Stromateis 1 part 40/42

But the greatest thing is to lay aside conceit, standing in the middle between exact knowledge and rash pretension to wisdom, and to know that he who hopes for eternal rest also knows that the entrance to it is laborious and narrow.

But let him who has once received the gospel and, as it says, has seen salvation, in whatever hour he comes to recognize it, not turn back like Lot's wife, nor back to his former life clinging to the things of sense, nor indeed let him run back again to the heresies.

For in some way or other the heresies contend, not knowing the God who truly exists.

'For he who loves father or mother more than me' — than the true Father, that is, and teacher of truth, who regenerates and refashions and nurtures the chosen soul — 'is not worthy of me'; but such a one, he says, is 'worthy' to be a son of God, a disciple of God, and at once His friend and kinsman.

'For no one who looks back, having put his hand to the plow, is fit for the kingdom of God.'

But, it seems, even to this day most people suppose that Mary was a woman who had given birth in the ordinary sense, because of the bearing of the child, though she was not such a one — for indeed some say that, after she gave birth, when a midwife examined her, she was found to be still a virgin.

[This belongs] to the concealment of the mysteries of the truth.

'She has given birth, and yet has not given birth,' says the Scripture, as though she conceived from herself, and not from union with a man.

Wherefore the Scriptures have conceived for the gnostics, but the heresies, not having learned thoroughly, are dismissed as though the Scriptures had not conceived for them.

Though all men possess the same faculty of judgment, some, following the reasoning that persuades them, form their beliefs accordingly, while others, having given themselves over to pleasures, do violence to Scripture in accordance with their desires.

But the lover of truth needs, I think, vigor of soul.

For those who undertake the greatest matters must necessarily fail most greatly, unless they have received the rule of the truth from truth itself.

Such men, having fallen away from the right path, naturally go astray also in most particular matters, because they do not have a criterion of true and false that has been thoroughly trained to choose what is needful with precision.

For if they possessed such a criterion, they would be persuaded by the divine Scriptures.

Just as, then, if someone were turned from a man into a beast, like those bewitched by Circe's drugs, so too the man who has kicked away the tradition of the Church and has bolted off into the opinions of human heresies has lost his being a man of God and his remaining faithful to the Lord.

But he who runs back from this deception, having listened attentively to the Scriptures and having entrusted his own life to the truth, becomes, as it were, a god instead of a man.

For we have the starting-point of our teaching — the Lord — who, through the prophets, through the gospel, and through the blessed apostles, in many ways and in many parts, leads us from beginning to end into knowledge.

But if anyone should suppose that this starting-point needs something else, it would no longer truly be preserved as a starting-point.

The Lord's Scripture and voice, then, being trustworthy of itself, is reasonably worthy of belief, inasmuch as it is brought into operation by the Lord for the benefit of mankind.

Assuredly, we use it as our criterion for the discovery of things.

But everything that is being judged is not yet trustworthy before it has been judged, so that what still needs judgment cannot itself be a starting-point.

Reasonably, then, having embraced by faith the starting-point, which is itself undemonstrated, and having received, over and above, even the demonstrations concerning the starting-point from the starting-point itself, we are instructed by the voice of the Lord unto the recognition of the truth.

For we ought not simply to give heed to men who make assertions, to whom it is equally possible to make counter-assertions.

But if it is not enough simply to state one's opinion, but the statement must also be confirmed, we do not wait for testimony from men, but we confirm what is sought by the voice of the Lord, which is more trustworthy than all proofs, or rather, which alone happens to be proof.

According to this knowledge, those who have merely tasted the Scriptures are believers, but those who have advanced further are exact standards of the truth — the Gnostics — since even in the affairs of life craftsmen have something more than laymen, and beyond common notions they fashion what is better.

Thus, therefore, we too, demonstrating perfectly from the Scriptures themselves concerning the Scriptures themselves, are persuaded demonstratively on the basis of faith.

