Clement of Alexandria · a new plain-English translation from the original language
Now the involuntary act is not judged (and this is twofold: what happens through ignorance, and what happens through necessity); for how could you pass judgment on those said to sin in involuntary ways? Either a man was ignorant of himself, as Cleomenes and Athamas were when they went mad; or of the deed he was doing, as Aeschylus, who divulged the mysteries on the stage, and being tried before it in the Areopagus was thus acquitted, having shown that he had not been initiated; or a man might be ignorant of the person against whom the act is done, as one who lets his adversary go and kills a kinsman instead of the enemy; or of the instrument with which the act is done, as one who trains with blunted spears and kills someone when the spear-head has fallen off; or of the manner in which it is done, as the man in the stadium who kills his opponent (for he was not competing for the sake of death, but of victory); or of the purpose for which it is done, as when a physician has given a healthful antidote and it has killed the patient, though he gave it not for that purpose but in order to save him.
Now the law at that time held even the involuntary murderer liable, just as it held the man with an involuntary flux, but not equally with the voluntary offender. And yet even that man will be punished as though he had acted voluntarily, if one traces the passion back to its truth; for in reality the man who lacks mastery over the generative reason is deserving of punishment. This is itself an irrational passion of the soul, verging close on idle babbling; but the faithful man has chosen to conceal his affairs by his very breath. The things done by deliberate choice, then, are what is judged. For the Lord tests hearts and reins; and the man who looks with desire is judged. Wherefore it says, "Do not even desire," and, "This people give me honor with their mouths, while their hearts stay distant from me." For God looks to the intention itself, since indeed he left the wife of Lot, who turned back only voluntarily toward worldly wickedness, without perception, showing her as a pillar of salt and fixing her so that she should go no further forward — not a foolish and inert image, but one to season and give astringency to the man able to discern spiritually.
← All of Clement of Alexandria: Exhortation, Instructor & Miscellanies