The Eucharist Before Rome: Clement of Alexandria and the Lost Meaning of Communion

Divine Wisdom — the radiant companion of God at creation, the light that shaped the cosmos and still whispers truth into every seeking soul.

“He that heareth My words, and believeth on Him that sent Me, hath eternal life.”— Clement of Alexandria, Paedagogus, Book I

When Clement of Alexandria writes of regeneration and enlightenment, he reveals a view of salvation and communion steeped in divine illumination. His theology reaches upward, to the Spirit who descends from above, not to anything earthly or material. As one of the Ante-Nicene Fathers, Clement lived and taught long before the Council of Nicaea, in an age when the faith was still pure and unshaped by the political ambitions that later sought to centralize Christianity for the sake of empire.

Clement explores what it means to pass from death to life. He says that faith alone, and regeneration, is perfection in life, for “God is never weak.”  The saving work is wholly divine; not mediated by human effort or material process, but by the will and purpose of God. Salvation, he says, is God’s own work; His counsel is the salvation of men, and this has been called the Church.

For him, faith is the means by which one enters life eternal.

Clement likens the baptized believer to one who has awakened from sleep or whose eyes have been cleared of film. The light was always present; the barrier lay within. Once removed, the believer immediately beholds the divine radiance. He writes that having wiped off the sins which obscure the light of the Divine Spirit, we have the eye of the spirit free, unimpeded, and full of light, by which alone we contemplate the Divine, the Holy Spirit flowing down to us from above.

Regeneration, for Clement, is the work of divine illumination; for no finite man can impart the Holy Spirit, who proceeds only from God.

“The wind blows where it wills… so is everyone who is born of the Spirit.” (John 3:8)

This is the essence of Clement’s mysticism: salvation occurs when the Spirit opens the eyes of the soul. The believer’s participation in Christ is spiritual vision, not physical absorption.

Throughout his works, Clement identifies Christ as the Logos; the divine Word that nourishes the soul through knowledge and faith. He calls this the holy food of faith and the milk of the Father’s wisdom. In Paedagogus II.2, he writes, “The blood of the Lord is twofold: for there is the corporeal blood by which we are redeemed from corruption, and the spiritual by which we are anointed. To drink the blood of Jesus is to share in the Lord’s immortality.”

Notice what Clement does here. He acknowledges the historical, redemptive blood of Christ shed once for all, but when he speaks of drinking that blood, he interprets it spiritually; as sharing in immortality. In Paedagogus I.6 he writes, “The Word is called the true drink and the true food, supplying the soul with the milk of the Father’s wisdom.”

Clement writes that there is nothing intermediate between light and darkness. The one who has been enlightened has already entered life; he awaits only the fullness of what has been promised. Faith begins in time; fulfillment is secured in eternity.

The "true" believer then, lives already in the light of God. The Holy Spirit has entered him; he has been illuminated; the eye of the spirit is open. In this state of divine vision, the soul no longer requires external symbols to sustain it. The Holy Spirit has already flowed down from above; directly, immediately, and powerfully. Grace is not mediated through idols; it is poured out from heaven into the believer’s heart.

This is Clement’s profound insight: the source of spiritual life is above, not below. The Spirit descends from heaven; it is not eaten or touched but received inwardly by faith.

From Clement’s perspective, salvation is already complete in the one who believes and has been regenerated. There is no gap between divine will and divine accomplishment. “At one and the same time,” he writes, “He called and saved them.” The believer is already united to Christ by faith, already illumined by the Spirit. And this illumination belongs only to those who worship in spirit and in truth; idolaters, who cling to material forms and earthly representations of the divine, cannot share in it. For the soul that looks to created things for holiness blinds itself to the light that descends from above.

Clement continues his reflection on the believer’s perfection, teaching that those who believe on the Son already possess everlasting life. Faith, he says, is perfect and complete in itself. “If aught is wanting to it, it is not wholly perfect.” In other words, there is nothing lacking in genuine belief; faith does not depend on external additions to achieve its purpose. It is, in itself, the full possession of eternal life in anticipation.

He explains that faith grasps now what will be fulfilled in the resurrection. It does not wait passively but receives in advance the future promise, so that what is believed becomes present reality. “Be it according to thy faith,” he quotes, and thus where faith exists, the promise already abides. The consummation of that promise is rest; the eternal peace found in divine knowledge.

Clement’s theology here is profoundly spiritual and intellectual. Illumination, he says, brings knowledge; and the end of knowledge is rest. Ignorance, by contrast, is darkness, the cause of sin. Knowledge; the illumination of the mind; is the light that dispels ignorance and sets the soul free.