Even if those who pursue the heresies dare to make use of the prophetic Scriptures, first, they do not use all of them; then, they do not use them in their entirety, nor as the body and texture of the prophecy dictates, but selecting what is ambiguously stated, they twist it to their own opinions, plucking a few scattered phrases here and there, not looking to the meaning conveyed by them, but making use of the bare wording itself.

For in almost all the sayings they bring forward, you would find them clinging only to the words, altering the meanings, neither knowing them as they are properly stated nor using them as they are naturally meant to be understood, in the very selections which they themselves produce.

But truth is not found in altering the meanings (for in this way they will overturn all true teaching), but in carefully examining what is altogether fitting and proper for the Lord and Almighty God, and in confirming each of the points demonstrated according to the Scriptures again from the very same kind of Scriptures.

They desire the truth, yet, ashamed to set aside the advantage of self-love, and having no way to dispose of their own opinions, they do violence to the Scriptures.

Having already gone ahead to publish false doctrines among men, and clearly contending against almost all the Scriptures, and being continually refuted by us who dispute against them, they still to this day endure by either not accepting some of the prophetic writings, or by slandering us as having become of a different nature, such that we are unable to understand what belongs to them; and sometimes, when they are refuted concerning their own teachings, they even deny their own doctrines, being ashamed to confess outright what they themselves privately... teach in this way.

For thus, in going through all the heresies, one can see the depravities of their doctrines.

For whenever they are overturned by us, when we clearly show that they are opposed to the Scriptures, one may observe one of two things happening on the part of the leaders of the doctrine:

either [they abandon] the coherence of their own doctrines, or the prophecy itself.

Rather, they despise their own hope, and on each occasion they choose whatever seems to them to be more evident, over what has been spoken by the Lord through the prophets and is, moreover, corroborated and confirmed by the Gospel and further by the apostles.

Seeing then that their danger concerns not a single doctrine, but the preservation of the heresies themselves, and not the discovery of the truth (for having met with the common and readily available things among us, they despised them as of little worth), and having eagerly striven to go beyond the common rule of the faith, they departed from the truth.

For not having learned the mysteries of the knowledge of the Church, nor having grasped the grandeur of the truth, having grown slack about descending to the depth of the matters, having read the Scriptures only superficially... they cast them aside.

Puffed up, therefore, by a conceited show of wisdom, they persist in contentious wrangling, having made it clear that they are concerned rather with seeming wise than with actually philosophizing.

At once, laying down principles for their affairs that are not necessary but are moved by mere human opinions, and then necessarily procuring for themselves a conclusion that follows from those premises, they engage in fierce disputes over the refutations brought against those who practice true philosophy, and they endure all things rather than yield, and, as the saying goes, leave no stone unturned, even if they are about to become impious through disbelieving the Scriptures, rather than change their position — driven by ambition for their sect and by the much-talked-of chief seat in their assemblies, for the sake of which they also embrace that reclining place of honor at their banquets, through their falsely-named 'love.'

But among us, the recognition of the truth proceeds from those who are already believers to those who are not yet believers, [producing] faith, which becomes, so to speak, the very substance of proof.

But, as it seems, every heresy from the outset has no ears that listen to what is beneficial, but only ears opened to what is pleasurable, since even one of them might be healed, if only he were willing to be persuaded by the truth alone.

There is a threefold therapy for self-conceit, as indeed for every passion: learning of the cause and of how it might be removed, and, third, the exercise of the soul and the habituation... toward being able to follow what has been rightly judged.

For just as a disturbed eye, so also the soul, when clouded by doctrines contrary to nature, is not able to discern accurately the light of truth, but even overlooks what lies at its very feet.

They say that even eels are caught in muddy water, being blinded.

And just as wicked children shut out their tutor, so these people bar the prophecies from their own assembly, being suspicious of them because of the rebuke and admonition they bring.

Indeed, they patch together a great many falsehoods and fabrications, so that they may seem to have reasonable grounds for not accepting the Scriptures.

