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64
RISABHA DEVA
a detailed elucidation of the passage reference must, again, be made to the books already mentioned; for this is no place for the elaboration of allegorical exegesis. But it will interest us to know what Clement of Alexandria, who, according to Methodius, was an immediate disciple of St. Peter himself, says as to the four and twenty Elders of the Christian Apocalypse. He writes (see the Ante Nicene Christian Library, Vol. XII. pp. 365-366) :
:
"He then who has first moderated his passion and trained himself for impassibility, and developed to the beneficence of gnostic perfection, is here equal to the angels. Luminous already, and like the sun shining in the exercise of beneficence, he speeds by righteous knowledge through the love of God to the sacred abode, like as the apostles . . . And although here upon earth he be not honoured with the chief seat, he will sit down on the four and twenty thrones, judging the people, as John says in the Apocalypse."
These thrones, then, are intended for the greatest Teachers among men, by whose standard, or norm, men shall have to judge themselves if they want to attain to divine Perfection. These are the Tirthamkaras whose number is identically the same as that of the thrones and of the Elders who are seated on them!
Concerning the excellence of the condition of the Siddhas (in Christian terminology, the Saved