He describes baptism as “the one Paeonian medicine, the baptism of the Word.” It is not a magical ritual but a divine washing of the mind and character, a cleansing that brings transformation. “We are washed from all our sins, and are no longer entangled in evil.” The change is moral and spiritual, not physical; it is the awakening of understanding, the release from blindness.

Clement goes on to say that “instruction leads to faith, and faith with baptism is trained by the Holy Spirit.” Again, he makes no mention of ritual works, penance, or sacrificial observances. The entire process is inward; faith producing knowledge, knowledge bringing illumination, and illumination resulting in union with God through the Spirit.

He concludes this line of thought by quoting Paul: “Before faith came, we were kept under the law... but after faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster.” Clement highlights this to affirm that faith; not works, not ritual, not the physical act of eating or doing; is the one universal salvation of humanity. All stand equal before God through faith, and in that equality there is fellowship with the divine.

Clement’s entire vision rests on the spiritual ascent of the soul: faith receives, illumination perfects, knowledge enlightens, and the Holy Spirit transforms. Grace descends from above and works within, through faith, not through outward works.

Clement now turns to the theme of repentance and spiritual rebirth, continuing his vision of salvation as a conscious, moral transformation rather than a ritual performed upon the body. He writes, “Accordingly, they confess that the spirit in repentance retraces its steps. In the same way, therefore, we also, repenting of our sins, renouncing our iniquities, purified by baptism, speed back to the eternal light, children to the Father.”

Here, repentance is not a formula or ceremony but a deliberate turning of the soul; the spirit “retracing its steps.” Baptism is described not as an automatic washing but as the seal of repentance: the conscious renunciation of sin and the return of the heart toward God. This requires awareness, confession, and understanding; a movement of the will. Clement’s entire picture assumes the moral agency of the believer.

He then quotes Jesus’ words: “I thank Thee, O Father… that Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them to babes.” Clement interprets “babes” not as literal infants but as those humble in spirit; those ready to embrace salvation with childlike sincerity. He says that the Master applies the name babes to us, who are readier to receive truth than the proud and self-assured.

This distinction matters deeply. For Clement, spiritual childhood is a posture of humility and teachability, not physical infancy. He writes that we are “children to the Father” because we have “put aside the old man” and been “purified by baptism.” This cannot describe infants, who cannot repent, renounce iniquity, or consciously turn to the eternal light. How could one “confess” sin or “repent” without understanding? Baptism, in Clement’s theology, presupposes a personal, intelligent faith; the repentance of one who knowingly turns from evil toward God.

This understanding of spiritual childhood also clarifies the nature of Mary’s purity at the time of the Incarnation. When she conceived by the Holy Spirit, Mary was herself a child; most scholars and early traditions place her at about twelve to fourteen years old. She belonged to that blessed company of whom Christ said, “of such is the kingdom of heaven.” Like the children described in Deuteronomy, she “knew not good from evil,” meaning she had not yet departed from the innocence of heart that naturally rests in the will of God.

Her purity, then, was the fruit of innocence and grace, not of a separate or miraculous conception of her own. The Holy Spirit “flowed down from above” to overshadow her, just as Clement describes the Spirit illuminating the soul.

To claim that Mary required a unique immaculate conception to bear the sinless Christ sets off an unnecessary chain of regress: if she were conceived immaculate, then her parents must also have been immaculate to conceive her, and their parents before them, and so on without end.

The premise itself is unnecessary because Scripture never teaches inherited guilt. The prophet Ezekiel declares, “The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son.” (Ezek. 18:20) Sin is personal, not hereditary. Each soul stands before God by its own faith and obedience. Grace is not transmitted through bloodlines, nor is guilt.

Thus Mary’s holiness, like that of every believer, flowed from grace freely given, not from an altered ancestry. She was pure because she was humble, innocent, and filled with faith; a vessel of divine favor, not divine exemption. In her, as in all who believe, the Spirit of God accomplished His work, descending freely upon a willing and undefiled heart, not an immaculate conception.

Clement continues, “Truly, then, are we the children of God, who have put aside the old man, and stripped off the garment of wickedness, and put on the immortality of Christ.” This is a deliberate moral transformation. We become babes not in age, but in simple-hearted, pure, and teachable. Clement reinforces this by quoting Paul: “Brethren, be not children in understanding; howbeit in malice be children, but in understanding be men.”

It is also important to note that Clement never mentions penance as a separate act or sacrament following baptism. His description of repentance is direct, inward, and complete; a spiritual change that leads to cleansing and illumination. There is no system of imposed penance or works of satisfaction; only faith, confession, and regeneration through the Word and Spirit. This perfectly reflects the apostolic teaching, for neither Christ nor His apostles ever commanded ritual penance as a condition for forgiveness. .

