"Luxury has deranged all things" ~ Saint Clement of Alexandria on living as a Christian in a decadent culture

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“The man who would be beautiful must adorn that which is the most beautiful thing in man—his mind—which every day he ought to exhibit in greater comeliness. He should pluck out not hairs, but lusts.” 

~Saint Clement of Alexandria

Today, December 4, is the feast of Saint Clement of Alexandria who, though little remembered today, was lauded in antiquity for his combination of erudition and sanctity. Theodoret, the Christian historian of the mid-5th century, deemed Clement a man who, "surpassed all others and was a holy man." Saint Jerome included Clement in his work, On Illustrious Men, saying, "he is the author of notable volumes, full of eloquence and learning, both in sacred Scripture and in secular literature."

The life of Clement, whose full name was Titus Flavius Clemens, straddled the late 2nd and early 3rd century AD. He was a pagan philosopher in his younger days, but like his near contemporary, Justin Martyr, he converted to Christianity and was soon recognized for his brilliance. He became the head of the Christian school in Alexandria where several of his pupils would go on to have noteworthy careers as churchmen and Christian apologists. Origen is, perhaps, the foremost among Clement's students. For more detail on Clement's life and his writings, click here.

The above quote comes from one of the surviving works of Saint Clement of Alexandria entitled The Paedagogus (otherwise, The Tutor). In this work, Clement provides a manual for the newly converted on how to live a proper Christian life in the morally squalid culture of the Roman-Egyptian east. Here is the quote, which comes from a chapter entitled, "On men who embellish themselves," with some additional context:

"No one who entertains right sentiments would wish to appear a fornicator, were he not the victim of that vice, and study to defame the beauty of his form. No one would, I say, voluntarily choose to do this. For if God foreknew those who are called, according to His purpose, to be conformed to the image of His Son, for whose sake, according to the blessed apostle, 'He has appointed Him to be the first-born among many brethren,' [Romans 8:28-29] are they not godless who treat with indignity the body which is of like form with the Lord?

"The man, who would be beautiful, must adorn that which is the most beautiful thing in man, his mind, which every day he ought to exhibit in greater comeliness; and should pluck out not hairs, but lusts. I pity the boys possessed by the slave-dealers, that are decked for dishonor. But they are not treated with ignominy by themselves, but by command the wretches are adorned for base gain. But how disgusting are those who willingly practice the things to which, if compelled, they would if they were men die rather than do?

"But life has reached this pitch of licentiousness through the wantonness of wickedness, and lasciviousness is diffused over the cities, having become law. Beside them women stand in the stews, offering their own flesh for hire for lewd pleasure, and boys, taught to deny their sex, act the part of women.

"Luxury has deranged all things; it has disgraced man. A luxurious niceness seeks everything, attempts everything, forces everything, coerces nature. Men play the part of women, and women that of men, contrary to nature. Women are at once wives and husbands: no passage is closed against libidinousness, and their promiscuous lechery is a public institution, and luxury is domesticated. O miserable spectacle! Horrible conduct! Such are the trophies of your social licentiousness which are exhibited: the evidence of these deeds are the prostitutes. Alas for such wickedness! Besides, the wretches know not how many tragedies the uncertainty of intercourse produces. For fathers, unmindful of children of theirs that have been exposed, often without their knowledge, have intercourse with a son that has debauched himself, and daughters that are prostitutes; and licence in lust shows them to be the men that have begotten them.

"These things your wise laws allow. People may sin legally, and the execrable indulgence in pleasure they call a thing indifferent. They who commit adultery against nature think themselves free from adultery. Avenging justice follows their audacious deeds, and, dragging on themselves inevitable calamity, they purchase death for a small sum of money. The miserable dealers in these wares sail, bringing a cargo of fornication, like wine or oil. And others, far more wretched, traffic in pleasures as they do in bread and sauce, not heeding the words of Moses, 'Do not prostitute your daughter, to cause her to be a whore, lest the land fall to whoredom, and the land become full of wickedness.'" [Leviticus 19:29]

Clement of Alexandria, The Paedagogus, Book III, Chapter III: On Men Who Embellish Themselves

For the non-religiously-inclined reader, Clement's words provide a window into the type of society that existed in Alexandria, the great Greco-Roman metropolis of Egypt, in the early third century AD. But such a reader should not ascribe Clement's fulmination against what he sees as the moral degeneracy of society to purely ignorant religious bigotry. Far from it.

Recall that Clement is not merely a fundamentalist Christian providing a prudish, exaggerated polemic against perceived moral evils. As a brilliantly-educated convert from paganism, and a man who had traveled all over the Roman Empire, Clement was qualified beyond most others to make such observations. In Clement's words we see clearly the zeal of the converted. We may even hear the ringing denunciation of a repentant man for his former life of wickedness.

To read The Paedagogus in full, visit Tertullian.org.