The Conditionalist Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 1

V. Switches in Stromata to Bald Immortal-Soulism

We now come to Clement’s Stromata, or Miscellanies, his latest and crowning work, written after a radical change of view had taken place in his concept of life and immortality. Clement’s avowed acceptance of Platonic philosophy altered the entire current of his thinking and brought about dire consequences. He began to affirm what he had formerly denied, and profess what he had before condemned. Thus he executed a complete turn-about-face. He even sought to make Christ, Paul, Peter, and John appear in the light of Platonists. CFF1 991.1

But Plato had taught both the pre-existence and the imperishability, or immortality, of the soul. And Clement soon followed his teachings to their ultimate. ⁴⁷ He began to use the very arguments, in embryonic form, that his brilliant pupil and successor, Origen, carried to their ultimate. Clement can rightly be designated the father of the Alexandrian Christian philosophy, as he now held in incipient form the departures that Origen developed into his revolutionary system, as will soon be seen. CFF1 991.2

1. EXEMPTS PLATONISM FROM PAUL’S STRICTURES

Clement lays the groundwork for it all by asserting that “philosophy is in a sense a work of Divine Providence.” ⁴⁸ And in chapter five, headed “Philosophy the Handmaid of Theology,” he declares that “before the advent of the Lord, philosophy was necessary to the Greeks for righteousness.” ⁴⁹ Then in chapter eleven (“What Is the Philosophy Which the Apostle Bids Us Shun?”) Clement asserts, significantly, that the apostle Paul is “branding not all philosophy, but the Epicurean,” and the “Stoics also.” ⁵¹ He thus exempts Plato and Platonism. The philosophers, he maintains, have “laid down some true opinions.” And soon he is citing and substituting the subtilties of Plato for the verities of the Word. CFF1 991.3

2. OLD TESTAMENT LAW LEADS TO IMMORTALITY

Referring to the Old Testament law, Clement says, “The law ... conducts to immortality.” ⁵² And in book 2, chapter 2, he speaks of the “discipline of wisdom, ... causing pain in order to produce understanding, and restoring to peace and immortality.” ⁵³ CFF1 992.1

He does, however, make several interesting observations concerning “those who had fallen asleep.” Thus, the Shepherd says, “‘The apostles and teachers, who had preached the name of the Son of God, and had fallen asleep, in power and by faith, preached to those that had fallen asleep before.’” ⁵⁴ This is immediately followed by the statement: CFF1 992.2

“‘But those, who had fallen asleep before, descended dead, but ascended alive. By these, therefore, they were made alive, and knew the name of the Son of God.’” ⁵⁵ CFF1 992.3

And the Shepherd adds, “‘They fell asleep in righteousness and in great purity, but wanted only this seal.’” ⁵⁶ CFF1 992.4

Clement makes no further explanation of these expressions. His transition to erroneous doctrine was not yet complete. CFF1 992.5

3. KNOWLEDGE OF GOD COMMUNICATES IMMORTALITY

In book 4, chapter six (on the Beatitudes), Clement observes that “‘he that loveth his life shall lose it, and he that loseth his life shall find it,’ if we only join that which is mortal of us with the immortality of God.” We shall find that the “knowledge of God” is the “communication of immortality.” ⁵⁷ But he does not here explain how. CFF1 992.6

4. IMMORTALITY OF SOUL OPENLY AVOWED

And now the characteristic mysticism of the Alexandrian School appears openly. Chapter four, book five, is headed, “Divine Things Wrapped Up in Figures Both in the Sacred and in Heathen Writers.” Chapter six is on “The Mystic Meaning of the [Mosaic] Tabernacle and Its Furniture.” This is followed in turn, in chapter seven, by “The Egyptian Symbols,” then “The Use of the Symbolic Style by Poets and Philosophers,” chapter eight, and the “Reasons for Veiling the Truth in Symbols,” chapter nine. CFF1 992.7