Clement continues to interpret what the milk, meat, and eventually the wine and blood signify in the Eucharist; and he does so using symbolic and spiritual reasoning rather than literal or material categories. His commentary on Paul reveals that he understands all of these images; childhood, milk, and maturity; not as physical or ritual realities, but as stages of spiritual understanding and union with the Word.

Clement begins by explaining Paul’s statement, “When I was a child, I thought as a child, I spake as a child.” He says Paul was describing his former life under the law: when he “thought childish things” he persecuted, and when he “spoke childish things,” he blasphemed the Word. This “childishness” is not innocent humility but spiritual immaturity; living in ignorance and fear. Clement observes that the Greek word for child (nēpion) can mean both “infant” and “foolish,” and Paul used it in the latter sense.

“When I became a man, I put away childish things,” Paul says. Clement explains that this change is not about age or secret knowledge, but about leaving behind the fear and servitude of the law to live freely in faith. Those under the law, he writes, are like children frightened by shadows; those who live by the Word are mature; rational, free, and obedient out of love rather than compulsion.

It is important to see that the law here does not mean the eternal commandments of God, which remain holy, just, and good. The commandments express God’s character and are to be kept in faith and love. Rather, to be under the law means to be subject to its condemnation — to have one’s sins exposed and held to account. As Paul says, “Where there is no law, there is no transgression.” The law points out sin; it does not create righteousness.

He points to Paul’s teaching in Galatians: that the Jews were heirs according to the first covenant, bound as servants under the rudiments of the world, while believers in Christ are heirs according to promise. The Son came to redeem those under the law, granting them adoption as true sons. “For thou art no more a servant, but a son,” Clement quotes.

This sets the stage for his interpretation of the Eucharistic imagery that follows. Clement notes that when Paul says, “I have fed you with milk, not with meat”, “milk” here does not mean a physical liquid, nor “meat” a literal meal. These are spiritual metaphors for different levels of divine instruction. He connects this to the promise of the land “flowing with milk and honey,” showing that even the Old Testament imagery was symbolic of spiritual nourishment, not physical food.

By reinterpreting Paul’s words this way, Clement makes clear that when Scripture speaks of “milk,” “meat,” “wine,” or “blood,” it speaks figuratively; about the communication of divine knowledge, not the ingestion of transformed matter. The “milk” represents the simple teaching for beginners in faith; the “meat” represents deeper understanding for those who have matured in Christ.

Thus, as Clement transitions toward his discussion of the bread and wine of the Eucharist, he has already established his principle: the language of nourishment in Scripture is spiritual and intellectual, not physical or sacrificial. The “child” drinks milk; the elementary doctrines of faith; the “man” partakes of solid food; the mature wisdom of the Word. In both cases, the soul, not the body, is being fed.

This section is one of the clearest windows into Clement’s true understanding of the Eucharist. Here, he interprets Paul’s words; “I have fed you with milk, not with meat”; as a metaphor for spiritual nourishment  through divine knowledge, and from this foundation he unfolds how Christ’s “milk” and “blood” symbolize the teaching and joy of the Word, not the physical consumption of literal flesh and blood.

Clement begins by addressing a difficulty in reading Scripture: if “milk” represents the infancy of faith, how can the righteous in heaven be said to receive milk again in the promised rest? His solution reveals his interpretive key; the “milk” of the Word is not a weak or imperfect food, but “simple, true, and natural nourishment,” meaning the pure teaching of Christ that leads to perfection. He says that he has “instructed you in Christ with simple, true, and natural nourishment; namely, that which is spiritual: for such is the nourishing substance of milk swelling out from breasts of love.”

Clement compares himself, as teacher, to a nurse who feeds newborn children: “As nurses nourish new-born children on milk, so do I also by the Word, the milk of Christ, instilling into you spiritual nutriment.” This is his definition of spiritual communion; the believer being nourished inwardly by the truth and love of the Logos. Milk, in his explanation, is not literal drink but a symbol of divine knowledge and grace that “nourishes up to life eternal.”

He continues by interpreting Paul’s division between the “spiritual” and the “carnal.” Those newly instructed in the faith are “babes in Christ”; still thinking in fleshly ways; while the mature, “spiritual” believers have already received the deeper illumination of the Spirit. He quotes Paul: “I have given you milk to drink,” and explains that this phrase signifies “I have instilled into you the knowledge which, from instruction, nourishes up to life eternal.” Notice his use of the verb “to drink” (epotisa): he says this is “the symbol of perfect appropriation,” meaning the inward reception and assimilation of divine truth.

