khazarzar-clement-of-alexandria-protrepticus

Let us make room for the light, that we may make room for God; let us make room for the light and become disciples of the Lord. This indeed is what has been promised to the Father: "I will declare your name to my brothers; in the midst of the assembly I will hymn you." Hymn and declare to me your father, God; your declarations will save me, your song will instruct me. For until now I was wandering in search of God, but since you lead me with light, Lord, I find God through you and receive the Father from you, I become your co-heir, since you were not ashamed of your brother. Let us therefore remove, let us remove the forgetfulness of truth; let us bring down ignorance and the darkness that obstructs like a mist of vision, and let us behold God who truly is, first singing to him this utterance: "Hail, light." Light from heaven has shone upon us who are buried in darkness and confined in the shadow of death, purer than the sun, sweeter than life here. That light is eternal life, and all that partakes of it lives; but night fears the light and, sinking out of fear, gives way to the Lord's day; everything has become sleepless light, and the west has turned into east. This is what the new creation has willed; for the "sun of justice" that rides over all things circles humanity equally, imitating the Father, who "raises his sun over all men" and sprinkles the dew of truth.

He has shifted the west to the east and will crucify death into life, and snatching man from destruction he has suspended him in the ether, transplanting corruption into incorruption and transforming earth into heavens, the farmer of God, "signaling with the right hand, rousing peoples to good work, reminding them of true life," and bestowing upon us the truly great, divine, and inalienable inheritance of the Father, deifying man by heavenly teaching, "giving laws to their understanding and writing them on the heart." What laws does he prescribe? "That all will know God from small to great, and I will be merciful," says God, "to them and will not remember their sins." Let us accept the laws of life, let us be persuaded by the exhorting God, let us learn him, that he may be merciful, let us render to him, who does not need it, a grateful reward, obedience, as a kind of rent [piety] to God for our dwelling here. Gold for bronze, a hundred oxen for nine, with a little faith he gives you earth to cultivate such a vast expanse, to drink water and to sail another, to breathe air, to serve fire, to inhabit the cosmos; from here he has permitted you to send a colony to the heavens; these great and numerous creations and gifts he has leased to you for a little faith. Then, those who have believed in sorcerers accept amulets and incantations as supposedly salvific, but will you not put on the heavenly one himself, the saving word, and, trusting in the incantation of God, be freed from passions, which are diseases of the soul, and be torn away from sin? For sin is eternal death.

You are completely toothless and blind, like moles, living in darkness with nothing but eating, decaying all around. But there is, there is the truth that has cried out, "Light will shine from darkness." So let the light shine in the hidden part of the human, in the heart, and let the rays of knowledge rise up, revealing the human concealed within and making the disciple of light, the intimate and co-heir of Christ, shine forth, especially when the most precious and most revered name, of a good father to a good and pious child, arrives at knowledge, commanding gentle things and enjoining saving things upon the child. And he who obeys him is in every way advantaged: he follows God, he obeys the father, he has come to know him whom he formerly mistook, he has loved God, he has loved his neighbor, he has fulfilled the commandment, he seeks the prize, he demands the promise. And it is always God's purpose to save the flock of humans. For this purpose the good God sent the good shepherd; and the Word, spreading out the truth, showed to humans the height of salvation, so that either repenting they may be saved or disobeying they may be judged. This is the proclamation of justice: for those who obey, a gospel; for those who disobey, a judgment. But a trumpet

The great-sounding trumpet summoned soldiers and proclaimed war; but Christ, having breathed a peaceful melody to the ends of the earth, will he not then gather his own peaceful soldiers? He has indeed gathered, O man, the bloodless army by blood and word, and entrusted to them the kingdom of the heavens. The trumpet of Christ is his gospel; he sounded it, and we heard. Let us arm ourselves peacefully, "putting on the breastplate of righteousness" and taking up the shield of faith and placing the helmet of salvation and sharpening "the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God." Thus the apostle marshals us peacefully; these are our invulnerable weapons; armed with these, let us draw up in battle array against the evil one; let us quench the red-hot arrows of the evil one with the watery points dipped by the word, repaying good deeds with grateful blessings and honoring God with the divine word. "For while you are still speaking, he will say," it is said, "Behold, I am here." O the holy and blessed power, by which God dwells together with men. It is therefore better and nobler to become at once an imitator and a servant of the best of existing substances; for one cannot imitate God except through that by which one will serve him piously, nor can one serve and worship him without imitating him. Indeed, the heavenly and truly divine love comes to men when, somewhere in the soul itself, the truly beautiful, rekindled by the divine word, is able to shine forth.

