Clement of Alexandria · a new plain-English translation from the original language
Those who set themselves against God's creation by way of a specious-sounding continence also cite those words spoken to Salome, which we mentioned before; they are found, I believe, in the Gospel according to the Egyptians. For they say that the Savior himself said: "I came to destroy the works of the female" — the female meaning desire, and the works meaning birth and decay. What then would they say? Has this ordering of things been destroyed? They could not say so; for the world remains under the same economy. But the Lord did not speak falsely: he truly did destroy the works of desire — love of money, love of strife, love of glory, mad passion for women, pederasty, gluttony, dissoluteness, and things like these; and the birth of these is the corruption of the soul, if indeed we become dead through our transgressions; and this was the "female" incontinence. But birth and decay within creation must of necessity go on occurring principally until the complete separation and restoration of the elect, on whose account even those substances mingled together with the world are assigned to their proper kindred.
Hence, quite fittingly, when the Word had signified something about the consummation, Salome says: "Until when will men go on dying?" Now Scripture calls "man" in two senses — both the visible man and the soul, and again both the one who is saved and the one who is not. And sin is called the death of the soul. That is why the Lord answers with careful precision: "Until women bear children" — that is, until the desires are active. For this reason, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and through sin death passed through to all men, in that all sinned; and death reigned from Adam until Moses, as the Apostle says: by natural necessity, death follows upon birth within the divine economy, and the dissolution of soul and body follows upon their union. And if birth exists for the sake of learning and coming to knowledge, and dissolution for the sake of restoration, then just as woman is thought to be the cause of death through bearing children, so by the same reasoning she will be called the guide to life as well.
Indeed, the one who first began the transgression was called "Life," because she becomes the cause of the succession both of those who are born and of those who sin, being alike the mother of the righteous and of the unrighteous, as each of us either justifies himself or, on the contrary, renders himself disobedient. Hence I, for my part, do not think that the Apostle abhors life in the flesh, when he says: "but with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ will be magnified in my body, whether through life or through death. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. But if to live in the flesh — this also is the fruit of labor for me; and which I shall choose I do not know. I am hard pressed between the two, having the desire to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better; but to remain in the flesh is more necessary for your sake." For through these words he showed clearly, I think, that the departure from the body is the perfection of love toward God, while the presence in the flesh is a grateful endurance for the sake of those who need to be saved.
Why, then, do they not also bring forward what follows the words spoken to Salome, these men who follow anything rather than the true evangelical canon? For when she says, "I have done well, then, in not bearing children," as though childbearing were not rightly to be undertaken, the Lord replies, saying: "Eat every plant, but the one that has bitterness do not eat." For by this too he signifies that it lies within our power, and not under compulsion by way of a forbidding commandment, to choose either continence or marriage, further making clear that marriage cooperates in a certain way with creation.
Let no one, then, consider marriage according to reason a sin, unless he supposes the rearing of children to be a bitter thing (for to many, on the contrary, childlessness is most grievous); nor, if the begetting of children appears bitter to someone because it distracts him from divine things through necessary occupations, and he does not bear the solitary life easily, let him then desire marriage, since what is pleasing, joined with self-control, is harmless, and each of us is master of his own choice regarding the begetting of children. But I observe how, under the pretext of marriage, some who have abstained from it, not in accordance with holy knowledge, have slipped into misanthropy, and love has departed from among them; while others, entangled and given over to pleasure through compliance with the law, as the prophet says, have become like the beasts.
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