Then Clement makes the crucial connection: “For my blood,” says the Lord, “is true drink.” And immediately he interprets it; “In saying, therefore, ‘I have given you milk to drink,’ has he not indicated the knowledge of the truth, the perfect gladness in the Word, who is the milk?” Here Clement directly equates Christ’s “blood” and “milk” with the knowledge of the truth and the joy found in the Word. The act of drinking Christ’s blood, therefore, is not a physical ingestion of transformed wine, but a spiritual participation in divine wisdom; “the perfect gladness in the Word.”

When he adds, “not meat, for ye were not able,” Clement explains that this refers to the deeper revelation yet to come; the face-to-face knowledge of the next life, when believers will behold God directly. For now, in the flesh, we see “through a glass,” receiving nourishment by faith; but in eternity, we will see “face to face.”

Clement’s consistent pattern of thought leaves no room for a literal reading of the Eucharist. “Milk,” “meat,” and “blood” are all metaphors of divine instruction, not substances changed in nature. The believer “drinks” Christ when he receives His truth inwardly and rejoices in His Word. The soul, not the body, is the organ of this communion.

This spiritual interpretation perfectly continues his earlier teaching: the Spirit “flows down from above” and illumines the mind — it does not descend into bread or wine to be consumed. The nourishment of the Christian is the knowledge of God through the Word, the Logos Himself, who gives eternal life by enlightening the soul, not by transforming elements.

Clement’s understanding of the Eucharist is therefore a theology of illumination through knowledge, not transubstantiation through ritual. Communion with Christ takes place in the spirit, through faith, repentance, and understanding — not through eating a wafer or drinking a transformed substance, but through inward participation in the Word who is both milk for beginners and wine for the mature.

Clement interprets Paul and the Gospels together to show that the language of eating, drinking, milk, flesh, and blood is wholly symbolic; a way of describing the inward nourishment of the soul through the Word, not the physical consumption of divine substance.

He begins by reminding the believer not to boast in human knowledge: “Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, and let not the mighty man glory in his might; but let him that glorieth glory in the Lord.” We, says Clement, are “God-taught,” and therefore “glory in the name of Christ.”

He then returns to Paul’s language of milk and meat, showing that they both refer to the same thing—the nourishment of the Word at different stages of faith. “For the very same Word,” he writes, “is fluid and mild as milk, or solid and compact as meat.” The Gospel itself is the milk for beginners, simple and gentle, while mature faith, built upon instruction, is the solid food of the wise. The source of both is one and the same: the Word of God, the Logos.

From this foundation, Clement connects Paul’s imagery with the words of Jesus in John 6: “Elsewhere the Lord, in the Gospel according to John, brought this out by symbols, when He said, ‘Eat ye my flesh, and drink my blood.’” Clement makes the meaning absolutely clear: Christ was “describing distinctly by metaphor the drinkable properties of faith and the promise, by means of which the Church… is refreshed and grows.”

Those words; “by symbols” and “by metaphor” ; are Clement’s own explicit statement that the Eucharistic sayings are figurative, not literal. The eating and drinking Christ commands are inward and spiritual acts, not physical ones. The “drinkable properties” are the life-giving realities of faith and hope, through which the Church is spiritually nourished.

It is also worth noting that the word Church in Clement’s time did not mean an institution, a hierarchy, or a building, as it often does today. The ekklesia was the called-out community of believers; those illuminated by the Word and united by the Holy Spirit. It referred to the body of faithful souls regenerated through faith and knowledge, not to an organized earthly structure. Thus, when Clement speaks of the Church being nourished by the Word, he means the living fellowship of believers receiving divine life from above, not a worldly organization dispensing grace from below.

Clement continues: “For in reality, the blood of faith is hope, in which faith is held as by a vital principle.” In his interpretation, the blood represents hope ; the living force that keeps faith alive. When hope expires, the blood is gone, and faith dies with it. Thus the “flesh” and “blood” of Christ are not substances to be consumed but divine realities to be received by faith: the solid nourishment of the Word and the lifeblood of hope.

He anticipates an objection; that milk is for beginners and meat for the mature; and answers that these are not different substances but different forms of the same nourishment. Those who think of meat as literal “flesh and blood” have misunderstood: they are, as he says, “brought by their own vainglorious wisdom to the true simplicity.” Clement shows that all this imagery points to spiritual cognitions; the deep truths of faith communicated through divine instruction.

To illustrate this, he uses a natural analogy: milk is derived from blood. “Blood,” he writes, “is the moister part of flesh… and milk is the sweeter and finer part of blood.” Just as blood is transformed into milk to feed the infant, so the wisdom of God is made gentle for our understanding. The source of both is the same divine Word, but adapted to the capacity of those who receive it.

This natural transformation serves as an image of divine pedagogy; the way the Word becomes intelligible nourishment for the faithful. What flows to believers as “milk” and “blood” are not material elements, but the spiritual life and knowledge that come from Christ, “the Alpha and the Omega, beginning and end.”

