Clement of Alexandria: STROMATA (MISCELLANIES), Part IV, Complete

Translated by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson.

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Wherefore the Lord preached the Gospel to those in Hades. Accordingly the Scripture says, "Hades says to Destruction, We have not seen His form, but we have heard His voice." [3264] It is not plainly the place, which, the words above say, heard the voice, but those who have been put in Hades, and have abandoned themselves to destruction, as persons who have thrown themselves voluntarily from a ship into the sea. They, then, are those that hear the divine power and voice. For who in his senses can suppose the souls of the righteous and those of sinners in the same condemnation, charging Providence with injustice?

But how? Do not [the Scriptures] show that the Lord preached [3265] the Gospel to those that perished in the flood, or rather had been chained, and to those kept "in ward and guard"? [3266] And it has been shown also, [3267] in the second book of the Stromata, that the apostles, following the Lord, preached the Gospel to those in Hades. For it was requisite, in my opinion, that as here, so also there, the best of the disciples should be imitators of the Master; so that He should bring to repentance those belonging to the Hebrews, and they the Gentiles; that is, those who had lived in righteousness according to the Law and Philosophy, who had ended life not perfectly, but sinfully. For it was suitable to the divine administration, that those possessed of greater worth in righteousness, and whose life had been pre-eminent, on repenting of their transgressions, though found in another place, yet being confessedly of the number of the people of God Almighty, should be saved, each one according to his individual knowledge.

[3264] The passage which seems to be alluded to here is Job xxviii. 22, "Destruction and Death say, We have heard the fame thereof with our ears."

[3265] euengelisthai used actively for euangelisai, as also immediately after euengelismenoi for euangelisamenoi.

[3266] 1 Pet. iii. 19, 20.

[3267] Potter, p. 452.

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