In this way, then, they are not pious, being displeased with the divine commandments, that is, with the Holy Spirit.

...leaders of a wild, bitter almond of doctrines, except for as much as, on account of the manifest clarity of the truths, they were unable to set aside and conceal.

Just as, then, in war a soldier must not abandon the post which the general has assigned him, so too must one not abandon the post which the Word — whom we have received as ruler both of knowledge and of life — has given.

But the many have not even examined this: whether there is someone to be followed, and who this one is... and how.

For as the Word is, such also ought the life of the believer to be, so that he may be able to follow God, who from the beginning brings all things... to a straight and true conclusion.

But when someone transgresses the Word, and through it, God — if he has been weakened because some impression suddenly assailed him — one must have ready at hand the rational impressions [to counter it].

But if, overcome by a habit that had previously taken hold, he has become — as Scripture says — common and base, the habit must be stopped altogether, and the soul must be trained to speak against it.

But if it seems that conflicting doctrines are drawing some astray, these must be removed, and one must go to the peacemakers among the doctrines, who charm away, by means of the divine Scriptures, those inexperienced people who are easily frightened, making the truth clear through the coherence of the covenants.

But, as it seems, we incline rather toward what is held in esteem, even if it happens to be contrary [to the truth], than toward the truth itself.

For it is austere and dignified.

And indeed, there being three dispositions of the soul — ignorance, conceit, and knowledge — the nations are in ignorance, the true Church is in knowledge, and those who belong to the heresies are in conceit.

At any rate, one can see nothing more clearly than that those who know affirm confidently about what they know, just as those who [merely] suppose affirm about what they suppose — at least as far as confident affirmation without proof is concerned.

At any rate, they despise and mock one another, and it happens that the very same opinion is, among some, considered most honorable, while among others, it is judged to be a case of outright madness.

And yet we have learned that pleasure is one thing, which is to be assigned to the nations; strife is another, to be attributed to the heresies; joy is another, to be attached to the Church; and gladness is yet another, to be rendered to the Gnostic according to truth.

Just as, if one attends to Ischomachus, he will make him a farmer; and to Lampis, a ship-owner; and to Charidemus, a general; and to Simon, a horseman; and to Perdiccas, a huckster; and to Crobylus, a cook; and to Archelaus, a dancer; and to Homer, a poet; and to Pyrrho, a disputant; and to Demosthenes, an orator; and to Chrysippus, a dialectician; and to Aristotle, a natural philosopher; and to Plato, a philosopher — so too he who obeys the Lord and follows the prophecy given through him is brought to complete perfection according to the image of the Teacher, becoming, as it were, a god going about in the flesh.

Those, then, who do not follow God wherever he leads, fall short of this height; and he leads according to the divinely-inspired Scriptures.

For while the things that men do are countless in number, there are practically two sources of all sin: ignorance and weakness (both of which lie within our own power, since we neither wish to learn, nor again to master desire); by the one of these men do not judge rightly, and by the other they are not able to follow what has been rightly judged.

For neither could one who has been deceived in judgment be able to act well.

Even if he is quite capable of doing what he has come to know, yet if he is not also strong enough to judge what he ought, being deficient in his deeds, he could not present himself blameless.

Accordingly, then, two kinds of instruction, corresponding to each of these two sins, are handed down: for the one, knowledge and the clear demonstration of the testimony from the Scriptures; for the other, the rational discipline, trained through faith and fear.

Both, however, grow together into perfect love.

For the end of the Gnostic, I think, is here twofold: in some matters, scientific contemplation; in others, action.

May it be, then, that these heretics too, having learned from these notes, be brought to their senses and turn to the Almighty God.

Enduring the fatherly admonition of judgment, until, being put to shame, they repent — rather than, through harsh disobedience, casting themselves into utter judgment.

For there also occur certain partial forms of discipline, which they call chastisements, into which many of us who fall into transgression, slipping away from the Lord's people, fall.

