Clement of Alexandria · a new plain-English translation from the original language
Fittingly, then, does the divinely-moved apostle state that it was through a disclosure that this mystery got made known to him, exactly as he had already put down briefly beforehand — a passage from which, on reading it, one can grasp how he understands the secret of Christ, that secret which, throughout earlier generations, stayed unrevealed to humanity's offspring, until it was unveiled at last to his consecrated messengers and seers. For a doctrine truly exists reserved for the mature, and concerning it, in his letter to the Colossians, he states: we never stop praying on your behalf and requesting that you be filled up with a full grasp of what he wills, in every kind of wisdom and understanding granted by the Spirit, so that you might walk in a manner worthy of the Lord toward complete satisfaction, producing fruit through every worthwhile deed and growing in acquaintance with God, made strong with all power in keeping with the strength of his splendor. He states further, in line with the stewardship God entrusted to me on your behalf, to bring to completion God's message — the secret concealed away from ages past and generations gone — which has by now been laid open to those he has set apart, to whom God chose to disclose the riches contained in the splendor of this secret amid the nations.
There exist, then, mysteries kept back until the apostles, passed down by them as coming from the Lord — mysteries they themselves had received, concealed within the older covenant — and now laid open to those set apart; and there is yet another: the riches of the splendor of the secret among the nations, namely the trust and the expectation resting in Christ, the very one he names elsewhere as the cornerstone. Once more, as if keen to exhibit his understanding, he writes in a similar vein: warning each person with every form of wisdom, so that we might bring each person forward as complete in Christ — not literally every single individual, since then unbelief would be impossible for anyone, nor even every believer regarded as complete in Christ, but rather he intends each person, that is, the entire human being, cleansed, so to speak, in both flesh and soul — since (given that this understanding is not meant for everyone) he adds pointedly: bound closely together through love and reaching toward the full riches of settled conviction in comprehension, toward complete acquaintance with God's secret in Christ, in whom lie concealed the entire treasury of wisdom and knowledge. Persist in prayer without wavering, staying alert in it with gratitude; and this gratitude applies not merely to the soul and its spiritual blessings but likewise to the body and its bodily goods.
And he lays bare still more openly the point that such knowledge is not meant for all, adding: interceding at the same moment on our behalf too, that God might open for us an entryway to proclaim Christ's secret, on whose account I am likewise held bound, so that I might disclose it as I am obligated to speak. For certain things, in fact, were transmitted apart from any writing. Take the Hebrews, for instance — though by rights, given how much time has passed, they should be instructors by now, he says, as people grown gray within the older covenant, you require once more that someone instruct you in the rudiments that begin God's oracles, and you have turned into people needing milk rather than solid nourishment; for anyone still feeding on milk has no experience in the message of uprightness, being, after all, a mere child, given only the earliest lessons; solid nourishment, though, is for the mature, for those whose faculties, through practice, have been trained to distinguish good from evil. For this reason, setting aside the account of Christ's beginnings, let us press forward toward completeness.
But Barnabas as well, who together with the apostle himself proclaimed the message in service to the nations, states: I am writing to you in plainer terms so that you may grasp it. Then, carrying the thought further, laying out a still clearer trace of the gnostic tradition, he asks: what does the other prophet, Moses, tell them? "See here, thus says the Lord God: go in and take possession of the fine country which the Lord God pledged by oath, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, a land flowing with milk and honey." What does this understanding say? Learn it. Set your hope, it says, on the one about to be shown to you in the flesh, Jesus; for humankind is suffering clay, since Adam's shaping came out of the face of the ground. What, then, does it signify — "into the fine country, a land flowing with milk and honey"? Praised be our Lord, brothers, who has set within us wisdom and understanding of things hidden from him. As the prophet asks: who is able to grasp a parable spoken by the Lord, apart from someone wise, discerning, and devoted to his Lord? Since such matters are meant for only a handful to comprehend. Indeed, not out of jealousy, it says, did the Lord command, in a certain gospel: my secret belongs to me and to the members of my household — choosing what stays secure and untroubled, so that once they had received what was rightly theirs by his choosing, it might be lifted clear of envy; for whoever lacks acquaintance with the good is wicked, since only one is good — the Father; and lacking acquaintance with the Father is death, just as knowing him amounts to unending life gained by sharing in the power of the one who cannot decay. And escaping decay means partaking of divinity, while decay itself is what falling away from the knowledge of God brings about.
