Clement of Alexandria · a new plain-English translation from the original language
Since truth, then, is one (for falsehood has countless deviations), the sects of philosophy, both barbarian and Greek, are like the Bacchae who tore apart the limbs of Pentheus: each one, boasting of the portion it has obtained as though it were the whole of truth. But it is, I think, by the rising of light that all things are illumined. All then, Greeks and barbarians alike, who have reached out for the truth — some possessing not a little of it, others some part — might be shown, if indeed they possess anything at all, to have a share in the account of truth. Now the age of time gathers together in a moment the future and the present, and indeed also the past; but far more powerful than the age is truth in gathering together its own seeds, even should they have fallen into a foreign land. For we might find a very great many of the opinions held among the sects (as many as have not been utterly deafened nor cut off from the natural sequence of reasoning, just as the women of the harem, having cut off the man, cut off also his reason) — even though they seem unlike one another, yet in kind and in the whole of truth they agree; for they are joined into one either as a limb, or as a part, or as a species, or as a genus. Already, too, the highest string of the lyre is opposite to the lowest. But both together make a single harmony; and in numbers the even differs from the odd, yet both agree in arithmetic, just as in figure the circle and the triangle and the square, and all the figures that differ from one another, agree in geometry. And moreover, in the whole cosmos, all the parts together, even though they differ from one another, preserve their kinship to the whole. Thus, then, both the barbarian and the Greek philosophy have made a kind of tearing apart of the eternal truth — not the tearing apart of the mythology of Dionysus, but of the theology of the Word that always is. But he who puts the divided pieces back together again and unifies them will, be well assured, without danger behold the perfect Word, that is, the truth.
It is written, then, in Ecclesiastes: "So I outstripped in wisdom every one who had held rule in Jerusalem ahead of me; and my mind took in a great deal, both wisdom and knowledge, and I mastered proverbs and insight. For this too is a chasing after wind, that where wisdom is plentiful, there knowledge too runs deep." And he who is experienced in wisdom of every kind, this man would properly be the gnostic. Accordingly it is written: "A wealth of wisdom's knowledge will grant life to whoever possesses it from her." Again, this saying confirms still more clearly what has been said: "Every one of them is clear to the discerning" (and "every one of them" means what is Greek and barbarian, though the other things are no longer all), "and straightforward to whoever seeks to grasp insight. Take up teaching instead of silver, and take knowledge over refined gold; grasp insight, too, ahead of purest gold; since wisdom outranks costly gems, and no treasure can match her worth."
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