And the greatest thing is that, at the same time as one genuinely wills to be saved, salvation runs together with it, as it were, with choice and life yoked together. Therefore this alone, the exhortation of truth, is likened to the most faithful of friends, remaining until the last breath and becoming a good escort for the whole and complete spirit of the soul to those departing for heaven. Why do I exhort you? I urge you to be saved. This is what Christ wills; in a word, he grants you life. And what is this? Learn briefly: the word of truth, the word of incorruption, which regenerates man, leading him up to truth, the goad of salvation, which drives out corruption, which expels death, which built a temple among men so that it might establish God among men. Purify the temple, and leave behind pleasures and indolences like a fleeting flower to wind and fire, and wisely cultivate the fruits of temperance, and raise yourself up as a first-fruit offering to God, so that you may be not only a work but also a grace of God; both are fitting for the acquaintance of Christ, both to appear worthy of the kingdom and to be deemed worthy of the kingdom.

Let us flee, then, from habit, let us flee as from a dangerous promontory or the threat of Charybdis or the mythical Sirens. Habit strangles a person, turns them away from truth, leads them away from life; it is a snare, a pit, a trap, a greedy evil. "Keep the ship away from that smoke and wave." Let us flee, fellow sailors, let us flee this wave; it belches fire, it is a wicked island heaped with bones and corpses, and on it a pretty little whore sings, Pleasure, delighting in vulgar music. "Come this way, much-praised Odysseus, great glory of the Achaeans; bring your ship here, so that you may hear a more divine song." She praises you, O sailor, and calls you much-hymned, and the whore appropriates the glory of the Greeks. Leave her to feed on the dead; a heavenly spirit helps you. Pass by pleasure; it deceives. "Let not a woman with a trailing robe deceive your mind, warbling seductively, seeking your bed." Sail past the song; it produces death. If you only wish, you have conquered destruction, and by the wood

Bound as you are to all corruption, you will be released; the Word of God will steer you, and the Holy Spirit will moor you in the harbors of the heavens. Then you will behold my God and be initiated into those holy mysteries and enjoy the hidden things in the heavens, the things reserved for me, "which neither ear has heard nor has entered into the heart" of anyone. And indeed, I seem to see two suns, and two Thebes, someone said in Bacchic frenzy, drunk with unmixed ignorance. I would pity him in his drunkenness and summon him, thus deranged, to saving sobriety, because the Lord welcomes the repentance of a sinner, not his death. Come, O madman, not leaning on a thyrsus, not wreathed with ivy; cast off the mitre, cast off the fawnskin; be sober. I will show you the Word and the mysteries of the Word, explaining them according to your own imagery. This is a mountain beloved of God, not subject to tragedies like Cithaeron, but dedicated to the dramas of truth, a sober mountain shaded with pure groves. On it revel not the sisters of Semele "the thunder-stricken," the maenads, initiated into the unholy distribution of raw flesh, but the daughters of God, the beautiful lambs, celebrating the solemn rites of the Word, gathering a sober chorus. The chorus is the righteous; the song is a hymn to the king of all. The maidens sing, the angels glorify, the prophets speak, a sound of music is sent forth; they pursue the thiasus in a race, the invited hasten, longing to receive the Father.

