Clement of Alexandria · a new plain-English translation from the original language
And a great crowd of this sort streams in upon me, like some hobgoblin, dragging in an absurd shadow-painting of foreign demons, telling myths with an old wives' babble. It is far indeed from right to permit men to listen to such tales — we who do not even accustom our own children, when they are whimpering (as the saying goes), to be comforted by being told myths, fearing to rear up together with them the godlessness proclaimed by these self-styled wise men, who know the truth no better than infants do. For what, in the name of truth, do you mean by showing those who have trusted you to be subject to flux and drift and disorderly eddies? Why do you fill my life with idols, fashioning as gods this world here — wind, or fire, or air, or earth, or rock, or timber, or iron — and calling gods the wandering stars too, prattling and star-gazing through this much-vaunted astrology (not astronomy) for the benefit of men who are truly the ones who have wandered? I yearn for him who governs every spirit, who commands the fire, who fashioned the world, and who set ablaze the very light of the sun; I seek God, not the works of God. Whom then shall I take from you as a fellow-worker in the search? For we have not altogether despaired of you. If you wish, Plato. Where then must God be tracked down, O Plato? "Locating the Begetter and Craftsman of this whole is hard labor, and once one has located him, making him known to everyone is not achievable." Why is that, in his very name? "For he is in no way expressible in speech." Well said, Plato — you have grazed the truth; but do not grow weary — join me in the search concerning the Good. For into absolutely all men, and especially into those who spend their time among reasoned discourse, some divine effluence has been instilled. For this reason even against their will they confess that there is one God, this one indestructible and unbegotten, truly existing forever somewhere above, around the back of heaven, in his own proper watchtower. But of what sort must we conceive God to be, tell me? "He beholds every creature yet no creature beholds him," as Euripides puts it. Menander, however, seems to me to have gone astray where he says: "Sun, you must be worshipped first among gods, through whom it is possible to behold the other gods" — for not even the sun could ever show forth the true God; rather it is sound reason, which is the sun of the soul, through which alone, when it has risen within, in the depth of her mind, the eye of the soul is illumined. Hence not unreasonably Democritus says that "few among men of reasoned speech, raising their hands to this place which we Greeks now call air, say that all things are Zeus; for he alone knows all things and gives all things and takes them away, and he is king of all things." In this same vein Plato too, in his thinking, hints darkly at God: "surrounding the ruler of the universe stand all things, and this ruler is responsible for everything beautiful." Who, then, rules over the universe? God, the measure of the truth of things that are. So then, exactly as measured objects are apprehended through the measure, in the same way truth is apprehended and gauged through our conception of God. And Moses, who is truly holy, says: "There shall not be in your bag a weight and a weight, large or small, nor shall there be in your house a measure large or small, but a true and just weight shall be yours" — taking God to be the weight and measure and number of all things. For the unjust, unbalanced idols stay tucked inside the house, inside that pouch — figuratively, within the defiled soul; but the one just measure, the only true God, ever equal and holding always in the same way, measures and weighs all things, embracing and sustaining the nature of the universe without deviation, as it were on the balance-scale of justice. "God indeed, as the ancient account has it, holding the beginning and the end and the middle of all things that exist, proceeds in a straight line, journeying about according to nature; and justice, the avenger of those who fall short of the divine law, ever follows with him." Whence, O Plato, do you hint darkly at truth? Whence does the ungrudging abundance of your reasonings divine the worship of God? "Wiser than these," you say, "are the races of the barbarians." I know your teachers, even should you wish to hide them: you learn geometry from the Egyptians, astronomy from the Babylonians, the healthy incantations you take from the Thracians; the Assyrians too have taught you much; but as for the laws that are true, and the opinion concerning God, you have profited from these very Hebrews, who do not, with empty deceits, honor as gods the golden and bronze works of men's hands, and images of silver and ivory and of wood and stone, the idols of dead mortals, such as mortals in empty-minded counsel honor; but rather they lift up to heaven pure arms, at dawn from their beds, ever purifying their flesh with water, and honor only the immortal who rules forever.
And do not, O Philosophy, present to me only this one Plato, but be eager to bring forward many others besides, men who, by his inspiration, proclaim aloud this one truly sole God — if indeed anywhere they have laid hold of the truth. For Antisthenes conceived this thought not as a Cynic notion at all, but as one who had been an associate of Socrates, when he says that "God resembles no one; for this reason no one can learn of him fully from an image." And Xenophon the Athenian would himself have written something plainly bearing witness to the truth, as Socrates did, had he not feared the poison that killed Socrates; nonetheless he hints at it no less. "He," he says, "who shakes and steadies all things, shows himself as mighty and immense in power, yet his shape cannot be perceived; nor indeed does even the sun, which seems to be all-radiant, seem to permit itself to be looked upon, but should anyone stare at it boldly, it strips away his vision." From where, then, does the son of Gryllus draw this philosophy, if not clearly from the Hebrew prophetess who declares in something like these words: "For what flesh is able to see with its eyes the heavenly and true immortal God, who dwells in the vault of heaven? Nor indeed are men, being mortal, able to stand facing the rays of the sun." And Cleanthes of Pedasa, the philosopher of the Stoa, lays out a genuine theology rather than a poet's account of the gods' origin. He did not hide what he thought concerning God: "You ask me what the Good is like? Listen then: it is ordered, just, holy, pious, master of itself, useful, beautiful, fitting, austere, self-consistent, always advantageous, without fear, without pain, profitable, painless, beneficial, pleasing, secure, dear, honored, in agreement with itself... glorious, without conceit, careful, gentle, intense, enduring through time, blameless, ever abiding. Any man is unfree who looks toward reputation, as though he were to obtain some good thing from it." Here, I think, he clearly teaches what sort of thing God is, and how common opinion and custom enslave those who follow them, rather than those who seek after God. Nor ought we conceal what the Pythagoreans hold, namely: "There is a single God, and rather than existing apart from the ordered cosmos, as certain people imagine, he dwells inside it, whole within the whole circle, overseer of all coming-into-being, the blending of all the ages, and the worker of his own powers and of all works, in heaven the light-giver and father of all, mind and soul-giving power for the whole circle, the motion of all things." This much too suffices for the recognition of God — words written down by them through the inspiration of God, and gathered together by us for the sake of anyone even slightly able to discern the truth.
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