Clement’s teaching here is unmistakable. When Christ said, “This is my body… this is my blood,” He spoke, as Clement insists, “by symbols” and “by metaphor.” These are figures of spiritual participation, not physical ingestion. The believer communes with Christ by faith, hope, and love; by receiving the Word inwardly and allowing the Spirit to illuminate the soul.

Clement begins by continuing his natural analogy of milk being transformed from blood, describing it as “the change it suffers in quality, not in essence.” This distinction; change in quality, not in substance; is a direct rejection of any later idea that the elements of bread and wine literally transform in their being. Milk, he says, remains of the same essence as blood; it is changed only in appearance and function, just as the divine Word adapts His teaching to our capacity without changing His nature.

He explains that milk, “sweet through grace, nourishing as life, bright as the day of Christ,” perfectly symbolizes spiritual nourishment. The “blood of the Word,” he says, “has been also exhibited as milk,” showing that both blood and milk signify one thing: the divine life and wisdom of the Logos, communicated to believers in a form they can receive.

Clement then expands this symbol into a beautiful spiritual allegory. Just as a mother’s body produces milk to feed her newborn, so God, “the nourisher and the Father of all that are generated and regenerated,” provides spiritual milk for His children. The Church is the virgin mother, pure and loving, who nurses believers “with holy milk — the Word for childhood.” The “milk” she offers is not literal nourishment but the instruction of the Logos Himself. “Therefore she had not milk,” Clement writes, “for the milk was this child fair and comely, the body of Christ, which nourishes by the Word the young brood.”

This statement is critical: the body of Christ nourishes by the Word. It is the teaching and spiritual power of the Word; not physical flesh; that feeds the believer. Clement continues: “Eat ye my flesh,” He says, “and drink my blood. Such is the suitable food which the Lord ministers, and He offers His flesh and pours forth His blood, and nothing is wanting for the children’s growth.” Here Clement immediately interprets: “But you are not inclined to understand it thus… Hear it also in the following way. The flesh figuratively represents to us the Holy Spirit; for the flesh was created by Him. The blood points out to us the Word.”

This explicit declaration; “the flesh figuratively represents… the blood points out…” — makes Clement’s view unmistakable. The Eucharistic language of “flesh” and “blood” is figurative, not literal. The flesh symbolizes the Spirit’s creative power; the blood symbolizes the life-giving Word. Their union is the Lord Himself; “the food of the babes; the Lord who is Spirit and Word.”

Clement continues: “The food; that is, the Lord Jesus; that is, the Word of God, the Spirit made flesh, the heavenly flesh sanctified.” The “heavenly flesh” here is not physical matter but the divine nature of the Word, who became incarnate to make Himself intelligible and receivable to humanity. The believer partakes of this flesh spiritually, by faith, as nourishment for the soul.

“The nutriment,” Clement adds, “is the milk of the Father, by which alone we infants are nourished.” Christ is both the giver and the nourishment itself: “The Word Himself, then, the beloved One, and our nourisher, hath shed His own blood for us, to save humanity; and by Him, we, believing on God, flee to the Word, ‘the care-soothing breast’ of the Father.” The image of nursing from the Father’s breast; the Word; shows how far Clement’s Eucharistic thought is from any materialism. Feeding on Christ is feeding on truth, peace, and divine life.

He ties this understanding to Peter’s exhortation: “As new-born babes, desire the milk of the Word, that ye may grow by it to salvation.” Clement sees this as the true Eucharist; the receiving of the Word by faith, which enlightens and strengthens the soul.

Finally, he returns to the image of nature to drive his point home. The transformation of blood to milk, he says, is “a change which does not affect its substance,” just as spiritual nourishment changes our condition without altering the divine essence. The believer’s food is the Word Himself, received through faith and understanding. Thus, “With milk, then, the Lord’s nutriment, we are nursed directly we are born; and as soon as we are regenerated, we are honoured by receiving the good news of the hope of rest… in which it is written that milk and honey fall in showers, receiving through what is material the pledge of the sacred food.”

The physical symbols; bread, wine, milk, honey; are only pledges or signs pointing to the sacred food, which is Christ Himself, spiritually received. Clement concludes that “meats are done away with,” and that “this nourishment on milk leads to the heavens, rearing up citizens of heaven.” Even Paul’s phrase, “I have given you to drink,” he interprets spiritually: “for we drink in the Word, the nutriment of the truth.”

In Clement’s own words:

“Hear it also in the following way. The flesh figuratively represents to us the Holy Spirit… the blood points out to us the Word… the food—that is, the Lord Jesus—that is, the Word of God, the Spirit made flesh.”

