Clement of Alexandria · a new plain-English translation from the original language
Since faith, like time, is twofold, we may find that two virtues dwell together with both. For of time, memory belongs to the past, and hope to the future; and we believe that the things past have happened and the things future will be; and again we love, being persuaded by faith that the past things stand thus, and awaiting the future things by hope. For love has, through all things, come to dwell in the Gnostic who knows the one God; and behold, he both knows and marvels at all the things He has fashioned, which are exceedingly good; and reverence lengthens one's days, while awe of the Lord multiplies them further still. Since, then, our days form a share of a life that climbs upward by stages, awe in this manner stands at the root from which love grows, ripening first into faith and afterward into love; yet this is not the dread with which I recoil from a savage beast and detest it (for such dread comes in two forms), but rather the reverence with which I regard my own father, whom I hold in awe even while loving him; and once more, out of concern that punishment might fall on me, I choose that same reverence out of care for myself; yet it is the son unwilling to grieve his father who truly loves him. Blessed, then, is he who becomes faithful, tempered with love and fear; and faith is strength unto salvation and power unto eternal life.
Again, prophecy is foreknowledge, and knowledge is the understanding of prophecy, that is, the knowledge of the things foreknown by those to whom the Lord who reveals all things beforehand made them known in advance. The knowledge, then, of the things foretold shows a threefold outcome: either it has already come to pass long ago, or it is now taking place, or it is yet to be. Then the two extremes fall under faith, whether of things accomplished or of things hoped for, while the activity now taking place furnishes persuasion for the confirmation of both extremes. For if, the prophecy being one, part of it is already being fulfilled and part has been fulfilled, then from this it becomes clear that the reality still awaited and the reality already gone by are alike dependable and genuine. For what is now taking place was formerly future, and then it became past for us, so that the faith regarding things past is an apprehension of what is past, and the hope of things future is an apprehension of a future reality. And not only the followers of Plato but also those of the Stoa say that acts of assent rest with us.
Every opinion, then, and judgment and supposition and item of learning by which we live and are ever in communion with the human race is an act of assent; and this would be nothing other than faith, while unbelief, being a falling away from faith, shows that assent and faith are indeed possible; for privation could not be predicated of what does not exist. And if one examines the truth, he will find that man is by nature averse to assenting to falsehood, but possesses the means for faith in the truth. The virtue, then, that holds the Church together, as the Shepherd says, is faith, the very means by which those God has chosen come to be rescued; and the virtue that makes one manly is self-control. Following upon these are simplicity, knowledge, guilelessness, dignity, love. All these spring forth as children born of faith. And once more: faith goes ahead first, awe raises the structure, and love finishes the work. The Lord, he says, ought to inspire awe that builds one up, whereas the devil should not be feared toward one's own ruin. And conversely: the deeds of the Lord, that is, his commandments, deserve our love and our doing them, while the devil's deeds ought to be shunned in awe and left undone; for holy awe teaches a person and leads him back to love, while the hatred of the devil's works has hatred as its companion. And the same author says that repentance is a great understanding; for one who repents of what he has done no longer does or says it, but by tormenting his own soul over his sins he does it good. The forgiveness of sins, then, differs from repentance, but both show what rests with us.
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