Come to me, old man, and you, leaving Thebes behind and casting off your mantle of prophecy and Bacchic frenzy, be led by the hand to truth. Behold, I give you the staff to lean on. Hurry, Teiresias, believe—you will see. Christ shines brighter than the sun, through whom the eyes of the blind recover their sight. Night will flee from you, fire will be afraid, death will depart. You will see the heavens, old man, though you do not see Thebes. O truly holy mysteries! O pure light! I am torch-bearing to behold the heavens and God; I become holy as I am initiated. The Lord acts as hierophant, and seals the initiate, leading him into the light, and presents to the Father the one who has believed, preserved for the ages. These are the Bacchic revels of my mysteries. If you wish, be initiated yourself, and you will dance with angels around the unbegotten and indestructible and only true God, while the Word of God hymns with us. This Jesus is eternal, the one great high priest of the one and same God and Father; he prays for men and exhorts men: "Hear, countless tribes"—or rather, all of you who are rational among men, both barbarians and Greeks; I call the whole human race, whom I created by the will of the Father. Come to me, to be arrayed under one God and the one Word of God, and do not surpass the irrational animals only in reason; from among all mortals, I grant to you alone to reap immortality. For I wish, I wish to bestow this grace upon you as well, furnishing the whole benefit, incorruption; and I grant you the Word, the knowledge of God, I grant you my complete self.

This is what I am, this is what God wills, this is harmony, this is the concord of the Father, this is the Son, this is Christ, this is the Word of God, the arm of the Lord, the power of the universe, the will of the Father. O all you images, but not all of you are like the archetype; I wish to correct you toward the archetype, so that you may become like me. I will anoint you with the ointment of faith, through which you cast off corruption, and I will show you the naked form of righteousness, through which you ascend to God. "Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest; take my yoke upon you and learn from me, that I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls; for my yoke is kind and my burden is light." Let us hasten, let us run, O god-loving and godlike images of the Word; let us hasten, let us run, let us take his yoke, let us put on incorruption, let us love Christ, the noble charioteer of men; he has brought the colt as a beast of burden together with the old; and having yoked the pair of men, he guides the chariot to immortality, hastening to God to fulfill clearly what he intimated, formerly entering into Jerusalem, now driving into the heavens, the most beautiful sight for the Father, the eternal victorious Son. Let us then be ambitious for noble things and become god-loving men, and let us acquire the greatest goods, God and life. The Word is our helper; let us trust in him and never let desire for silver and gold, nor for glory, come upon us as great as that for the Word of truth itself.

For it is not even pleasing to God himself if we make the things of greatest worth of the least account, and choose manifest outrages of folly, ignorance, sloth, and idolatry, and the utmost impiety, as of greater value. For the children of the philosophers not inappropriately consider that all that the foolish do is unholy and impious, and, describing ignorance itself as a form of madness, they in fact confess that the many are mad. So reason does not leave it in doubt which of the two is better, to be sane or to be mad. But we must cling tenaciously to the truth, follow God with all our might, being sane, and consider everything as his, as it is, and, moreover, having learned that we ourselves are the most beautiful of his possessions, entrust ourselves to God, loving the Lord God and making this our work throughout our whole life. But if "friends' goods are common," and man is dear to God (for indeed he is a friend to God, through the mediation of the Word), then all things become man's, because all things are God's, and all things are common to both friends, God and man. It is time, therefore, for us to say that only the Christian is god-fearing, rich, temperate, and noble, and in this is an image of God with likeness, and to say and believe that he has become "just and holy with prudence" by Christ Jesus, and is already so like God. The prophet, at any rate, does not conceal the grace when he says, "I said that you are gods and sons of the Most High, all of you." For it is us, us he has adopted, and he wishes to be called father of us alone, not of the disobedient.

And so it is with us, the followers of Christ: as are our purposes, so are our words; as are our words, so are our deeds; and as are our deeds, so is our life. The whole life of those who have known Christ is good. Enough, I think, of words, even if I have gone on at some length out of love for humanity, pouring forth what I had from God, so as to exhort you to the greatest of goods, salvation. For concerning that life which has no cessation anywhere or at any time, the words that reveal the sacred mysteries never wish to cease. For you, this one end remains to choose what is beneficial: either judgment or grace. As for me, I do not even think it right to doubt which of the two is better; nor is it lawful to compare life with destruction.