stephan huller

It was ph2ter who pointed this out to me.

I am wondering if the same analogy held true for Christianity. Was the true gospel the κήρινθος drawn from many flowers which lay at the heart of the 'beehive' - the monastery?

Clement does seem to use bees and words related to κήρινθος (cerinthos) to describe the essential work of the Church. Here are some examples:

Whence, "Seek, and ye shall find," holding on by the truly royal road, and not deviating. As we might expect, then, the generative power of the seeds of the doctrines comprehended in this treatise is great in small space, as the "universal herbage of the field," as Scripture saith. Thus the Miscellanies of notes have their proper title, wonderfully like that ancient oblation culled from all sorts of things of which Sophocles writes: "For there was a sheep's fleece, and there was a vine, And a libation, and grapes well stored; And there was mixed with it fruit of all kinds, And the fat of the olive, and the most curious wax-formed work of the yellow bee [μελίσσης κηρόπλαστον ὄργανον]." [Stromata iv.2]

I think κήρινθος was originally developed from a description again that the true gospel was developed last and from a variety of earlier sources. As we read at the beginning of the Stromata:

Now the Scripture kindles the living spark of the soul, and directs the eye suitably for contemplation; perchance inserting something, as the husbandman when he ingrafts, but, according to the opinion of the divine apostle, exciting what is in the soul. "For there are certainly among us many weak and sickly, and many sleep. But if we judge ourselves, we shall not be judged." Now this work of mine in writing is not artfully constructed for display; but my memoranda are stored up against old age, as a remedy against forgetfulness, truly an image and outline of those vigorous and animated discourses which I was privileged to hear, and of blessed and truly remarkable men [ὧν κατηξιώθην ἐπακοῦσαι, λόγων τε καὶ ἀνδρῶν μακαρίων καὶ τῷ ὄντι ἀξιολόγων].

Of these the one, in Greece, an Ionic; the other in Magna Graecia: the first of these from Coele-Syria, the second from Egypt, and others in the East. The one was born in the land of Assyria, and the other a Hebrew in Palestine. When I came upon the last (he was the first in power), having tracked him out concealed in Egypt, I found rest. He, the true, the Sicilian bee, gathering the spoil of the flowers of the prophetic and apostolic meadow, engendered in the souls of his hearers a deathless element of knowledge [ὑστάτῳ δὲ περιτυχὼν (δυνάμει δὲ οὗτος πρῶτος ἦν) ἀνεπαυσάμην, ἐν Αἰγύπτῳ θηράσας λεληθότα. Σικελικὴ τῷ ὄντι ἦν μέλιττα προφητικοῦ τε καὶ ἀποστολικοῦ λειμῶνος τὰ ἄνθη δρεπόμενος ἀκήρατόν τι γνώσεως χρῆμα ταῖς τῶν ἀκροωμένων ἐνεγέννησε ψυχαῖς].

Well, they preserving the tradition of the blessed doctrine derived directly from the holy apostles, Peter, James, John, and Paul, the sons receiving it from the father (but few were like the fathers), came by God's will to us also to deposit those ancestral and apostolic seeds. And well I know that they will exult; I do not mean delighted with this tribute, but solely on account of the preservation of the truth, according as they delivered it. For such a sketch as this, will, I think, be agreeable to a soul desirous of preserving from escape the blessed tradition.[Stromata 1.1]

Or go to the bee, and learn how laborious she is; for she, feeding on the whole meadow, produces one honey-comb [καὶ αὐτὴ γὰρ πάντα τὸν λειμῶνα ἐπινεμομένη ἓν κηρίον γεννᾷ].[ibid 1.4]

I think this demonstrates the very strong possibility that κήρινθος is somehow related to the development of the true gospel. Pantaenus is ALWAYS connected with the Gospel of the Hebrews. The Gospel of Hebrews is connected by Epiphanius with the Diatessaron. The Diatessaron is ALWAYS described as a 'mix' of earlier traditions. The same idea is present in Gaius's criticism of the Gospel of John, Justin's gospel, Marcion's gospel AND Secret Mark. I have said a number of times here that it is our inherited presumptions about the earliest gospel being the best. The ancients clearly disagreed.

Indeed why doesn't Clement specify that there was an actual 'Pantaenus' here? Why the ambiguity about him being a 'honeybee' collecting from flowers and presumably making κήρινθος? Was to Theodore's statement that Mark's authorship of the late, composite gospel was 'denied' or obscured by the Alexandrian Church connected with the invention of a figure called 'Pantainos' (i.e. a term from Homer 'the whole ainos,' the 'complete account').

If you look carefully at ALL of Clement's references to 'bees' and wax and other words related to κήρινθος one would expect Patnainos to be a gospel writer not merely one who collected books. The 'Sicilian bee' is understood to have went from flower to flower to collect pollen to create κήρινθος [bees bread] and κηρίον [honeycomb]. It didn't just bring pollen. A complete gospel made up of a variety of sources is clearly the thing which 'Pantainos' delivered to Clement and his community.

It is amazing how badly and unimaginatively scholars read the passage in Stromata 1.1. The section begins with Clement making clear that he is 'hearing' Scripture or things said by the men who witnessed Jesus AND THOSE WHO WITNESSED AND COMPILED THEIR WRITINGS:

Now the Scripture kindles the living spark of the soul, and directs the eye suitably for contemplation; perchance inserting something, as the husbandman when he ingrafts ... [but] my memoranda [υπομνηματα] are stored up against old age, as a remedy against forgetfulness, truly an image and outline of those vigorous and animated discourses which I was privileged to hear, and of blessed and truly remarkable men

The context is clear - Clement is saying that he encountered many gospels including Tatian's Diatessaron before alighting upon the perfect text associated with the 'Sicilian honey bee' WHO ISN'T NAMED. The person COULD be Pantainos - or 'Pantainos' could be a clever way of obscuring the original author of the gospel developed like κήρινθος. The bottom line is that then Pantainos is clearly associated with a composite gospel (the Gospel of the Hebrews) which Origen cites extensively from.