Here the figurative and spiritual nature of the Eucharist could not be stated more plainly. Clement’s theology remains entirely consistent: grace, knowledge, and salvation descend from above; the soul is nourished by faith and truth; and the true communion with Christ is through understanding, not through eating bread or drinking wine.

The Eucharist, for Clement, is a mystery of understanding and transformation of the soul, not of physical substance.

Clement begins by saying, “For children at the breast, milk alone suffices; it serves both for meat and drink.” This continues his earlier theme: believers, as spiritual infants, receive the Word as milk; one substance providing complete nourishment, both “meat and drink.” Then he quotes Christ: “I have meat to eat that ye know not of. My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me.” Clement explains that this “meat”; like milk; figuratively represents the will of God. Again, he makes the meaning explicit: Christ’s food is obedience, not material bread. And for believers, “to drink the milk of the word of the heavens” is to feed spiritually on Christ Himself, who is the Word made flesh.

Clement develops the image further by returning to the Gospel of John: “The Word declares Himself to be the bread of heaven.” He quotes Jesus: “My Father giveth you the true bread from heaven... And the bread which I will give is My flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.” Clement explains that this “bread” signifies the Word’s life-giving power. He says that, as wheat rises again after decay, so Christ; the “bread baked”; rose through the fire of the Passion “for the joy of the Church.” Yet even here, he reminds his readers that this “flesh” is figuratively described; he interprets the mystery symbolically, not materially.

He goes on: “Since He said, ‘And the bread which I will give is My flesh,’ and since flesh is moistened with blood, and blood is figuratively termed wine, we are bidden to know…” Notice again the clarity; “blood is figuratively termed wine.” Clement is stating outright that the wine of the Eucharist is not literal blood but a figure of the Word’s life-giving power.

He elaborates the image: just as bread absorbs wine when mixed, “so also the flesh of Christ, the bread of heaven, absorbs the blood; that is, those among men who are heavenly, nourishing them up to immortality, and leaving only to destruction the lusts of the flesh.” The point is entirely spiritual: the heavenly man, by faith, absorbs divine life, while the carnal desires are left behind.

Clement then summarizes his theology in one sweeping statement: “Thus in many ways the Word is figuratively described, as meat, and flesh, and food, and bread, and blood, and milk. The Lord is all these, to give enjoyment to us who have believed on Him.” Here the word “figuratively” (Greek: κατὰ μεταφοράν) is crucial; it confirms beyond dispute that Clement interpreted the Eucharistic symbols as metaphors for the many forms in which Christ, the Word, nourishes the soul.

He anticipates objections and answers them: “Let no one then think it strange, when we say that the Lord’s blood is figuratively represented as milk. For is it not figuratively represented as wine?” Quoting Genesis, “Who washes His garment in wine, His robe in the blood of the grape,” he again stresses that both “wine” and “blood” are figures; poetic symbols of spiritual realities. Christ, through His Spirit, nourishes believers inwardly just as a vine feeds its branches.

Clement then adds another theological layer: “And that the blood is the Word, is testified by the blood of Abel the righteous interceding with God.” The “blood” speaks, he says, because it symbolizes the Word; the divine voice that intercedes. Thus, the blood shed by Christ on earth is not merely physical; it reveals and represents the eternal Word that pleads for humanity.

The passage closes with a natural illustration of harmony and growth: milk, blood, seed, and conception all function by mutual transformation. Just as the seed, when rightly mixed with the blood of life, brings forth fruit, so the believer who unites faith and understanding becomes spiritually fertile. The believer’s soul, when it receives the Word in faith, grows into the likeness of Christ.

Clement continues his theological development by returning to the natural analogy of blood, milk, and nourishment; not for the sake of biology, but to explain how the believer’s union with Christ operates through faith and rebirth. Every natural process he mentions becomes a metaphor for spiritual reality. He is describing how those “born again” are fed by the same divine life that begot them — the Word, who gives nourishment just as a mother provides milk to her newborn.

He begins by stating that “the essential principle of the human body is blood.” From this basis, he unfolds the pattern of transformation that mirrors the divine order: food becomes blood; blood becomes milk; and milk sustains life. This, for Clement, is a picture of the spiritual process by which divine truth descends to nourish humanity. He says, “For the flow of milk is the product of the blood; and the source of nourishment is the milk.” Thus, blood and milk are one in essence, just as the Word and the Spirit are one in their work of salvation.

Clement then turns from the natural to the mystical: “Wherefore the Holy Spirit in the apostle, using the voice of the Lord, says mystically, ‘I have given you milk to drink.’” He explains that if believers have been spiritually born of Christ, “He who has regenerated us nourishes us with His own milk, the Word.” The same source that creates spiritual life sustains it. Regeneration and nourishment are of one kind; both spiritual, both flowing from the Word.

