Clement of Alexandria · a new plain-English translation from the original language
Here again our accusers fasten upon us, saying that joy and grief are passions of the soul; for they render joy as a reasonable elation and the exulting rejoicing over good things, and pity as grief over one suffering undeservedly, and hold that such things are alterations and passions of the soul. But we, it seems, never cease to understand such expressions of Scripture in a fleshly way, and being led up from our own passions we take the will of the passionless God to be received in the same manner as our own movements; and supposing that the case with the Almighty is such as we ourselves are capable of hearing, we wander in godless error. For it was not possible for the divine to be spoken of as it actually is; but as it was possible for us, fettered as we are in flesh, to comprehend, so the prophets spoke to us, the Lord accommodating himself savingly to the weakness of men.
Because, in fact, God wills that the one who obeys the commandments be saved, and likewise the one who turns from his sins in repentance, and because we ourselves take joy at our own salvation, the Lord, speaking through the prophets, claimed for himself that which brings us gladness, just as in the Gospel, out of his love for humankind, he declares: 'Hungry, you fed me; parched with thirst, you brought me drink; whatever you did for one of these humblest ones, you did it for me.' Just as one who is not himself nourished is said to be nourished, because the one he wishes to nourish has been nourished, so he who was not himself moved to gladness rejoiced, because the one who had repented came to be in gladness as he wished. And since God, being good, shows mercy abundantly, giving the commandments through the law, through the prophets, and now still more directly through the coming of the Son, saving and having mercy, as has been said, on those who have received mercy — and since it is properly the greater who has mercy on the lesser, and one man could not be greater than another man, insofar as he is by nature a man, but God is greater than man in every respect — if then the greater has mercy on the lesser, God alone will have mercy on us. For man becomes sociable through righteousness, and shares what he has received from God, both because of natural goodwill and kinship, and because of the commandments which he obeys;
but God has no natural kinship with us, as the founders of the heresies wish to claim — whether they suppose he makes us out of things that are not, or fashions us out of matter, since the one is not a being at all, and the other is in every respect other than God — unless someone should be so bold as to claim that we form a portion of his being and share one essence with him. And I do not know how anyone who has understanding and has come to know God could endure to say this, looking at our life and at the evils in which we are entangled. For it would follow — a thing not even lawful to say — that God sins in part, if indeed the parts of a whole are parts and completive of the whole; but if they are not completive, then they would not even be parts. But rather, God, being by nature rich in mercy through his own goodness, cares for us, though we are neither portions of him nor children by nature.
And indeed this is the greatest proof of God's goodness, that though we stand thus toward him and are by nature altogether estranged, he cares for us nonetheless. For natural is the affection of living creatures toward their offspring, and the friendship arising from familiarity among those of like mind; but God's mercy toward us is abundant though we belong to him in no respect — I mean neither in our being or nature, nor in any power proper to our being — but solely because we are the work of his will. And indeed the one who has willingly, through discipline and teaching, laid hold of the knowledge of truth, he calls to adoption as sons, the greatest of all advancements. But transgressions ensnare a man, and each is bound by the cords of his own sins, and God is blameless; and truly blessed is the man who is fearful of all things through reverence.
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