Clement of Alexandria · a new plain-English translation from the original language
As a consequence, then, he devotes himself also to those studies that train him toward knowledge, taking from each branch of learning what is serviceable to truth: from music pursuing the proportion found in harmonized things; in arithmetic observing how numbers grow and diminish and stand in ratio each to the rest, and how the greater part of things falls under some numerical proportion; in geometry contemplating being itself in its own right, and becoming accustomed to conceive of a continuous magnitude and of an unchangeable being other than these bodies; and again from astronomy, being lifted in mind from earth, he will be raised up together with heaven and will circle round with its revolution, ever tracing out divine things and their harmony with one another — the very pursuits from which Abraham, setting out, rose up to the knowledge of the Creator. But the gnostic will also make use of dialectic, choosing the division into species of the genera, and will apply himself to the discrimination of things that are, until he lays hold of the first and simple things. But the many, like children before hobgoblins, are so afraid of Greek philosophy, fearing lest it lead them astray.
But if such is the faith they hold (for I would not call it knowledge), that it can be dissolved by plausible argument, then let it be dissolved — for by this very fact they are confessing most plainly that they do not possess the truth; for truth, it is said, is unconquerable, whereas false opinion is overthrown. At once we choose purple by setting it side by side with another purple. So then, if someone confesses that he does not have a well-articulated heart, he has neither the table of the money-changers nor the standard of judgment for arguments. And how is such a man any longer a banker, being unable to test and distinguish the genuine coin from the counterfeit? David cries out: that the righteous shall not be shaken forever; not, that is, by deceitful argument nor by wandering pleasure — wherefore he shall not be shaken even from his own inheritance. From an evil report, then, he shall not be afraid — not from empty slander, nor indeed from false opinion concerning himself; but he who is able to discern such things will not be frightened even by cunning arguments, whether in questioning rightly or in answering. For dialectic is, as it were, a parapet, so that truth may not be trampled underfoot by the sophists. For those who are praised in the holy name of the Lord ought, according to the prophet, to make their heart rejoice while seeking the Lord. Seek him, then, and be strengthened; seek his face always and in every way. For having spoken in many parts and in many manners, he is not known in a simple, single way.
Not, then, as though making use of these excellences for their own sake will the gnostic among us become a man of much learning, but rather employing them as certain helpers; and in distinguishing what is common from what is peculiar he will apply himself to the truth. For the cause of all wandering and false opinion is the inability to discern in what way things that exist share in common with one another and in what way they differ. And if one does not proceed in reasoning according to what has been properly distinguished, he will unwittingly confuse what is common with what is particular, and once this happens he must inevitably fall into pathlessness and error. Now the distinguishing of both names and things, even within the scriptures themselves, engenders a great light in souls; for it is necessary to attend to words that signify more than one thing, and to the several words that, when they signify one and the same thing, must be distinguished — from which also right answering results. But excessive uselessness is to be avoided, that which busies itself about things that contribute nothing, whereas the gnostic makes use of these studies as a kind of joint-contributing preliminary exercise toward the exact transmission of the truth, so far as that is attainable, and toward being undistracted, and also as a safeguard against those who craft arguments with evil skill for the cutting away of the truth.
He will not, then, be left behind those who make progress in the encyclical branches of learning and in Greek philosophy — yet not according to the leading, primary reasoning, but according to the necessary, secondary, and circumstantial one; for whatever weapons those who labor over the heresies use with cunning, these the gnostic will turn to good use. Since, then, the truth that appears in Greek philosophy is but partial, the truth that truly is, like the sun shining upon colors, both the white and the black, reveals what each of them is, and thus itself refutes every sophistic plausibility. Fittingly, then, this too has been proclaimed beforehand even among the Greeks: 'Truth, queen, beginning of great virtue.'
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