Clement of Alexandria: STROMATA (MISCELLANIES), Part III, Complete

Translated by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson.

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Page 15

"For God hath not given us the spirit of bondage again to fear; but of power, and love, and of a sound mind. Be not therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, or of me his prisoner," he writes to Timothy. [2753] Such shall he be "who cleaves to that which is good," according to the apostle, [2754] "who hates evil, having love unfeigned; for he that loveth another fulfilleth the law." [2755] If, then, this God, to whom we bear witness, be as He is, the God of hope, we acknowledge our hope, speeding on to hope, "saturated with goodness, filled with all knowledge." [2756]

The Indian sages say to Alexander of Macedon: "You transport men's bodies from place to place. But you shall not force our souls to do what we do not wish. Fire is to men the greatest torture, this we despise." Hence Heraclitus preferred one thing, glory, to all else; and professes "that he allows the crowd to stuff themselves to satiety like cattle."

"For on account of the body are many toils,

For it we have invented a roofed house,

And discovered how to dig up silver, and sow the land,

And all the rest which we know by names."

[2753] 2 Tim. i. 7, 8; Rom. viii. 15.

[2754] Rom. xii. 9.

[2755] Rom. xiii. 8.

[2756] Instead of megistoi, read from Rom. xv. 13, 14, mestoi.

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