Clement of Alexandria · a new plain-English translation from the original language
Not without reason, therefore, do detractors of creation and disparagers of the body overlook that man was fashioned upright to gaze toward heaven, that the arrangement of the senses inclines toward understanding, and that limbs and members are suited for good ends rather than crafted for indulgence. Hence this dwelling becomes fit to house the soul -- a possession God prizes above all else -- and worthy of the Holy Spirit, according to the consecration of both body and soul together, brought to completion through the Savior's ordering hand. And truly the reciprocal linkage of the three virtues appears in one who treats the divine gnostically, in ethics, in physics, and in reason. Wisdom, after all, means understanding matters both divine and human; righteousness means harmony among the soul's several parts; holiness means devotion rendered to God. But should someone claim the flesh stands condemned, and generation along with it, appealing to Isaiah's words that every mortal is like grass, and human splendor resembles a blossom in the field -- the blossom withers, the flower drops away, yet the Lord's word endures without end -- let him hear this difficulty resolved through the spirit in Jeremiah: "And I scattered them like brushwood swept off by wind into desolation."
"This is your lot and portion of disobedience, says the Lord; since you forgot me and hoped in falsehoods, I also will uncover your rear parts upon your face, and your dishonor shall be seen, your adultery and your neighing," and so forth. For this is the flower of the grass, namely walking according to the flesh and being fleshly, according to the Apostle, being in sins. The soul has been acknowledged to be better than man's other part, and the body inferior; but the soul is not by nature good, nor again is the body by nature evil, nor indeed is that which is not good therefore straightway evil. For there are also certain intermediate things, both things preferred and things not preferred, among the things in between. It was fitting, then, that the composition of man, coming to be among perceptible things, should be constituted from things differing, but not from things opposite, namely body and soul.
Always, then, good actions, as being better, are attached to the superior part, the spiritual, while pleasure-loving and sinful actions are assigned to the inferior part, the sinning part. Straightway the soul of the wise and gnostic man, as one sojourning as a guest with the body, bears itself toward it with dignity and honor, but without attachment, inasmuch as, should the time of departure call, it will leave the tent without the least delay. "I am a sojourner on the earth," it says, "and a stranger among you." And from this Basilides has taken occasion to speak of the election as strange to the world, as being by nature supracosmic. But this is not so. For all things belong to one God, and no one could by nature be a stranger to the world, since the substance is one and God is one; but the elect man conducts himself as a stranger, knowing all things to be both possessed and not possessed.
As for what the Peripatetics wish to count as threefold goods, he makes use of these, and of the body as well, the way a traveler on a long road makes use of inns and wayside shelters, tending and adorning the place where he lodges, yet leaving the residence and its holdings, and even his use of them, behind without clinging, and follows readily whoever guides him out of life, never glancing back for any reason, offering gratitude for his stay and praising God as he departs, reaching for the dwelling above. "For we are aware that should our earthly tent-home be taken down, we possess a structure granted by God, a residence unbuilt by hands, everlasting among the heavens. Indeed we sigh here, yearning to put on over it our heavenly habitation, provided that once dressed we are not discovered bare; since our course is guided by trust rather than by seeing," so the Apostle states. "We are confident, and would sooner leave the body behind and dwell instead with God." And the word "sooner" functions comparatively, and comparison applies among things that share a likeness, as the bolder man is bolder than one merely bold, but boldest of all compared with the timid.
Whence he added, "Wherefore we are ambitious, whether present or absent, to be well-pleasing to him," that is, plainly, to the one God, by whose workmanship and making all things exist, the cosmos itself and whatever lies beyond the cosmos. I admire Epicharmus saying plainly: "Being reverent in mind, you would suffer nothing evil when you die; the spirit remains above, in heaven"; and the lyric poet singing: "But the souls of the impious fly beneath the sky, over the earth, in murderous pains, under the inescapable yokes of evils, while the souls of the reverent dwell in the heavens above, singing in hymns of the great blessed one with songs." Not, therefore, is the soul sent down here from heaven to the worse condition, for God works all things toward the better; rather it is the soul that has chosen the best life which exchanges earth for heaven, from God and righteousness.
Fittingly, then, Job, having come to share in knowledge, said, "Now I know that you are capable of all things, and nothing lies beyond your power. For who is it that tells me things I had not known, matters great and marvelous, beyond my understanding? But I made light of myself, reckoning myself as dust and ash." For the man steeped in ignorance is himself sinful and is dust and ash, whereas the one grounded in knowledge, having grown godlike to whatever extent lies within his reach, has already become spiritual and is for that reason numbered among the elect. And that Scripture applies the term "earth" to the senseless and the disobedient, Jeremiah the prophet shows plainly, speaking against Joakim and his kin: "O land, O land, listen to what the Lord speaks; record this man as one openly declared cast out."
And another prophet in turn says, "Listen, heaven, and give ear, earth," calling understanding "hearing," and "heaven" the soul of the gnostic man who has raised himself up to the vision of heaven and of things divine, and has by this become an Israelite; for conversely again he has called the one who chooses ignorance and hardness of heart "earth," and has addressed "give ear" from the organs of hearing, the ears, assigning fleshly things to those who cling to sensible things. These are they concerning whom Micah the prophet says: "Hear, you peoples, the word of the Lord, you who dwell together in griefs." And Abraham said, "By no means, Lord, you who judge the earth" -- since the one who has disbelieved the saving voice has already been judged.
And it is written also in the Kingdoms that the judgment and pronouncement of the Lord runs thus: "God hears the righteous, but he does not save the impious," because they refuse to acknowledge God; since the Almighty would never allow anything senseless to occur. What still do the heresies utter against this voice, when Scripture proclaims the Almighty a good God, and not the cause of evil and injustice, since indeed ignorance grows from not knowing, while God does nothing absurd? "For this is our God," it says, "and there is none besides him who saves"; nor indeed is there injustice with God, according to the Apostle. Still more clearly the prophet teaches through these words the counsel of God and the gnostic advancement: "And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, and to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to serve him alone?" This he requires of you, who have the authority to choose salvation.
What, then, is the point the Pythagoreans intend when they urge that prayer be spoken aloud? It seems to me that it is not because they thought the divine unable to hear those who speak quietly, but because they wished their prayers to be just, such as no one would be ashamed to make with many people knowing of them. We, for our part, shall discuss prayer in its proper place as the discourse proceeds; but we ought to have our works crying out, as walking in the day. "Let your works shine forth." And "Behold, man, and his works before his face." "Behold God and his works." One must imitate God as far as power allows, for the gnostic. And it seems to me that the poets too address the elect among themselves as god-formed, and divine, and matched-against-gods, and like Zeus in counsel, and equal to the gods, and god-like, nibbling around the phrase "according to the image and likeness."
Euripides, then, says, "Golden wings indeed are fitted about my back," and he fastens on the beautiful winged sandals worn by the Sirens, and declares, "I will rise, borne aloft through the wide upper air, to keep company with Zeus." But I would pray that the spirit of Christ wing me to my own Jerusalem. For the Stoics also say that heaven, properly speaking, is a city, but the things here on earth are no longer cities; for they are so called, but are not; for a city, and a people, is a refined system and multitude of men administered by law, just as the church is administered by the Word -- a city unbesieged, untyrannized, on earth, the divine will done on earth just as in heaven. Depictions of this city are likewise fashioned by the poets in their verses: for the cities of the Hyperboreans and Arimaspians, and the Elysian Fields, are the polities of the righteous; and we know also Plato's city, laid down as a pattern in heaven.
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