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Stromata

Clement of Alexandria, ANF 2

Book 3, Such are the arguments of Julius Cassianus, the originator of docetism. At any…

Such are the arguments of Julius Cassianus,¹ the originator of docetism. At any rate in his book Concerning Continence and Celibacy he says these words: “And let no one say that because we have these parts, that the female body is shaped this way and the male that way, the one to receive, the other to give seed, sexual intercourse is allowed by God. For if this arrangement had been made by God, to whom we seek to attain, he would not have pronounced eunuchs blessed; nor would the prophet have said that they are ‘not an unfruitful tree,’² using the tree as an illustration of the man who chooses to emasculate himself of any such notion.”

And striving still further to support his godless opinion he adds: “Could not one rightly find fault with the Saviour if he was responsible for our formation and then delivered us from error and from this use of the generative organs?” In this respect his teaching is the same as Tatian’s. But he departed from the school of Valentine. On this account he says: “When Salome asked when she would know the answer to her questions, the Lord said, When you trample on the robe of shame, and when the two shall be one, and the male with the female, and there is neither male nor female.”³

In the first place we have not got the saying in the four Gospels that have been handed down to us, but in the Gospel according to the Egyptians. Secondly Cassian seems to me not to know that it refers to wrath in speaking of the male impulse and to desire in speaking of the female. When these operate, there follow repentance and shame. But when a man gives in neither to wrath nor to desire, both of which increase in consequence of evil habit and upbringing so as to cloud and obscure rational thought,⁴ but puts off from him the darkness they cause with penitence and shame, uniting spirit and soul in obedience to the Word, then, as Paul also says, “there is among you neither male nor female.”⁵ For the soul leaves this physical form in which male and female are distinguished, and being neither the one nor the other changes to unity.⁶ But this worthy fellow thinks in Platonic fashion that the soul is of divine origin and, having become female by desire, has come down here from above to birth and corruption.⁷

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