The Instructor 1.6.42
Summary: The church is the one virgin mother who nurses her children with the Word; Christ bore her in the travail of his flesh and swaddled her in his blood, and is everything to his little ones.
Greek text · Stählin 1:115
Ὢ θαύματος μυστικοῦ· εἷς μὲν ὁ τῶν ὅλων πατήρ, εἷς δὲ καὶ ὁ τῶν ὅλων λόγος, καὶ τὸ πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον ἓν καὶ τὸ αὐτὸ πανταχοῦ, μία δὲ μόνη γίνεται μήτηρ παρθένος· ἐκκλησίαν ἐμοὶ φίλον αὐτὴν καλεῖν. γάλα οὐκ ἔσχεν ἡ μήτηρ αὕτη μόνη, ὅτι μόνη μὴ γέγονεν γυνή, παρθένος δὲ ἅμα καὶ μήτηρ ἐστίν, ἀκήρατος μὲν ὡς παρθένος, ἀγαπητικὴ δὲ ὡς μήτηρ, καὶ τὰ αὑτῆς παιδία προσκαλουμένη ἁγίῳ τιθηνεῖται γάλακτι, τῷ βρεφώδει λόγῳ. διὸ οὐκ ἔσχε γάλα, ὅτι γάλα ἦν * * τὸ παιδίον τοῦτο καλὸν καὶ οἰκεῖον, τὸ σῶμα τοῦ Χριστοῦ, τὴν νεολαίαν ὑποτροφὴν οὖσαν τῷ λόγῳ, ἣν αὐτὸς ἐκύησεν ὁ κύριος ὠδῖνι σαρκικῇ, ἣν αὐτὸς ἐσπαργάνωσεν ὁ κύριος αἵματι τιμίῳ. ὢ τῶν ἁγίων λοχευμάτων, ὢ τῶν ἁγίων σπαργάνων· ὁ λόγος τὰ πάντα τῷ νηπίῳ, καὶ πατὴρ καὶ μήτηρ καὶ παιδαγωγὸς καὶ τροφεύς. »φάγεσθέ μου«, φησί, »τὴν σάρκα καὶ πίεσθέ μου τὸ αἷμα.«
English · Claude translation
O mystic wonder! One is the Father of all things, one also the Word of all things, and the Holy Spirit is one and the same everywhere; and there is one only virgin mother. I love to call her the church. This mother alone had no milk, because she alone did not become a woman; she is at once virgin and mother, undefiled as a virgin, loving as a mother. Calling her children to her, she nurses them with holy milk, the Word for infants. So she had no milk, because the milk was … this fair and familiar child, the body of Christ, the young people nourished by the Word, whom the Lord himself brought forth in the travail of the flesh, whom the Lord himself swaddled in his precious blood. O holy births! O holy swaddling clothes! The Word is everything to the infant: father and mother and instructor and nurse. “Eat my flesh,” he says, “and drink my blood.”
About this passage
Notes
Translation notes
- The asterisks mark a gap in the manuscript. The image of the church as virgin mother, and of Christ giving birth to the church through his passion, is among the earliest of its kind.
- The quotation is John 6:53 (in Clement's form); the opening echoes Eph 4:4–6 and 1 Cor 8:6.
Cite this passage
Clement of Alexandria, Paed. 1.6.42 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-paedagogus/1/6/42/).
Plain text
Clement of Alexandria, Paed. 1.6.42 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-paedagogus/1/6/42/).
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