Deeper than the depths beneath,
Free and faithful, strong as death.’
Do not these words seem to you to come from the heart? Are they not heart-realities? Yet they are metaphors. Well, this same poet speaks of ‘seeing by faith’ the ‘stream’ supplied by Christ’s ‘flowing wounds.’ Are such visions, or metaphors, or heart-realities, lightly to be discarded? Speaking for myself, I cannot give up this heart-fact—if I may so call it—for fact it is to me, whether seen by the material or by the spiritual eye. Some may think it to be spiritually false. For them it must be (in efficacy) false, even if it were historically true. For me it is true.”
He checked himself, and then continued, “Do not suppose, dear brother and fellow-seeker after truth, that I expect all others to see the truth in the same form in which I see it. Only I should hope to induce them to see the same truth in some form. See here these words”—and he took up a scroll and shewed them to me—“‘Every wise man is a ransom for the bad.’ Do they remind you of anything?” “Yes,” said I, “they are like the saying in Mark and Matthew, ‘The Son of man came to give his soul a ransom for many.’ Luke omits those words.” “He does,” said Clemens. “Luke has ‘I am among you as one that serveth.’ John combines the two views. For first he represents Jesus as girt with a napkin like a servant pouring forth water in a basin and washing the feet of the disciples; and then he represents Him as pouring forth His blood and water for their souls.”
Then Clemens told me that the words “Every wise man is a ransom for the bad” were written by Philo of Alexandria, who, though a Jew, was also a philosopher, and he shewed me a similar passage in the same writer, to the effect that the good and worthy and wise are both the physicians and the ransoms of every community in which they exist. Then he took up Ezekiel and read to me the vision of the dry bones in the valley, and how they come together into living bodies, being quickened by the breath of the Lord. Next he turned to Greek literature, touching on the old allegory of Amphion, whose music was so sweet that the very stones were constrained by it to come together in unity building up the walls of a great city.
“Should we be wrong,” said Clemens, “in saying that all these metaphors (to which others might be added) from various nations and literatures—about ‘harmony,’ and ‘service,’ and ‘ransom,’ and ‘blood,’ and ‘breath’—point to one deep truth, not exaggerated by Philo, that the less are purified by the greater, and that the greater are intended to sacrifice their independence and to come together with the less, in order to create cities and nations, which are the larger families that lead men towards the Fatherhood of God? No doubt, the greater are also purified by the less. Every community is built up and bound together by the self-sacrifice of all. And this binding together implies a purification of all, a cutting away of excessive protuberances, a purging away of selfish, isolating, schism-making qualities, so that each soul may take its place in the wall of the City of Concord. But still, as a rule, the less are purified by the greater; the most selfish by the least selfish; families by the father and the mother; peoples by their true princes, priests, and prophets. Prince, priest, prophet, each according to his several gift, washes the feet of his inferiors, and spends his life to increase and ennoble theirs. Looking back to our childhood, do we not recognise this, as a matter of our own experience? How then can we call God Father, and yet refuse to believe that He may be as loving as a human father, and that God’s children may be purified by God Himself, giving His own blood in the blood of His Son as a ransom for the sinful souls of men?”
As he said these words, he stood up, extending his hand. “I have allowed myself,” he said, “to keep you too long, when you have many things to do. Once or twice, intending to check myself, I have broken loose again. I will not a third time. Only this word, this one additional word. Believe me, Æmilius Scaurus was right, in saying ‘The religion of the Christians is a person.’ But your friend went on to say ‘and nothing more.’ I should prefer to say the same thing differently. ‘Our religion is a person—and nothing less.’”