Clement frankly discusses “Greek Plagiarism From the Hebrews,” chapter fourteen. In this connection he says that “punishments after death,” and “penal retribution by fire,” were “pilfered from the Barbarian philosophy both by all the poetic Muses and by the Hellenic philosophy.” ⁵⁸ He quotes from Plato’s Republic a story of the tortures of some in the nether world. “The fiery men” in the story he calls angels, and quotes Psalm 54:4. He then makes the startlingly revolutionary observation “It follows from this that the soul is immortal.” ⁵⁹ CFF1 993.1

The philosophers, he says, got the story of Creation from Moses, along with the concept that “the rational soul was breathed by God into man’s face.” This was regarded as “the addition of the soul.” ⁶⁰ “And founding on the formation of man from dust, the philosophers constantly term the body earthly.” ⁶¹ CFF1 993.2

5. ALL PUNISHMENT REGARDED RESTORATIVE

Clement now begins to teach that all punishment is remedial and restorative. God uses it, he says, to reform and purify men after death, when the soul, separated from the body, is no longer hindered by the flesh-appealing for proof to Peter’s statement that Christ went and preached literally to the spirits in prison. ⁶² So the concept of Hell was changed over into a vast sort of Purgatory, where evil is destroyed and the evildoer purged and restored. Sin is blotted out, but the sinner is preserved. Clement seized upon the Biblical idea of the final extinction of evil but not of the evildoer. Hell is therefore temporary, and all souls will in the end be saved. This is Restorationism. ⁶³ CFF1 993.3

6. PURGED BY THE “FIRE OF WISDOM.”

The purgation is effected by so-called “discreet fire,” later called by the Latin Fathers the ignis sapiens, a mystical fire of which Clement says: CFF1 994.1

“We say that the fire sanctifies not flesh, but sinful souls; meaning not the all-devouring vulgar fire, but that of wisdom, which pervades the soul passing through the fire.” ⁶⁴ CFF1 994.2

But in speaking of this fire, which purifies the condemned, Clement refers to the conflagration spoken of by the Stoics, and again to supporting passages from Plato, and an Ephesian philosopher, possibly Heraclitus. That is the support he cites—pagan philosophy, not the Word of God. CFF1 994.3

7. CHRIST PREACHING THE GOSPEL IN HADES

In book six, chapter six (“The Gospel Was Preached to Jews and Gentiles in Hades”), Clement openly takes the position that Christ preached to the “prisoners” who were “inward” in Hades, to bring “repentance” and “conversion.” But in immediate connection Clement ties in the declaration of Matthew 27:52 that “many bodies of those that slept arose,” and then adds, “plainly as having been translated to a better state.” ⁶⁵ Then he asks: CFF1 994.4

“If, then, He preached the Gospel to those in the flesh that they might not be condemned unjustly, how is it conceivable that He did not for the same cause preach the Gospel to those who had departed this life before His advent?” ⁶⁶ CFF1 994.5

8. DUBIOUS FRAGMENTS ASSERT SOULS IMMORTALITY

We will only refer to the dubious Fragment allegedly From the Book on the Soul, by Antonius Melissa, twelfth-century monk, and not necessarily authentic, which reads: CFF1 994.6

“Souls that breathe free of all things, possess life, and though separated from the body, and found possessed of a longing for it, are bourne immortal to the bosom of God.” ⁶⁷ CFF1 995.1

And the Barocc. Manuscript, on the same Fragment, allegedly quotes: CFF1 995.2

“All souls are immortal, even those of the wicked, for whom it were better that they were not deathless. For, punished with the endless vengeance of quenchless fire and not dying, it is impossible for them to have a period put to their misery.” ⁶⁸ CFF1 995.3

But its genuineness can be challenged, as Clement now held to Restorationism, not Eternal Torment. Dean Farrar well states it: CFF1 995.4

“Though he [“Clemens of Alexandria”] does not express himself with perfect distinctness, yet the whole drift of his remarks proves that he could not have held an unmitigated doctrine of endless punishment, but only of a punishment which would necessarily cease when its remedial object was attained.” ⁶⁹ CFF1 995.5

Such is the tragic and confused ending of this brilliant scholar, caught in the entangling toils of Neoplatonic philosophy. CFF1 995.6