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

Translated by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson.

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And did not Abraham, when he was in danger on account of Sarah's beauty, with the king of Egypt, properly call her sister, being of the same father, but not of the same mother? [3369]

To those, then, who have repented and not firmly believed, God grants their requests through their supplications. But to those who live sinlessly and gnostically, He gives, when they have but merely entertained the thought. For example, to Anna, on her merely conceiving the thought, conception was vouchsafed of the child Samuel. [3370] "Ask," says the Scripture, "and I will do. Think, and I will give." For we have heard that God knows the heart, not judging [3371] the soul from [external] movement, as we men; nor yet from the event. For it is ridiculous to think so. Nor was it as the architect praises the work when accomplished that God, on making the light and then seeing it, called it good. But He, knowing before He made it what it would be, praised that which was made, He having potentially made good, from the first by His purpose that had no beginning, what was destined to be good actually. Now that which has future He already said beforehand was good, the phrase concealing the truth by hyperbaton. Therefore the Gnostic prays in thought during every hour, being by love allied to God. And first he will ask forgiveness of sins; and after, that he may sin no more; and further, the power of well-doing and of comprehending the whole creation and administration by the Lord, that, becoming pure in heart through the knowledge, which is by the Son of God, he may be initiated into the beatific vision face to face, having heard the Scripture which says, "Fasting with prayer is a good thing." [3372]

[3369] The reading of the text has, "not of the same mother, much less of the same father," which contradicts Gen. xx. 12, and has been therefore amended as above.

[3370] 1 Sam. i. 13.

[3371] Or, "judging from the motion of the soul;" the text reading here ou kinematos psuches, for which, as above, is proposed, ouk ek kinematos psuchen.

[3372] Tob. xii. 8.

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