Clement of Alexandria · a new plain-English translation from the original language
This is the man made according to image and likeness, the gnostic, who imitates God so far as is possible, leaving out nothing that belongs to the likeness that can be attained, being continent, enduring, living justly, ruling over the passions, sharing what he has, as far as he is able, doing good both by word and by deed. "This one," it says, "is greatest in the kingdom, whoever does and teaches, imitating God by bestowing gifts of a like kind"; for the gifts of God are for the common benefit. "But whoever undertakes to do anything with arrogance provokes God," it says; for boastfulness is a vice of the soul, from which He commands men to repent, along with the other vices, adjusting their life from disharmony toward the better change, by means of these three: mouth, heart, and hands.
These, then, might be a symbol: the hands of action, the heart of counsel, and the mouth of speech. Well then is that oracle spoken concerning those who repent: "You have chosen God today to be your God, and the Lord has chosen you today to become a people for him." For the one who hastens to serve the Existent One, being a suppliant, God takes him into his own household; and even if he is but a single person, he receives the same honor as the whole people; since, as one segment among that people, he becomes what brings it to completion, being restored out of the very stock from which he sprang, and the entire body is named even from that single portion. This is that true nobility which is displayed in choosing and practicing together what is most excellent. Since what did his so-great nobility profit Adam? Yet no mortal begot him; for it was he who fathered the human race that came afterward. He, following after the woman, eagerly chose base things, and neglected the true and beautiful things; on account of which he exchanged a mortal life for an immortal one, but not to the very end.
But Noah, who did not become such as Adam, is preserved by divine oversight; for by bearing himself worthily he dedicated himself to God. And Abraham, having had children by three women, not for the enjoyment of pleasure but, I suppose, for hope of multiplying the race in the beginning, has but one sole heir succeed to the goods of his fathers, while the others were removed from the kinship; and of the twins born from him, the younger inherits, having become pleasing to the father, and receives the blessings, while the elder becomes his servant; for it is the greatest good for the worthless man not to be self-governing. This arrangement is at once prophetic and figurative. And that every possession is the wise man's, he plainly signifies, saying: "Because God showed mercy toward me, I lack nothing." For he teaches that one ought to reach after the One, through whom all things came to be, and by whom the things promised are distributed to those who are worthy.
He therefore records the virtuous man, having become heir of the kingdom, as a fellow-citizen through divine wisdom also of the righteous of old, who lived lawfully both under the law and before the law, whose deeds have become laws unto us. Again, teaching the wise man as king, he makes those not of his own race say to him: "You are a king from God among us," the willing judgment of those ruled submitting, out of zeal for virtue, to the virtuous man.
Plato the philosopher, setting happiness as the end, says that it is likeness to God so far as possible, whether he happened somehow to run alongside the doctrine of the law (for great natures, stripped bare of the passions, hit somehow upon the truth well, as the Pythagorean Philo says in expounding the writings of Moses), or whether he had also been taught by certain oracles of that time, since he was ever thirsting for learning. For the law says: "Go behind the Lord your God, and observe my commandments." For the law names assimilation "following"; and such following, according to one's power, assimilates one to God. "Become," says the Lord, "merciful and compassionate, as your Father in heaven is compassionate."
From this source too the Stoics dogmatized that the end is to live in accordance with nature, having unfittingly renamed God as nature, since nature extends also to plants, to sown crops, to trees, and to stones.
It is clearly said, then: "Evil men do not understand the law, but those who love the law set up a wall for themselves." "For the wisdom of the crafty shall come to know its own ways, yet the senselessness of fools goes astray in delusion." "To whom then will I turn my gaze, if not to the one who is meek and still and stands in awe of my sayings?" says the prophecy.
Friendship, we are instructed, falls into three types, and among these the first and finest is the one grounded in virtue; for the love that comes from reason is firm; the second and middle kind is that according to reciprocity; this is social, sharing, and beneficial to life; for friendship arising from favor is common to many; and the last and third kind we ourselves call that which arises from custom, but others call it that which arises from pleasure, changeable and mutable.
And it seems to me that Hippodamus the Pythagorean writes most excellently: "Of friendships, some are according to knowledge of the gods, others from the provision of men, and others from the pleasure of animals." There is, then, a friendship of the philosopher, another of the man, and another of the animal. For truly man doing good is an image of God, in which very act he himself also is benefited; for just as the pilot both saves and is saved. For this reason, when someone happens to be asking, he does not say to the giver, "You have given well," but rather, "You have received well." Thus the giver receives, and the receiver gives. "The righteous show pity and compassion, and the upright shall dwell as tenants of the land, and the blameless shall remain there, but transgressors of the law shall be swept away from it." And it seems to me that Homer, foreseeing prophetically the man of faith, has said: "Give to a friend." With a friend one must share, so that the friend may yet remain and continue longer as a friend; but to an enemy one must give aid, so that he may not remain an enemy; for by aid goodwill is bound fast, while enmity is loosed. But even if eagerness is set forth, this holds insofar as one has, not insofar as one does not have. For it is not that others should have relief while you have affliction, but from equality in the present time, and so on. "He has scattered abroad, he has given to the poor; his righteousness remains forever," says Scripture. For by "according to image and likeness," as we have said before, what is signified is not what pertains to the body — for it is not right for the mortal to be made like the immortal — but rather what pertains to mind and reason, in which the Lord fittingly seals also the likeness with respect to doing good and with respect to ruling; for leadership is corrected not through bodily attributes, but through the discernment of the mind; for it is the deliberations of holy men that keep cities rightly governed, and a household likewise.
← All of Clement of Alexandria: Exhortation, Instructor & Miscellanies