Note (return) — Chapter VI

This is sufficient to settle the nature of what is called personal attainment of salvation. Freedom precedes and supporting grace follows. As in Christ's case his human soul gradually united itself with the Logos in proportion as it voluntarily subjected its will to God, so also every man receives grace according to his progress. Though Clement and Origen did not yet recommend actual exercises according to definite rules, their description of the gradations by which the soul rises to God already resembles that of the Neoplatonists, except that they decidedly begin with faith as the first stage. Faith is the first step and is our own work.798 Then follows the religious contemplation of visible things, and from this the soul advances, as on the steps of a ladder, to the contemplation of the substantiæ rationabiles, the Logos, the knowable essence of God, and the whole fulness of the Deity.799 She retraces her steps upwards along the path she formerly passed over as a fallen spirit. But, when left to her own resources, she herself is everywhere weak and powerless; she requires at every stage the divine grace, that is, enlightenment.800 Thus a union of grace and freedom takes place within the sphere of the latter, till the "contemplative life" is reached, that joyous ascetic contemplativeness, in which the Logos is the friend, associate, and bridegroom of the soul, which now, having become a pure spirit, and being herself deified, clings in love to the Deity.801 In this view the thought of regeneration in the sense of a fundamental renewal of the Ego has no place;802 still baptism is designated the bath of regeneration. Moreover, in connection with the consideration of main Biblical thoughts (God as love, God as the Father, Regeneration, Adoption, etc.) we find in both Clement and Origen passages which, free from the trammels of the system, reproduce and set forth the preaching of the Gospel in a surprisingly appropriate way.803 It is evident that in Origen's view there can be no visible means of grace; but it likewise follows from his whole way of thinking that the symbols attending the enlightening operation of grace are not a matter of indifference to the Christian Gnostic, whilst to the common man they are indispensable.804 In the same way he brought into play the system of numerous mediators and intercessors with God, viz., angels and dead and living saints, and counselled an appeal to them. In this respect he preserved a heathen custom. Moreover, Origen regards Christ as playing an important part in prayer, particularly as mediator and high priest. On prayer to Christ he expressed himself with great reserve.