Contemporary with Irenæus, and probably less than twenty years his
junior, was Clement, the celebrated Christian philosopher of Alexandria.
I am not aware that any Roman Catholic writer has appealed to the
testimony of Clement in favour of the invocation of saints, nor have I
found a single passage which the defenders of that practice would be
likely to quote; and yet there are many passages which no one, anxious
to trace the Catholic faith, would willingly neglect. The tendency of
Clement's mind to blend with the simplicity of the Gospel of Christ the
philosophy in which he so fully abounded, renders him far less valuable
as a Christian teacher; but his evidence as to the matter of fact, is
even rendered more cogent and pointed by this tendency of his mind. I
would {125} willingly have transferred to these pages whole passages of
Clement, but the very nature of my address forbids it. Some sentences
bearing on the subject immediately before us, we must not omit.
Clement has left on record many of his meditations upon the efficacy,
the duty, and the blessed comfort of prayer. When he speaks of God, and
of the Christian in prayer, (for prayer he defines to be "communion or
intercourse with God,") his language becomes often exquisitely
beautiful, and sometimes sublime. It is impossible by a few detached
passages to convey an adequate estimate of the original; and yet a few
sentences may show that Clement is a man whose testimony should not be
slighted.
"Therefore, keeping the whole of our life as a feast every where, and on
every part persuaded that God is present, we praise him as we till our
lands; we sing hymns as we are sailing. The Christian is persuaded that
God hears every thing; not the voice only, but the thoughts.... Suppose
any one should say, that the voice does not reach God, revolving as it
does in the air below; yet the thoughts of the saints cut not only
through the air, but the whole world. And the divine power like the
light is beforehand in seeing through the soul.... He" (the Christian
whom he speaks of throughout as the man of divine knowledge) "prays for
things essentially good.
"Wherefore it best becomes those to pray who have an adequate knowledge
of God, and possess virtue in accordance with Him--who know what are
real goods, and what we should petition for, and when, and how in each
case. But it is the extreme of ignorance to ask {126} from those who are
not gods as though they were gods.... Whence since there is one only
good God, both we ourselves and the angels supplicate from Him alone,
that some good things might be given to us, and others might remain with
us. In this way he (the Christian) is always in a state of purity fit
for prayer. He prays with angels, as being himself equal with angels;
and as one who is never beyond the holy protecting guard. And if he pray
alone he has the whole choir of angels with him." [Stromata, lib. vii. §
7. p. 851, &c.; Section xii. p. 879.]
Clement has alluded to instances alleged by the Greeks of the effects of
prayer, and he adds, "Our whole Scripture is full of instances of God
hearing and granting every request according to the prayers of the
just." [Lib. vi. § iii. p. 753.]
Having in the same section referred to the opinion of some Greeks as to
the power of demons over the affairs of mortals, he adds, "But they
think it matters nothing whether we speak of these as gods or as angels,
calling the spirits of such 'demons,' and teaching that they should be
worshipped by men, as having, by divine providence, on account of the
purity of their lives, received authority to be conversant about earthly
places, in order that they may minister to mortals." [Lib. vi. § iii. p.
755.]
Is it possible to suppose that this teacher in Christ's school had any
idea of a Christian praying to saints or angels? In the last passage,
the language in which he quotes the errors of heathen superstition to
refute them, so nearly approaches the language of the Church of Rome
when speaking of the powers of saints and angels to assist the
suppliant, that if Clement had entertained {127} any thought whatever of
a Christian praying for aid and intercession to saint or angel, he must
have mentioned it, especially after the previous passage on the
absurdity and gross ignorance of praying for any good at the hands of
any other than the one true God.
In common with his contemporaries, Clement considered the angels to be,
as we mortals are, in a state requiring all the protection and help to
be obtained by prayer; he believed that the angels pray with us, and
carry our prayers to God: but the thought of addressing them by
invocation does not appear to have occurred to his mind. At the close of
his Pædagogus he has left on record a form of prayer to God alone very
peculiar and interesting. He closes it by an ascription of glory to the
blessed Trinity. But there is no allusion to saint, or angel, or virgin
mother.
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