Clement of Alexandria · a new plain-English translation from the original language
Straightway he forces Paul to say, through these words, that generation itself is constituted out of deception: 'But I fear lest, as the serpent deceived Eve, your thoughts should be corrupted from the simplicity that is toward Christ.' But the Lord too, admittedly, came to those who had gone astray — and they had gone astray not from some point above down into this present birth (for birth is a created thing, and creation belongs to the Almighty, who could never bring a soul down from better things into worse), but rather it was to those whose thoughts had gone astray, to us, that the Savior came — thoughts which were corrupted through disobedience to the commandments, because we loved pleasure, having perhaps anticipated our own proper time, like the first-formed man, and reached out before the hour for the grace of marriage, and so missed the mark, since 'everyone who looks at a woman so as to desire her has already committed adultery with her,' not having waited for the appointed time of the will.
The same Lord, then, was the one who even then judged the desire that anticipated marriage. So when the apostle says, 'put on the new man, which is being created according to God,' he is speaking to us who have been formed by the will of the Almighty as we have been formed; and by 'old' and 'new' he does not mean birth and rebirth, but rather the manner of life, the one lived in disobedience and the one lived in obedience. Cassianus, however, holds that the 'coats of skins' are the bodies — a matter concerning which we shall later show both him and those who dogmatize like him to be in error, when in due course we take up the exposition of the generation of man, following upon what needs to be said beforehand. He further says: 'those ruled by earthly kings both beget and are begotten, but our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we await a Savior.' Now we too know that these words are well said, since we ought to conduct our citizenship as strangers and sojourners: those who marry as though not marrying, those who acquire as though not acquiring, those who beget children as begetting mortal beings, as men who will leave their possessions behind, as ones who will live even without a wife should need require it — not using creation with excessive attachment, but with all thanksgiving and with a great and noble mind.
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