Christ the Educator

Chapter 9

CHRIST THE EDUCATOR 67 His wisdom is profound in His education of His children; His method of conducting them to salvation is manifold. He furnishes proofs for the good; He summons the elect to a more excellent life; and those who are bent on evil He restrains from their course and encourages to turn to a better life. Neither way of life lacks its testimony; in fact, the one supplies testimony to the other. Our gratefulness for the testimony is unbounded, especially when the motive of His wrath-if we can call His words of warning, wrath-is really love for man. It is God falling into a passion for the sake of man, for whom the Word of God also became man. Chapter 9 (75) Truly, the Educator of mankind, the divine Word of ours, has devoted Himself with all His strength to save His little ones by all the means at the disposal of His wisdom: warning, blaming, rebuking, correcting, threatening, healing, promising, bestowing favors-in a word, 'binding as if with many bits'! the unreasonable impulses of human nature. In fact, the Lord acts toward us just as we do toward our children : 'Hast thou children? Chastise them,' Wisdom advises, 'and hast thou daughters? Have a care of their body and shew not thy countenance gay toward them.'2 Yet we have a great love for our children, sons or daughters, more than that we have for anything else. Indeed, those who are very affable in their relations with others really show less love simply because they never become provoked, while those who administer rebuke for the good of someone else, although they I Plato, Laws VII 808D. 2 Eccli. 7.25. 68 CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA are disagreeable at the moment, render a service that affects the life after the grave. So, too, the Lord is interested, not in promoting our present pleasure, but the happiness that is to come. Let us consider the nature of the loving education which He imparts, together with the testimony which the Prophets have made concerning it. (76) Admonition is solicitous disapproval, seeking to arouse the mind. The Educator uses admonition when He says in the Gospel: 'How often would I gather thy children together , as a hen gathers her young under her wings, but thou wouldst not.'3 Another time, Scripture admonishes: 'They fornicated with sticks and stones, and they lusted after Baal.'4 Surely, the proof of His love for men is striking, for, although He sees clearly the shamelessness of His people in their reveling and merry-making, He calls them to conversion and says to Ezechiel: '0 son of man, thou dwellest with scorpions, thou shall speak my words to them, if perhaps they will hear.'5 He said to Moses: 'Go and speak to Pharaoh, that he may let My people go, but I know that he will not let them gO.'6 In both these passages, He manifests His divinity by foreseeing what is to happen, and also His love for man by offering to the free will of man an opportunity to repent. In His concern for His people, He admonishes through Isaias, also: 'This people honor Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me' (this is really to correct them), 'but in vain do they worship Me, teaching for doctrine precepts of men.'7 Therefore , while His solicitude lays their sin bare, at the same time He points out the way to salvation. 3 Matt. 23.37. 4 Jer. 3.9. 5 Ezech. 2.6. 6 Exod. 6.11; 3.19. 7 Isa. 29.13; d. Matt. 15.8. CHRIST THE EDUCATOR 69 (77) Censure is disapproval of something that is shameful , seeking to dispose the individual to perform good deeds. This is what He expresses in the words of Jeremias: 'They are become as amorous horses: everyone neighed after his neighbor's wife. Shall I not visit for these things, saith the Lord? And shall not My soul take revenge on such a nation?'S He weaves the thread of fear into everything because 'fear of the Lord is the beginning of understanding.'9 Another time, He says through Osee: 'I will not visit upon them, because they themselves conversed with harlots, and offered sacrifice with the initiate, and the people that does not understand shall have intercourse with the harlot.'lo Here He describes their sin...