But just as children are chastised by their teacher or father, so we are chastised by Providence.

But God does not take vengeance (for vengeance is the repayment of evil), but He does chastise, for what is beneficial both in common and individually to those who are chastised.

These things, then, I have set forth, wishing to turn those who love learning away from an easy falling into the heresies.

But desiring to put a stop to the prevailing ignorance, or folly, or ill-condition — or whatever else one ought to call it — and attempting to persuade otherwise, and to bring to the truth, at least those who are not altogether incurable, I have made use of these arguments.

For there are those who, from the very outset, do not even tolerate listening to those who exhort toward the truth.

And indeed they attempt to talk nonsense, pouring out blasphemous words against the truth, granting to themselves that they have come to know the greatest of realities — without having learned, without having sought, without having labored, without having discovered the coherence [of the argument].

Such men one might either pity, or... hate, for such perversity.

But if anyone happens to be curable, able to bear, like fire or iron, the frank speech of truth cutting off and burning away their false opinions, let him offer up the ears of his soul.

And this will happen, if they do not, in their eagerness for ease, drive away the truth, or, reaching after glory, force themselves to innovate.

For those are indulging in sloth who, though it is possible to derive proofs proper to the divine Scriptures from the Scriptures themselves, instead choose whatever is at hand and conducive to their own pleasures.

And those desire glory who willingly sophisticate, through other underhanded interpolations, the things proper to the divinely-inspired words as handed down by the blessed apostles and teachers, setting up human teachings against the divine tradition, for the sake of establishing their heresy.

For what room was truly left, among such great men — I mean, according to ecclesiastical knowledge — for the doctrine of Marcion, let us say, or of Prodicus and those like them who did not walk the straight path? For they could not have surpassed in wisdom the men who came before, so as to discover anything further beyond what was truly spoken by those men; rather, it would have been quite enough for them, had they been able merely to learn what had already been handed down.

The Gnostic, then, is for us the only one who, having grown old in the Scriptures themselves, preserving the apostolic and ecclesiastical correctness of doctrines, lives most rightly according to the Gospel, being directed by the Lord to discover, from the Law and the Prophets, whatever proofs he may seek.

For the life of the Gnostic, I think, is nothing other than deeds and words consistent with the tradition of the Lord.

'For I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren,' says the Apostle, 'that all were under the cloud, and partook of spiritual food and drink' — clearly showing that not all who hear the word have grasped the greatness of knowledge, both in deed and in word.

But God was not well pleased with most of them.

'Why do you call me Lord, and do not do the will of my Father?' — that is, the teaching of the Savior, which is our spiritual food, and the drink that knows no thirst, the water of gnostic life.

'Yes,' they say, 'it is said that knowledge puffs up.'

Perhaps it is merely apparent knowledge that is said to puff up, if one supposes the word to signify 'to be conceited.'

But if, as is rather the case, the Apostle's word signifies thinking greatly and truly, then the difficulty has indeed been resolved.

Following, then, the Scriptures, let us confirm what has been said.

'Wisdom,' says Solomon, 'has breathed life into her own children.'

...to striplings in point of teaching, but rather confidence in the truth; and to be high-minded in the knowledge handed down through the Scriptures renders one disdainful of those who would drag one down into sin -- which is what the word 'he breathed into' (enephysiose) signifies -- since the magnificence of wisdom implants in the children, by the very things through which it teaches, in respect of their learning...

For instance, the apostle says:

'and I shall know, not the word of those who are puffed up, but their power' -- if it be done high-mindedly (which is indeed the true sense;

for nothing is greater than truth) -- do you understand the Scriptures.

For here [is meant] the power of the children who are elevated ... of wisdom.

That is, he says, 'I shall know whether you rightly think highly of yourselves on account of knowledge.'

For, according to David, 'God is known in Judea' ... that is, among those who are Israelites according to true recognition.

for 'Judah' is interpreted as 'confession.'

