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Translated by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson.
Clement of Alexandria in Print
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This Part: 128 Pages
Page 21
The liars, then, in reality are not those who for the sake of the scheme of salvation conform, nor those who err in minute points, but those who are wrong in essentials, and reject the Lord, and as far as in them lies deprive the Lord of the true teaching; who do not quote or deliver the Scriptures in a manner worthy of God and of the Lord; for the deposit rendered to God, according to the teaching of the Lord by His apostles, is the understanding and the practice of the godly tradition. "And what ye hear in the ear"--that is, in a hidden manner, and in a mystery (for such things are figuratively said to be spoken in the ear)--"proclaim," He says, "on the housetops," understanding them sublimely, and delivering them in a lofty strain, and according to the canon of the truth explaining the Scriptures; for neither prophecy nor the Saviour Himself announced the divine mysteries simply so as to be easily apprehended by all and sundry, but express them in parables. The apostles accordingly say of the Lord, that "He spake all things in parables, and without a parable spake He nothing unto them;" [3432] and if "all things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made," [3433] consequently also prophecy and the law were by Him, and were spoken by Him in parables. "But all things are right," says the Scripture, [3434] "before those who understand," that is, those who receive and observe, according to the ecclesiastical rule, the exposition of the Scriptures explained by Him; and the ecclesiastical rule is the concord and harmony of the law and the prophets in the covenant delivered at the coming of the Lord. Knowledge is then followed by practical wisdom, and practical wisdom by self-control: for it may be said that practical wisdom is divine knowledge, and exists in those who are deified; but that self-control is mortal, and subsists in those who philosophize, and are not yet wise. But if virtue is divine, so is also the knowledge of it; while self-control is a sort of imperfect wisdom which aspires after wisdom, and exerts itself laboriously, and is not contemplative. As certainly righteousness, being human, is, as being a common thing, subordinate to holiness, which subsists through the divine righteousness; [3435] for the righteousness of the perfect man does not rest on civil contracts, or on the prohibition of law, but flows from his own spontaneous action and his love to God.
[3432] Matt. xiii. 34.
[3433] John i. 3.
[3434] Prov. viii. 9.
[3435] Heinsius, in a note, remarks that Plato regarded hosiotes and dikaiosune as identical, while others ascribe the former to the immortals (as also themis); hosiotes, as the greater, comprehends dikaiosune. He also amends the text. Instead of koinon he reads os koinon ti, supplies kata before theian dikaiosunen, and changes uparchousan into uparchouse.
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