Clement of Alexandria · a new plain-English translation from the original language
By this argument the difficulty raised against us by the heretics is resolved, namely whether Adam was created perfect or imperfect. For supposing him imperfect, how could an imperfect thing, and a human being above all, come from a perfect God's craftsmanship? But if perfect, how does he transgress the commandments? They will hear from us that he was not made perfect in his constitution, but was made fit for the acquiring of virtue; for it is one thing surely to have come into being fit for virtue, and another to possess it; and God wishes us to be saved by our own efforts. Such, accordingly, is the soul's own nature — self-moved; and moreover, since we are rational creatures and philosophy too is a rational thing, we bear a real affinity to it; but fitness is an inclination toward virtue, and not virtue itself.
All men, then, as I have said, are by nature disposed toward the acquisition of virtue, but one advances further, another less, through learning and through practice; wherefore some have persevered all the way to perfect virtue, while others have reached only some point, and yet others, being neglected, even if otherwise well-endowed by nature, have been turned to the opposite. But far more difficult to acquire than all these is that knowledge which surpasses all learning in greatness and in truth, and it is won only with much toil.
But, it seems, they have not known the mysteries of God, that God fashioned humankind for incorruption and shaped him after the pattern of God's own distinctive being, according to which peculiar nature the gnostic, being just and holy with prudence, hastens to arrive at the measure of perfect stature. And that not only actions and thoughts but also words are pure to the gnostic. "You have tried my heart, you have visited it by night," it says, "you have tried me by fire and no unrighteousness was found in me, that my mouth should not speak of the works of men." And what does it mean by "the works of men"? It means sin itself, recognizing it, not sin already led toward repentance (for that is common also to the rest of the faithful), but sin as such; for the psalmist condemns not this or that particular sin, but simply all sin altogether; nor does he establish what someone has done wrong, but what ought not to be done at all. Whence repentance is also twofold: the one common, on account of having erred; the other, having learned the very nature of sin, persuades one to stand apart from sinning by a governing principle, upon which follows not sinning at all.
Let them not say, then, that the one who does wrong and sins by the working of demons commits an offense — since in that case he would even be innocent — while yet, by choosing the same things as the demons in the matter of sinning, fickle, flighty, and quick to shift in what he craves, comes to resemble a demon in human shape. For instance, the man bad by nature, having become prone to sin through vice, is established as base, possessing what he willingly chose; and being prone to sin, he also goes wrong in his actions; whereas conversely the virtuous man acts rightly. Hence we reckon as good not merely the virtues, but the honorable deeds as well; and of goods we know that some are choiceworthy for their own sake, as knowledge (for we seek nothing else from it, once it is present, than simply its being present, and our being in unceasing contemplation, and our striving toward it and through it), while others are chosen for the sake of other things, as faith, on account of the escape from punishment that results from it, and the benefit that comes from the recompense. For fear is, for most people, the cause of not sinning, while the promise is the occasion for pursuing obedience, through which comes salvation.
Knowledge, then, is the most perfect good, being choiceworthy for its own sake, and as a consequence the noble things that follow through it are choiceworthy too. And punishment is, for the one being punished, a cause of correction, while for those able to see from afar it becomes an example, through which they check themselves from falling into like offenses. Let us therefore receive knowledge not desiring its outcomes, but embracing it for the sake of knowing itself. For the first benefit is the gnostic disposition itself, which affords harmless pleasures and exultation both now and hereafter. And they say that exultation is a kind of gladness, being a reckoning of the virtue that accords with truth, arising through a certain feasting and expansion of the soul. And the works that share in knowledge are good and noble deeds. For true wealth is abundance in the actions that accord with virtue, and poverty is the lack that accords with worldly desires. For the possession and use of necessary things has no harmful quality in itself, but only in the quantity that exceeds due measure.
For this reason the gnostic sets bounds to his desires, both as to possession and as to use, not overstepping the limit of what is necessary. Deeming life here necessary for the increase of understanding and the acquisition of knowledge, he will therefore hold not mere living but living well of the highest importance, preferring neither children nor marriage nor even his parents above love toward God and righteousness in life. His wife becomes, after the bearing of children, as a sister to him, judged as it were of the same father, being reminded of her husband only at the times when she looks upon the children, since, once the flesh is set aside — the flesh that partitions and marks off spiritual understanding by outward, bodily distinctions — she truly becomes a sister in fact. For souls, taken in themselves, are alike simply souls, neither male nor female, at that point where none is wedded nor given to a spouse; and might not the woman thus be transposed into the man, becoming equally unfeminine, and manly, and perfect?
