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Translated by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson.
Clement of Alexandria in Print
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128 Pages
Page 34
The same blood and milk of the Lord is therefore the symbol of the Lord's passion and teaching. Wherefore each of us babes is permitted to make our boast in the Lord, while we proclaim:--
"Yet of a noble sire and noble blood I boast me sprung." [1134]
And that milk is produced from blood by a change, is already clear; yet we may learn it from the flocks and herds. For these animals, in the time of the year which we call spring, when the air has more humidity, and the grass and meadows are juicy and moist, are first filled with blood, as is shown by the distension of the veins of the swollen vessels; and from the blood the milk flows more copiously. But in summer again, the blood being burnt and dried up by the heat, prevents the change, and so they have less milk.
Further, milk has a most natural affinity for water, as assuredly the spiritual washing has for the spiritual nutriment. Those, therefore, that swallow a little cold water, in addition to the above-mentioned milk, straightway feel benefit; for the milk is prevented from souring by its combination with water, not in consequence of any antipathy between them, but in consequence of the water taking kindly to the milk while it is undergoing digestion.
And such as is the union of the Word with baptism, is the agreement of milk with water; for it receives it alone of all liquids, and admits of mixture with water, for the purpose of cleansing, as baptism for the remission of sins. And it is mixed naturally with honey also, and this for cleansing along with sweet nutriment. For the Word blended with love at once cures our passions and cleanses our sins; and the saying,
"Sweeter than honey flowed the stream of speech," [1135]
seems to me to have been spoken of the Word, who is honey. And prophecy oft extols Him "above honey and the honeycomb." [1136]
[1134] Il., xiv. 113.
[1135] Il., i. 248.
[1136] Ps. xix. 10.
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