heart," he says, "Moses wrote these things; but have you not read that to the first-formed man God said, 'You two shall become one flesh'? So that whoever puts away his wife, apart from a charge of fornication, makes her to be adulterated." "But after the resurrection," he says, "they take no wives, nor are wives given to them." For it is also said concerning the belly and foods: "Foods for the belly and the belly for foods, but God will bring to nothing both this and these" — striking a blow at those who think they live like boars and goats, so that they might eat and mate without fear.
If, then, they have already received the resurrection, as they themselves say, and on this account set aside marriage, let them neither eat nor drink; for the apostle said that the belly and foods are brought to nothing in the resurrection. How then do they hunger and thirst and suffer the things of the flesh and all the other things that one who has received, through Christ, the perfect resurrection that is expected will not suffer? But even those who worship idols abstain at once from foods and from sexual intercourse. "The kingdom of God," it is said, "is not eating and drinking." Indeed it is also a matter of care for the Magi, who serve angels and demons, to abstain at once from wine and from living creatures and from sexual intercourse. But just as humility is gentleness and not the maltreatment of the body, so too self-control is a virtue of the soul, not displayed openly, but hidden.
There are also those who say outright that marriage is fornication, and lay it down as doctrine that it was handed down by the devil, and these boastful men claim that they themselves imitate the Lord, who neither married nor acquired anything in the world, boasting that they have understood the gospel better than others. But scripture says to them: "God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble." Then, they do not know the reason why the Lord did not marry: first, because he already had his own bride, the church; and next, because he was not an ordinary man, so as to need some helper according to the flesh; nor was it necessary for him to beget children, since he remains forever and has become the only Son of God. And this same Lord himself says: "What God has joined together, let man not separate." And again: "As it was in the days of Noah, they were marrying and giving in marriage, building and planting, and as it was in the days of Lot, so will be the coming of the Son of Man." And to show that he is not speaking of the nations, he adds: "When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?" And again: "Woe to those who are with child and to those who are nursing in those days." And yet these things too are spoken allegorically. For this reason he did not even fix the times which the Father has set in his own authority, so that the world might continue according to its generations.
As for the saying "not all can receive this word" — "for there are eunuchs who were born so, and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven; he who is able to receive it, let him receive it" — they do not know that this was said after the statement about the certificate of divorce, when certain people, upon hearing that if the case of the wife is such, it is not expedient for a man to marry, then the Lord said, "Not all can receive this word, but only those to whom it has been given"; for what those who asked wished to learn was whether, once a wife had been condemned for fornication and put away, it is permitted to marry another.
And they say that not a few athletes abstain from sexual intercourse, exercising self-control for the sake of bodily training, such as Astylus of Croton and Crison of Himera. And Amoebeus the lyre-player, though newly married, abstained from his bride. And Aristotle of Cyrene alone disregarded Laïs though she loved him —
for having sworn to the courtesan that he would indeed bring her home to his own country if she would help him against his rivals, when she had accomplished this, he fulfilled his oath with wit: having had a portrait painted that resembled her as closely as possible, he set it up in Cyrene, as Istros relates in his work On the Peculiar Nature of Contests. So that not even eunuch-state is virtuous, unless it comes about for love of God.
Thus, concerning those who abhor marriage, the blessed Paul says: "In later times some will fall away from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, forbidding to marry, commanding to abstain from foods." And again he says: "Let no one disqualify you by delighting in self-imposed humility and severity to the body." And this same man also writes those other words: "Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek to be released. Have you been released from a wife? Do not seek a wife." And again: "Let each man have his own wife, so that Satan may not tempt you."
What then? Did not the righteous men of old also partake gratefully of creation? And they too, marrying with self-control, begot children. And to Elijah the ravens brought food, bread and meat; and Samuel the prophet, from the store he had kept back of what he ate, brought it and gave it to Saul to eat. But these people, who claim to surpass even these men in conduct and manner of life, will not be able even to be compared with their deeds. Let him then who does not eat not despise him who eats, and let him who eats not judge him who does not eat; for God has received him. But the Lord too, speaking of himself, says — John came, it is said, neither eating nor drinking, and they say, "He has a demon." The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, "Behold, a man who is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners." Or do they also reject the apostles? For Peter and Philip begot children, and Philip also gave his daughters in marriage to husbands,
and indeed Paul himself does not hesitate, in one of his letters, to address his own consort, whom he did not take about with him because of the convenience it afforded to his ministry. He says, then, in one of his letters: "Do we not have the right to lead about a sister as a wife, as do the other apostles also?" But these men, attending closely and without distraction to their ministry and to the proclamation, led their wives about not as wives but as sisters, to be fellow-ministers to the women who kept house, through whom the Lord's teaching also made its way, without giving occasion for slander, even into the women's quarters. For we know too all that the noble Paul prescribes concerning women deacons in his other letter, to Timothy. But moreover this same man proclaims that the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, nor yet abstinence from wine and meats, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Which of them goes about wearing a sheepskin and a leather girdle, as Elijah did? Which of them is wrapped in sackcloth, otherwise naked and unshod, as Isaiah was? Or wears only a linen loincloth, as Jeremiah did? Who will imitate the gnostic steadfastness of John's manner of life? Yet even living in this way, the blessed prophets gave thanks to their Creator.
Now the righteousness of Carpocrates, and of those who along with him pursue licentious community, is undone in the following way. For at the same time as saying, "Give to him who asks you," he adds, "and do not turn away from him who wishes to borrow," teaching this kind of community, and not a lustful one. But how can one ask and receive and borrow from someone who has nothing at all — who has, and gives, and lends? And what of when the Lord says, "I was hungry and you fed me, I was thirsty and you offered me drink; I was a stranger and you took me in, naked and you clothed me"? Then he adds: "Whatever you did for one of these humble ones, you did for me." And does he not legislate the same things also in the old covenant? "He who gives to the poor lends to God," and "Do not withhold from doing good to him who is in need," it says.
And again it says, "Let not acts of mercy and faithfulness forsake you." "Poverty humbles a man, but the hands of the brave make rich." And it adds: "Behold, the man who has not given his money on interest is accepted," and "a man's own wealth is judged the ransom of his life." Does this not make it plainly clear? Just as the world is composed of opposites, as it were of hot and cold, dry and moist, so too it is composed both of those who give and of those who receive. And again, when he says, "If you wish to become perfect, sell your possessions and give to the poor," he refutes the man who boasted of having kept all the commandments from his youth; for he had not fulfilled "you shall love your neighbor as yourself." Then, being brought to completion by the Lord, he was taught to share out of love.
He has, then, done well not to forbid being rich, but rather being rich unjustly and insatiably; for property hastily acquired through lawlessness becomes less. For there are those who by sowing make more, and those who by gathering in have less; concerning whom it is written: "He scattered abroad, he gave to the poor, his righteousness endures forever." For the one who sows and gathers in more is the one who, through earthly and temporary sharing, acquires the heavenly and eternal things; while the other, who shares with no one but vainly stores up treasure on earth where moth and rust destroy it (concerning whom it is written, "gathering wages, he gathered them into a bag full of holes") — of this man's land, the Lord says in the gospel, it yielded abundant crops, and then, when he wished to store away the fruits, intending to build greater barns, he says to himself, by way of impersonation: "You have plenty of goods stored away for years to come; eat, drink, and enjoy yourself." "Fool," he said, "for this very night your soul is demanded of you. The things, then, that you prepared — whose will they be?"
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