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

Translated by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson.

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Page 29

Through the corporeal spirit, then, man perceives, desires, rejoices, is angry, is nourished, grows. It is by it, too, that thoughts and conceptions advance to actions. And when it masters the desires, the ruling faculty reigns.

The commandment, then, "Thou shalt not lust," says, thou shalt not serve the carnal spirit, but shall rule over it; "For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit," [3450] and excites to disorderly conduct against nature; "and the Spirit against the flesh" exercises sway, in order that the conduct of the man may be according to nature.

Is not man, then, rightly said "to have been made in the image of God?"--not in the form of his [corporeal] structure; but inasmuch as God creates all things by the Word (logo), and the man who has become a Gnostic performs good actions by the faculty of reason (to logiko), properly therefore the two tables are also said to mean the commandments that were given to the twofold spirits,--those communicated before the law to that which was created, and to the ruling faculty; and the movements of the senses are both copied in the mind, and manifested in the activity which proceeds from the body. For apprehension results from both combined. Again, as sensation is related to the world of sense, so is thought to that of intellect. And actions are twofold--those of thought, those of act.

[3450] Gal. v. 17.

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