Once more the prophet declares: and I will hand over to you concealed treasures, dark and unseen, so you may recognize that I am the Lord God. Matching sentiments David likewise sings: look, you have cherished truth; you have disclosed to me the concealed and secret matters of your wisdom. For daytime pours out speech to daytime — the plainly written matter — while nighttime relays understanding to nighttime, the understanding concealed in mystery, and there exist no words or utterances whose sound goes unheard, by the God who asked: could someone act in secrecy and I not perceive him? For this cause instruction in discipleship gets called illumination, since it is what brings to light what lies concealed, the teacher alone having lifted the covering from the chest — the opposite of what the poets claim Zeus performed, grasping the jar containing good things yet opening the one holding evil. I am aware, states the apostle, that whenever I arrive among you I will come bearing the fullness of Christ's blessing — meaning the spiritual gift together with the gnostic tradition, which he is eager to hand over to them face to face, in person (since such matters could not be entrusted to a letter) — terming it Christ's fullness, in keeping with the disclosure of a secret held in silence across ages without end, but now brought into the open both through the writings of the prophets and, in keeping with the command of the God who is eternal, toward faith's obedience, made known among every nation — meaning those out of the nations who believe — yet to only a handful among these is it shown what these matters within the secret actually are.
Fittingly, then, Plato too, within his Letters, when discussing God, says: I am compelled to address you in riddles, so that should the tablet meet with mishap, whether over folds of sea or land, whoever reads it would fail to grasp it. For the God governing the universe, who lies past every utterance, every thought, and every notion, could never be entrusted to writing, given that he is inexpressible through his own inherent power. And Plato himself makes this clear when he says: bearing this in mind, then, take care, so that you never come to regret, someday, things now carelessly let go; the surest protection lies not in writing but in committing to memory, since it is not feasible — simply not feasible — for anything set down in writing to avoid spreading abroad. Close to these sentiments speaks the holy apostle Paul, guarding the prophetic and genuinely ancient concealment from which the noble teachings made their way to the Greeks: yet we speak wisdom among those who are mature, wisdom that belongs neither to this present age nor to the rulers of this age, who are headed toward nothing; rather, we speak the wisdom of God held within a mystery, the wisdom that has remained concealed.
Carrying the thought further still, he instructs in this manner regarding the caution needed against letting such words reach the multitude: and I, brothers, was unable to address you as people of the Spirit but rather as people still of the flesh, as infants within Christ. I gave you milk to drink rather than solid nourishment, since you were not yet capable of it; nor, in truth, are you capable even now, since you remain fleshly. If, then, milk gets described by the apostle as nourishment fit for infants, with solid food belonging to the mature, milk should be taken as, roughly speaking, the soul's earliest nourishment — namely instruction given to beginners — while solid food represents the contemplative sight of the loftiest mysteries; these amount to the flesh and blood of the Word, that is, laying hold of the divine power and inmost being. It is good, so it says — try it and see for yourself; for in this way he communicates himself to those sharing in nourishment of this kind along a more spiritual path, once the soul has already begun feeding itself, following the truth-loving Plato; for to eat and drink the divine word means gaining knowledge of the divine essence. Hence Plato likewise states, in the second volume of the Republic, that one should seek what pertains to God only after offering, not a pig, but some grand and demanding sacrifice. And the apostle writes that our own Passover victim too was offered up — Christ, indeed a demanding sacrifice, the Son of God set apart on our behalf.
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