Clement of Alexandria · a new plain-English translation from the original language
Homer, too, calls even a carpenter "wise," and concerning Margites — if indeed it is his — he writes something like this: "The gods made him neither a digger nor a plowman, nor skilled at anything else; he had failed at every art." Hesiod, having said that Linus the lyre-player had learned wisdom of every kind, does not hesitate to call a sailor "wise" as well, even while writing of himself that he was not at all skilled in seafaring. Daniel the prophet says that the mystery the king asks about is not within the power of the wise, the magicians, the enchanters, or the Chaldeans to declare to the king, but that there is a God in heaven who reveals it — and indeed he calls the wise men of Babylon by this same name. That Scripture calls by the one common name "wisdom" every kind of worldly knowledge or art — and there are many such arts devised by human reasoning through combination — and that the technical and wise conception comes from God, will be clear once we set beside it this text: "And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Behold, I have called by name Bezalel son of Uri, son of Hur, from the tribe of Judah; him I have filled with a spirit that is divine, granting wisdom, understanding, and knowledge for every work, to devise designs and to serve as master-builder; to work gold and silver and bronze, and blue and purple and scarlet, and stone-carving and carpentry in wood — to work at all these tasks."
Then he adds a general statement: "And to every one wise in heart I have given understanding" — that is, to whoever is capable of receiving it through labor and disciplined practice. Again, elsewhere, it is written explicitly in the Lord's own words: "And you shall speak to all who possess a skilled mind; on them I have bestowed a spirit of perception." Those of skilled mind possess indeed some property proper to their own nature, but they receive from the most sovereign Wisdom a twofold spirit of perception, having shown themselves fit to receive it. For those who pursue the manual crafts enjoy an excess bearing on one of the senses: in hearing, the one commonly called a musician; in touch, the sculptor; the singer belongs to voice; the perfumer belongs to smell; and to sight belongs the engraver of designs stamped into seals. But those who spend their time in education are furnished with joint-perception, by which the poets attend to their meters, the sophists to their diction, the dialecticians to their syllogisms, and the philosophers to the theory proper to each. For joint-perception is inventive and able to devise, persuading one plausibly to undertake an inquiry, and practiced discipline directed toward knowledge increases that undertaking.
Fittingly, then, the apostle called the wisdom of God "many-colored," manifested in many parts and many ways — through art, through knowledge, through faith, through prophecy — displaying its own power for our benefit, because "all wisdom is from the Lord and abides with him forever," as the Wisdom of Jesus [son of Sirach] says. "For if you call upon prudence and perception with a loud voice, and seek her out as treasures of silver, and eagerly track her down, you will come to understand the fear of God, and will find divine perception" — the prophet has said this in contradistinction to the perception that belongs to philosophy, which he teaches us to search out greatly and magnificently as an advance toward the fear of God. He therefore set over against it the perception that consists in the fear of God, hinting thereby at gnosis, and saying this: "For wisdom is given by God from his very mouth; perception and prudence come together, and he stores up aid for the upright" — for those made righteous through philosophy, aid is stored up in turn, and likewise the joint-perception that leads toward the fear of God.
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