Miscellanies 5.6.39
Summary: The oracle signifies prophecy and judgment by the Word; the robe the incarnation; the high priest changing garments on the Day of Atonement signifies the knower rising beyond the baptized faithful, cleansed no longer by water but by the Word of knowledge.
Greek text · Stählin 2:353
ναὶ μὴν τὸ λόγιον τὴν προφητείαν τὴν ἐκβοῶσαν τῷ λόγῳ καὶ κηρύσσουσαν καὶ τὴν κρίσιν τὴν ἐσομένην δηλοῖ, ἐπεὶ ὁ αὐτός ἐστι λόγος ὁ προφητεύων κρίνων τε ἅμα καὶ διακρίνων ἕκαστα. φασὶ δὲ καὶ τὸ ἔνδυμα, τὸν ποδήρη, τὴν κατὰ σάρκα προφητεύειν οἰκονομίαν, διʼ ἣν προσεχέστερον εἰς κόσμον ὤφθη. ταύτῃ τοι ἀποδὺς τὸν ἡγιασμένον χιτῶνα ὁ ἀρχιερεὺς (κόσμος δὲ καὶ ἡ ἐν κόσμῳ κτίσις ἡγίασται πρὸς τοῦ καλὰ συγκαταθεμένου τὰ γινόμενα) λούεται καὶ τὸν ἄλλον ἐνδύεται ἅγιον ἁγίου ὡς εἰπεῖν χιτῶνα, τὸν συνεισιόντα εἰς τὰ ἄδυτα αὐτῷ, ἐμοὶ δοκεῖν ἐμφαίνων τὸν Λευίτην καὶ γνωστικὸν ὡς ἂν τῶν ἄλλων ἱερέων ἄρχοντα, ὕδατι ἀπολελουμένων ἐκείνων καὶ πίστιν ἐνδεδυμένων μόνην καὶ τὴν ἰδίαν ἐκδεχομένων μονήν, αὐτὸν διακρίναντα τὰ νοητὰ τῶν αἰσθητῶν, κατʼ ἐπανάβασιν τῶν ἄλλων ἱερέων σπεύδοντα ἐπὶ τὴν τοῦ νοητοῦ δίοδον, τῶν τῇδε ἀπολουόμενον οὐκέτι ὕδατι, ὡς πρότερον ἐκαθαίρετο εἰς Λευιτικὴν ἐντασσόμενος φυλήν, ἀλλʼ ἤδη τῷ γνωστικῷ λόγῳ.
English · Claude translation
Indeed the oracle signifies prophecy, which cries out by the Word and proclaims, and the judgment to come, since the same Word prophesies, judges, and discerns each thing. They say too that the garment, the long robe, prophesies the arrangement according to the flesh, by which he was seen more closely in the world. So the high priest, taking off the consecrated tunic (for the world and creation in the world have been consecrated by the one who approved the things that came to be as good), washes and puts on the other tunic, holy of holy, so to speak, which enters the sanctuary with him; showing, it seems to me, the Levite and knowing man as leader of the other priests, those washed in water and clothed only in faith and awaiting their own dwelling; he himself, having distinguished intelligible things from sensible, hastening by ascent beyond the other priests to the passage to the intelligible, washed from things here no longer with water, as he was purified before when enrolled in the tribe of Levi, but now by the knowing Word.
About this passage
Notes
Translation notes
- The allusions are Exod 28:30, Lev 16:4, 23–24, and Gen 1:31.
Cite this passage
Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 5.6.39 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-stromata/5/6/39/).
Plain text
Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 5.6.39 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-stromata/5/6/39/).
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