This leads him to declare one of his most important theological principles: “As the regeneration was conformably spiritual, so also was the nutriment of man spiritual.” There is no trace of a physical or sacramental process here. The entire chain; birth, growth, feeding — is spiritual. The believer is united to Christ “in all respects,” he says, “into relationship through His blood, by which we are redeemed; and into sympathy, in consequence of the nourishment which flows from the Word; and into immortality, through His guidance.”

Then comes a key interpretive statement that ties all these symbols together:

“The same blood and milk of the Lord is therefore the symbol of the Lord’s passion and teaching.”

This sentence captures Clement’s whole Eucharistic theology. The blood symbolizes the passion of Christ; His sacrifice for humanity; and the milk symbolizes His teaching, which nourishes the soul unto eternal life. Both flow from the same divine source and are received spiritually, not physically. The Eucharist, then, is not the literal drinking of blood or milk, but the participation in the passion and instruction of Christ through faith and knowledge.

Clement even uses poetic language to express the believer’s privilege: “Each of us babes is permitted to make our boast in the Lord, while we proclaim: ‘Yet of a noble sire and noble blood I boast me sprung.’” The Christian, reborn and nourished by the divine Word, shares in Christ’s own nobility; His divine nature.

Next, he draws a striking parallel between milk and water to explain the relationship between the Word and baptism:

“Such as is the union of the Word with baptism, is the agreement of milk with water; for it receives it alone of all liquids, and admits of mixture with water, for the purpose of cleansing, as baptism for the remission of sins.”

Just as milk blends naturally with water without losing its essence, the Word and baptism unite in the believer’s regeneration; one cleanses, the other nourishes. He adds, “It is mixed naturally with honey also, and this for cleansing along with sweet nutriment. For the Word blended with love at once cures our passions and cleanses our sins.” Here Clement shows again that “honey,” like “milk” and “wine,” is symbolic; sweetness representing divine grace, the joy of faith, and the gentleness of truth.

He quotes the poetic phrase, “Sweeter than honey flowed the stream of speech,” and says, “It seems to me to have been spoken of the Word, who is honey. And prophecy oft extols Him ‘above honey and the honeycomb.’” The sweetness of honey, the nourishment of milk, the strength of meat, and the life of blood; all are figures of the same divine reality: the Word who gives Himself to the faithful.

Clement also compares milk and wine: “Furthermore, milk is mixed with sweet wine; and the mixture is beneficial, as when suffering is mixed in the cup in order to immortality.” Here he gives a spiritual meaning to Christ’s cup of suffering — the wine symbolizes the trials of faith, while the milk is the sustaining grace of the Word. Their combination “curdles” the believer’s life into firmness and purity: “For the milk is curdled by the wine, and separated, and whatever adulteration is in it is drained off.” In the same way, suffering purifies believers, separating earthly impurities from spiritual vitality.

He continues: “And in the same way, the spiritual communion of faith with suffering man, drawing off as serous matter the lusts of the flesh, commits man to eternity, along with those who are divine, immortalizing him.” Here, Clement is again redefining “communion” as the inward joining of faith and divine discipline; not a ritual act, but a transformation of the soul through participation in Christ’s sufferings and obedience.

Finally, Clement warns against those who boast of being “perfect” or “gnostic,” quoting Paul’s humility: “Not that I have already attained, or am already perfect; but I follow after… forgetting the things which are behind, and stretching forth to those that are before.” The true “gnostic,” for Clement, is not one who claims higher mystical insight, but one who continues to grow in the Word’s nourishment — humble, teachable, and dependent on Christ’s milk of wisdom.

This humility is not merely moral; it is theological. For if even the apostles confessed that they had not “already attained,” and if divine wisdom continues to unfold to those who seek, then how can any man claim to be incapable of error in matters of faith and truth? Clement’s model of knowledge is one of continual ascent; the soul ever drawn upward toward the Infinite, never possessing God as a finished doctrine but always receiving Him as light from above.

To claim infallibility, then, is to deny this very movement of grace. It is to say that the vessel can contain the ocean, that the learner has surpassed the Teacher. For Clement, all human understanding remains in apprenticeship to the Logos; even the most enlightened believer still “sees through a glass, darkly.” Only the Word Himself is perfect, only the Spirit is infallible, and only God possesses knowledge that cannot err.

If no finite man can give the Holy Spirit, as Clement teaches, how can a finite man speak with the unerring voice of the Spirit? The soul that would be wise must remain teachable; receiving, not declaring itself the source of truth. In Clement’s thought, true greatness lies not in the presumption of infallibility but in the perpetual posture of learning, kneeling before the light that ever descends from above.