This, then, was the meaning of the laughter of Sarah when word reached her announcing that a child would be born — not, I think, from disbelieving the angel, but from feeling shame at that intercourse again, through which she was to become the mother of a child. And might it not be that from that time on Abraham, when he was in danger before the king of Egypt on account of Sarah's beauty, fittingly called her sister, and of the same father, but not yet of the same mother?
To those, then, who have repented of their sins and have not yet believed steadfastly, God grants their requests through supplications; but to those who live without sin and gnostically, he gives merely upon their conceiving the thought. For instance, to Hannah, upon her merely conceiving the thought, was given the conception of the child Samuel. "Ask," says Scripture, "and I will do it; conceive the thought, and I will grant it." For we have received that God is a knower of hearts, not judging from the movement of the soul as we men do, nor yet from the outcome (for it would be ridiculous to think so), nor as the master-builder praises the work once it has come to be — as God, having thus made the light, then, upon seeing it, said it was good; but he, knowing even before making it what it would be, praised this beforehand; and the "it came to be" belongs to the power of one making, from above, through the beginningless purpose, that which was to be, actually good. In other words, he had already foretold that what was to be was good, the truth being concealed by the inversion of the phrasing.
The gnostic, then, prays also in his very thought at every hour, being made a familiar of God through love. And at first he will ask forgiveness of sins, but after he has ceased sinning, he will further ask to be able to do good, and to understand the whole creation and dispensation that pertains to the Lord, in order that, having become pure in heart, through the understanding granted by God's own Son, he may be led into the blessed vision, seeing face to face, having heeded the Scripture that says, "Fasting with prayer is good." And fastings signify abstinence from all evils altogether, both those in deed and those in word and those in the very thought. Righteousness, then, appears foursquare — even and matched on every face: in speech, in conduct, in holding back from wrongdoing, in active benefit, in the gnostic's completeness — halting nowhere in any respect, so that it may not appear unjust and unequal. Now insofar as someone is righteous, he is altogether also faithful; yet being faithful does not by itself make him righteous already — I refer to that righteousness reached through advancement and completeness, the standard by which the gnostic earns the name righteous.
For instance, to Abraham, having become faithful, it was reckoned unto righteousness, once he had risen to a fuller, more complete measure of trust. For the man who merely abstains from evil action is not righteous, unless he also further accomplishes doing good and knowing, the reason for which some things are to be abstained from and others to be actively done. Through the weapons of righteousness, those on the right hand and those on the left, the apostle says, the righteous man is escorted to the utmost inheritance, fortified by the one and active with the other. For the mere protection of the full armor and the abstinence from sins is not sufficient for perfection, unless one also takes on the work of righteousness, the activity directed toward well-doing. Then the ambidextrous and gnostic man is revealed to us in righteousness, already glorified even from this present life, just as Moses was glorified in the countenance of his soul, which we said before was the characteristic mark of the righteous soul. For just as with wool the astringency of the dye, once it has taken hold, provides its distinctive quality and difference from the rest of the wool, so also with the soul: the toil passes away, but the good remains, and the pleasure is left behind, while the shame is wiped away. For these are the characteristic qualities of each of the two kinds of soul, by which the one is recognized as glorified, and the other as condemned.
Yes indeed, just as for Moses, from his righteous conduct and from his continual converse with God who spoke to him, a certain glorified radiance settled upon his countenance, so also upon the righteous soul a certain divine power of goodness, imprinted through oversight, through prophecy, and through administrative activity, signifies itself as it were a ray of intellectual light, like the warmth of the sun, an evident seal of righteousness, a light united to the soul through unceasing love, as the soul is borne along by God. Here the likeness to the saving God arises for the gnostic, so far as is lawful for human nature, becoming perfect "as the Father," it says, "who is in the heavens." He himself it is who said, "Little children, yet a little while I am with you," since God too — not insofar as he is good by nature does he remain thus blessed and incorruptible, neither being troubled himself nor causing trouble to another — but doing good things in his own proper way, being truly God and a good Father, both being and becoming so in unceasing acts of well-doing, remains unswervingly in the sameness of his goodness. For what use is a good that neither acts nor does good?
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