Reasonably, then, it is said by the apostle:

'Thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not covet,' and whatever other commandment there is, is summed up in this word, namely:

'Thou shalt love thy neighbor ... as thyself.'

For one must never, as those who follow the heresies do, commit adultery against the truth, nor indeed steal the rule of the Church, indulging one's own desires and love of glory to the deception of one's neighbor -- whom, loving above all else, it is fitting to teach to hold fast to the truth itself.

'Declare among the nations his deeds,' that those who have heard beforehand may not be judged, but may turn.

but as many as deal deceitfully with their tongues have their penalties recorded in writing.

Those, then, who lay hold of impious words, and who take the lead in corrupting others -- not using the divine words well, but misusing them sinfully -- neither themselves enter into the kingdom of heaven, nor allow those whom they have deceived to attain the truth.

But they do not even themselves possess the key of entrance; rather, having some false key -- as common usage calls it, a counterfeit key -- by which, not throwing open the courtyard door as we do, entering through the tradition of the Lord, but cutting out a window and secretly digging through the wall of the Church, overstepping the truth, they set themselves up as mystagogues of the soul of the impious.

That they have made their human assemblies later than the catholic Church requires no lengthy argument.

For the teaching of the Lord at his coming, beginning from Augustus and Tiberius Caesar, was completed [text corrupt] in the middle of the times of Augustus; while that of his apostles, at least until the ministry of Paul, was completed under Nero; and it was later, about the times of the emperor Hadrian, that those who devised the heresies arose, and they extended down to the age of Antoninus the Elder -- as did Basilides, even though he claims Glaucias as his teacher, as they themselves boast, the interpreter of Peter.

and likewise they report that Valentinus was a hearer of Theudas;

and this man had been an acquaintance of Paul.

For Marcion, being of the same generation as these men, associated as an old man with younger heretics.

[text corrupt] after whom ... Simon gave heed for a short while to Peter as he was preaching.

These things being so, it is evident that these later heresies -- and those even more recent in time than these -- have been innovated as counterfeits away from the most ancient and truest Church.

From what has been said, then, I think it has become clear that there is one true Church, the one that is really ancient, into which those who are righteous according to God's purpose are enrolled.

For since God is one and the Lord is one, therefore also that which is supremely honorable is praised on account of its uniqueness, being an image of the one first principle.

Accordingly, the one Church shares the inheritance of the nature of the One, which the heresies force to be cut up into many.

Or rather, according to the one covenant given at different times, gathering together, by the will of the one God through the one Lord, those already appointed;

whom God foreordained, having known before the foundation of the world that they would be righteous.

Moreover, the pre-eminence of the Church, like the principle of its constitution, consists in its unity, surpassing all other things and having nothing like or equal to itself.

These things, then, we reserve for later discussion.

Of the heresies, some are named after a person, as that from Valentinus and Marcion and Basilides, even though they boast of adducing the teaching of Matthias;

for as the teaching of all the apostles has been one, so also has been their tradition;

others are named from a place, as the Peratics; others from a nation, as that of the Phrygians; others from an activity, as that of the Encratites; others from particular doctrines, as that of the Docetists and that of the Haematitae; others from the objects they have honored, as those called Cainites and the Ophians; and others from the unlawful practices they have dared, as the Entychites among the Simonians.

Having then indicated a small opening to those who love the contemplation of truth, from the law concerning sacrifices -- concerning the vulgar Jews, and concerning the heresies which are mystically distinguished as unclean, drawn from the divine law concerning clean and unclean animals -- let us bring our discourse to a close.

For Scripture hands down as clean and acceptable to God those sacrificial animals which both part the hoof and chew the cud, inasmuch as the righteous make their journey toward the Father and toward the Son through faith (for this is the firm footing of those that part the hoof), meditating on the oracles of God night and day and turning them over again in the storehouse of the soul's learning -- and this the Law allegorizes as the 'chewing of the cud' of a clean animal, it being indeed a gnostic re-exercise...

but whatever has neither the one nor the other of these, it sets apart as unclean.

