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WEB 4 - ARCHIVE
Commentary 8 - Page 1 |
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THE ROYAL ROAD OF THE EARLY FATHERSAn updated version of a 1992 Praxis seminar.The fathers of the early church named the Christian spiritual way the Royal Way, or Royal Road. Clement of Alexandria wrote about it that: "While there is one royal highway, there are many other roads, some leading to a precipice, some to a rushing river or a deep sea, no one will shrink from travelling by reason of the diversity, but will make use of the safe, and royal, and frequented way." He also wrote: "Whence, 'Seek and ye shall find,' holding on by the truly royal road, and not deviating. As we might expect, then, the generative power of the seeds of the doctrines comprehended in this treatise is great in small space, as the 'universal herbage of the field.'" (Clement of Alexandria, 'Stromata', Vol. IV.) Clement distinguished the lifestyle and prayer life of one who truly knows God (i.e. a true 'Gnostic') from those more commonly known as the Gnostics, who - as he put it - ‘deny or twist the scriptures.’ He also described the high level of dedication of those Christian Gnostics he knew as Gnostics, writing: "Now, if some assign definite hours for prayer -- as, for example, the third, and sixth, and ninth -- yet the (Christian) Gnostic prays throughout his whole life, endeavouring by prayer to have fellowship with God. (3)And, briefly, having reached to this, he leaves behind him all that is of no service, as having now received the perfection of the man that acts by love. But the distribution of the hours into a threefold division, honoured with as many prayers, those are acquainted with who know the blessed triad of the holy abodes." (Clement of Alexandria, Stromata.) In 1973, a Harvard scholar called Morton Smith wrote about the change in the church at the time of Clement. " After the middle of the third century, moreover, this whole complex of concerns - the inner circle of higher initiates, the secret apostolic tradition, the opposition of gnosis to mere faith, and so on - is overshadowed by questions of church discipline and organisation. Later still, it almost disappears as interest turns to the Trinitarian controversy." (Morton Smith, 'Clement of Alexandria and the Secret Gospel of Mark,' Harvard, 1973.) |
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