Clement of Alexandria: INSTRUCTOR (PAEDAGOGUS) Complete

Translated by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson.

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Page 24

Thus, then, the milk which is perfect is perfect nourishment, and brings to that consummation which cannot cease. Wherefore also the same milk and honey were promised in the rest. Rightly, therefore, the Lord again promises milk to the righteous, that the Word may be clearly shown to be both, "the Alpha and Omega, beginning and end;" [1110] the Word being figuratively represented as milk. Something like this Homer oracularly declares against his will, when he calls righteous men milk-fed (galaktophagoi). [1111] So also may we take the Scripture: "And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ;" [1112] so that the carnal may be understood as those recently instructed, and still babes in Christ. For he called those who had already believed on the Holy Spirit spiritual, and those newly instructed and not yet purified carnal; whom with justice he calls still carnal, as minding equally with the heathen the things of the flesh: "For whereas there is among you envy and strife, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?" [1113] "Wherefore also I have given you milk to drink," he says; meaning, I have instilled into you the knowledge which, from instruction, nourishes up to life eternal. But the expression, "I have given you to drink" (epotisa), is the symbol of perfect appropriation. For those who are full-grown are said to drink, babes to suck. "For my blood," says the Lord, "is true drink." [1114]

[1110] Rev. i. 8.

[1111] [Iliad, xiii. 6. S.]

[1112] 1 Cor. iii. 1.

[1113] 1 Cor. iii. 3.

[1114] John vi. 55.

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