XIV.

(See p. 398, note 8.)

Julius Cassianus (assigned by Lardner to a.d. 190) was an Alexandrian Encratite, of whom, whatever his faults, Clement speaks not without respect. He is quoted with credit in the Stromata (book i. cap. xxi. p. 324), but comes into notice here, as having led off the school of Docetism. But Clement does not treat him as he does the vulgar and licentious errorist. He reproves him for his use of the Gospel according to the Egyptians, incidentally testifying to the Catholic recognition of only four Gospels. He refutes a Platonic idea of Cassian, as to the pre-existence of the soul. Also, he promises a full explanation, elsewhere, of "the coats of skins" (which Cassian seems to have thought the flesh itself), wherewith Adam and Eve were clothed. Lardner refers us to Beausobre for a curious discussion of this matter. Clement refutes a false argument from Christ's hyperbole of hatred to wife and children and family ties, and also gives lucid explanations of passages from Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezra, which had been wrested to heretical abuse. In a similar manner, he overthrows what errorists had built upon Job's saying, "who can bring a clean thing out of the unclean;" as also their false teachings on the texts, "In sin hath my mother conceived me," "the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul," and the apostolic instance of the athlete who is "temperate in all things."