Thus, in this section, Clement continues his seamless spiritual interpretation: all nourishment; whether described as blood, milk, bread, wine, or honey — is figurative of the Word of God, who regenerates, cleanses, enlightens, and sustains the soul. Baptism, teaching, faith, and endurance all flow together as one divine process, a single stream of spiritual life that descends from above and nourishes believers unto immortality.

No physical transformation of elements, no ritual transmutation of bread and wine, is even hinted at. Clement’s concern remains wholly spiritual: to show how, through regeneration and the Word, the soul becomes united to Christ, “brought into relationship through His blood… nourished by the Word… and led into immortality through His guidance.”

What the apostles forbade, later ages defined. Their warnings were clear and emphatic: do not go beyond what is written, do not accept another gospel, and guard the deposit of faith once for all delivered. The claim that the bread’s substance becomes Christ’s literal body while the outward appearance remains unchanged was not part of that deposit. It emerged many centuries later, first formally defined at the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 and expanded by scholastic philosophers afterward.

The metaphysical assumptions required for a literal change of substance are foreign to both Scripture and the earliest teachers. They depend on the later Aristotelian language of “substance” and “accidents,” categories that neither the apostles nor Clement knew. Scripture speaks not in terms of metaphysical transformation but in terms of covenant and participation: “This cup is the new covenant,” “I am the door,” “I am the vine.” These are living symbols, not chemical events. Clement reads John 6 and the words of institution through that same covenantal lens; figurative, spiritual, relational. Turning such words into physical chemistry is not the preservation of apostolic teaching but the replacement of its living language with philosophical machinery.

The same misunderstanding touches Christology itself. Scripture declares that even “the heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain” God. The risen Christ reigns bodily at the right hand of the Father and is present to His people by the Spirit who “flows down from above.” Believers “drink” the Word through faith; and faith itself, Clement says, “is perfect and complete in itself.” To imagine that a small wafer could contain the infinite is to contradict the very nature of God. If the heavens cannot contain Him, no fragment of matter can. Clement’s account is both consistent and deeply biblical: Christ gives Himself to faith through the Word and the Spirit, not by being physically enclosed in the elements.

In Clement’s vision, sacraments are living signs; pedagogical instruments by which God teaches, nourishes, and illumines. He writes, “The same blood and milk of the Lord is the symbol of the Lord’s passion and teaching.” When a sign is treated as a mechanism that produces divinity, it ceases to be sacrament and becomes magic. The earliest believers broke bread in thanksgiving and fed upon the Logos through faith and understanding; they did not imagine that divine power could be conjured by priestly words.

Apostolic succession, rightly understood, means continuity of faith and teaching, not novelty of theory. If succession depends on fidelity to what the apostles taught and practiced, then to introduce a metaphysical conversion unknown to them is to break that succession, not to preserve it. In Clement’s thought, the Eucharist remains entirely coherent without such inventions: the Word is milk for infants and solid food for the mature; the blood of Christ is hope; His flesh is the gift of the Spirit; and the bread and wine are signs that train and teach. To redefine this as a literal change of substance is to replace the living apostolic pattern with an addition foreign to the Gospel.

Clement’s theology forms a seamless whole: faith is “perfection”; regeneration is “enlightenment”; baptism is “the one Paeonian medicine,” the washing of the Word; the Spirit descends; the soul sees; the Word nourishes. Every image; milk, bread, wine, blood; points to a single divine reality: the inward illumination of the believer by the descent of the Spirit. This is how the first teachers of the Church spoke. The later reversal exchanged illumination for ingestion.

And here the question must be asked: if all believers remain in a continual state of being taught by the Word; if illumination is an ongoing ascent toward divine truth; how can any man claim to have reached its limit? If, as Clement says, even Paul “pressed on” and had “not yet attained,” how can the Bishop of Rome declare himself infallible in matters of faith and morals? Such a claim implies that the learner has surpassed or is equal to the Teacher. Infallibility, as later defined, is itself another addition to the Gospel; a political and theological device to preserve human control over divine mystery, binding an empire together under the guise of unerring authority.

But the Spirit of God is not bound to empire, ritual, or office. He blows where He wills, instructing all who believe, leading them ever deeper into the knowledge of the Word. The true Church, as Clement describes, is not an earthly institution dispensing divine favor, but the community of those continually illumined by the Spirit. To claim to speak without error on behalf of God is to forget that we all “see through a glass, darkly,” and that the only perfection belongs to the Word Himself.

Thus the choice remains as clear as ever: either the Eucharist; and the faith built upon it; remains what the earliest Church taught, a spiritual communion in the Word by the Spirit, with the signs remaining signs and the believers remaining learners; or it becomes what later centuries made it, a material conversion guarded by human "infallibility". The first is apostolic, coherent, and filled with light. The second is a human addition; and the apostles warned plainly: add nothing.