For instance, those animals that chew the cud but do not part the hoof hint at the majority of the Jews, who have the oracles of God upon their lips but do not have the faith and the footing -- which leads through the Son to the Father -- firmly grounded in the truth.

Hence also the class of such creatures is slippery, inasmuch as they are not cloven-footed nor firmly grounded on the twofold footing of faith;

'for no one,' he says, 'knows the Father except the Son, and he to whomever the Son may reveal him.'

And conversely, likewise unclean are also those that part the hoof but do not chew the cud.

For these signify the heretics, who have set foot upon the name of Father and Son, but are too weak to work out finely and polish the precise clarity of the oracles, and who pursue the works of righteousness in a rather rough manner, and not with precision -- if indeed they pursue them at all.

To some such people the Lord says:

'Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not do what I say?' But wholly unclean are those who neither part the hoof nor chew the cud.

'But you, O Megarians,' says Theognis, 'are neither third nor fourth nor twelfth, neither in reckoning nor in number.'

but rather like the chaff which the wind casts away from the face of the earth, and like a drop from a bucket.

Now that these matters have been accomplished by us beforehand, and the ethical topic has been sketched out in summary, and, as we promised, we have sown here and there, scattered and dispersed, the sparks of the doctrines of true knowledge, so that it may not be easy for the uninitiated one who chances upon them to discover the holy traditions, let us proceed to our promise.

...together with barren trees as well, on account of those who dare to pilfer and steal the ripe fruits -- since Scripture wishes these things to lie hidden...

from which, indeed, the farmer, by grafting and transplanting, will adorn a beautiful paradise and a delightful grove.

Thus the Stromateis aim neither at order nor at diction, seeing that they deliberately wish their very wording not to appear artfully Greek, and have made the sowing of their doctrines hidden and not according to plain truth, preparing those who read them -- if indeed any should chance to do so -- to be industrious and inventive.

for the baits are many and varied, on account of the differences among the fish.

And indeed, after this our seventh Stromateus, we shall carry on our discourse concerning what follows, from another starting point.

CLEMENT'S STROMATEIS, BOOK EIGHT. But not even the most ancient of the philosophers were carried off into disputing and raising difficulties for their own sake.

How much less, then, should we, who hold fast to the philosophy that is truly true -- we to whom Scripture directly enjoins seeking for the sake of discovery -- fail to search out the truth;

for the more recent among the Greek philosophers, driven by an empty and imperfect love of honor, are led off, both in a refutative and a contentious manner, into useless idle talk; whereas, on the contrary, our barbarian philosophy, casting out all contentiousness, has said: 'Seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you; ask, and it shall be given to you.'

The discourse of question and answer, then, in the course of inquiry, knocks, as it were, on the door of truth according to appearance; and once that which stood in the way has been opened up in the course of the investigation, scientific contemplation arises.

To those, I think, who knock in this way, that which is sought is opened; and to those who thus ask, whose inquiries proceed according to the Scriptures toward that which they are pursuing, there comes from God the gift of God-given knowledge, comprehensibly, through the inquiry that truly shines forth by reason.

For it is not possible to find without having sought;

nor to have sought without having investigated;

nor to have thoroughly investigated without having unfolded and laid open, through questioning, the object of inquiry so as to bring it into clarity; nor again, having proceeded through every kind of examination, is it possible not, in the end, to receive the prize -- the knowledge of the thing sought.

But it is possible for the one who has sought to find; and to seek, if he should first suppose that he does not already know.

Led thence by desire toward the discovery of the good, he seeks fair-mindedly, without contentiousness,

without love of vainglory, both asking and answering, and moreover also examining closely the very things that are said.

For it is fitting that, holding fast not only to the divine Scriptures but also to the common notions, one should carry out one's inquiries so that the discovery comes to rest at some beneficial conclusion.