Clement of Alexandria · a new plain-English translation from the original language
At this point certain people spring up who say that the Lord is not good, because of the rod and the threat and the fear, having misheard, it seems, the scripture that says somewhere "and he who fears the Lord turns to his own heart," and forgetting his greatest act of loving-kindness, that for our sake he became man. And indeed the prophet prays to him all the more familiarly through these words, "keep in mind that we are made of dust," that is, have fellow-feeling for us, since you have tested in your own experience the weakness of the flesh. In this way, then, the Lord our tutor is best and beyond reproach, having by nature had fellow-feeling for each of mankind out of an excess of loving-kindness. "For there was nothing that the Lord hates" — for surely he does not hate a thing and yet wish it to exist, that which he hates, nor does he desire a thing's nonexistence while yet being the reason it comes into being, this thing he desires should not be, nor indeed does he desire the nonexistence of something that in fact already exists. If then the Word hates anything, he wishes it not to exist; but nothing exists to which God does not supply the cause of its existing; therefore nothing is hated by God. But neither is it hated by the Word; for the two are one, God, because it is said, "in the beginning was the Word with God, and the Word was God." And if he hates none of the things that came to be through him, it remains that he loves it. Much more, then, will he love man above the rest, reasonably so, being the most beautiful of the things fashioned by him and a God-loving creature. God is therefore loving toward mankind, and the Word is therefore loving toward mankind. And one who loves a thing wishes to benefit it, and what confers benefit is surely, in each and every way, superior to what confers none, and nothing surpasses the good; the good, accordingly, confers benefit; and God is agreed to be good, therefore God benefits. And the good, insofar as it is good, does nothing else than benefit; therefore God benefits all things. And surely it is not the case that he benefits man in one respect but does not also care for him, nor that he cares for him but does not also attend to him. For that which benefits by deliberate purpose is better than that which does not benefit by deliberate purpose, and nothing is better than God. And to benefit by deliberate purpose is nothing other than to attend to man; therefore God cares for and attends to man. And this he shows in deed by acting as tutor to him through the Word, who is the genuine ally of God's loving-kindness. And to be good is not called being good by having virtue, just as justice too is called good not by having virtue (for it is itself a virtue), but by being good in itself and through itself. And in another sense, too, that which is advantageous is called good, not by giving pleasure but by benefiting. And justice is all of these: as a virtue, and as choiceworthy for its own sake it is good, and as not giving pleasure — for it does not judge to gain favor, but is apportioning to each according to worth, and the beneficial follows upon the advantageous. In every respect, then, by which the good is examined, justice too is characterized, since both share equally in the same qualities; and things characterized by the same qualities are equal to and like one another; justice therefore is good. How then, they say, if the Lord is loving toward mankind and good, does he grow angry and punish? It is necessary then to go through this matter too, as briefly as possible, since such a dispensation is somehow profitable for the correct upbringing of children, having the rank of a necessary aid. Many of the passions are cured by chastisement and by the imposition of rather severe injunctions, and indeed also through the teaching of certain doctrines. Rebuke functions, so to speak, as a cutting-therapy applied to the soul's disordered impulses, and these impulses mark a wandering away from truth, which must be exposed by cutting them apart with the scalpel. Reproach is like a medicine, dissolving the calluses of the passions and cleansing the filth of life, the lusts, and moreover leveling the excess flesh of arrogance, restoring the man to health and truth. Admonition, then, is as it were a regimen for a sick soul, of which one must partake through counsel what is advantageous and abstain through prohibition from what is not; and all of it tends toward salvation and everlasting health. But even the general, when he inflicts fines of money and punishments extending to the very bodies of wrongdoers, with chains and utter dishonor, and sometimes even punishes some with death, has the good as his end, for the sake of admonishing the soldiers under his command. In the same way our great general, the Word who governs all things, admonishing those who rebel against his own law, for the sake of releasing them from slavery and error and captivity to the adversary, in order to restrain the passions of the soul, leads them peaceably to the sacred harmony of the commonwealth.
Just as, then, the hortatory and exhortative type stands alongside the deliberative speech, so too the reproachful and reviling type stands alongside the encomiastic. And this type is the art of blame, and blame is a mark of goodwill, not of hatred. For both the friend and the one who is not a friend reproach, but the enemy does so mocking, the friend doing so out of goodwill. It is not, then, out of hatred that the Lord reviles men, whom, though it were in his power to destroy them for their own faults, he instead suffered on their behalf. For being a good tutor, he very skillfully insinuates blame through reviling, as it were rousing the sluggishness of the mind with the whip of harsh speech, and again in turn attempts to exhort the same people. For those whom praise did not exhort, blame provoked, and those whom blame did not call forth to salvation, like the dead, harsh speech rouses to the truth. "For stripes and discipline are wisdom at every season, gluing together a broken shard and teaching a fool," bringing the earthy man to perception, he says, and sharpening the despairing man to understanding. For this reason he added clearly: "rousing one asleep out of deep sleep," which most of all resembles death. And indeed the Lord himself declares most plainly concerning himself, allegorizing his manifold and highly beneficial treatment, when he said, "I myself am the genuine vine, and my father tends the vineyard," and then added again, "every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every one that bears fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit." For the vine runs wild with unchecked growth if it is not pruned, and so too does man; and the Word, the pruning-knife, cuts away his rampant shoots, compelling him to bear fruit rather than to indulge desire. And rebuke of sinners has salvation as its aim, the Word being harmonized musically according to each person's own disposition, at one time intensifying, at another relaxing. Most plainly, then, it is said through Moses: "take courage, for God has come in order to test you, that his fear may be in you, so that you may not sin." From this Plato too learned well and says, "for all who pay the penalty truly suffer good things; for they benefit by their souls becoming better when justly punished." And if, even according to Plato, those who are corrected suffer good things at the hands of what is just, it is agreed that the just is good. Indeed fear itself benefits and has been devised for the good of men, because "the spirit that fears the Lord shall live; for its hope is in him who saves it." And this same Word, in imposing punishment, is a judge, concerning whom Isaiah also says, "the Lord delivered him up to our sins," that is, plainly, as one correcting and setting straight our sins. For this reason he alone is able to forgive transgressions, having been appointed our tutor by the Father of all, alone able to distinguish disobedience from obedience. And one who threatens plainly wishes to do no evil, nor to carry out the very things he threatens; but by instilling fear he has checked the onrush toward sins and shows his loving-kindness, still delaying and making plain what sort of things they will suffer if they remain sinners, rather than striking at once like a snake that has fastened its bite. God is therefore good. And indeed the Lord makes much use of word before deed. "For my arrows," he says, "shall make an end of them; they shall waste away with hunger and be devoured by birds, and incurable convulsion; I will send against them the teeth of wild beasts, with the fury of things that crawl upon the earth; from without the sword shall bereave them of children, and from their chambers, terror." So that the divine does not grow angry, as it has seemed to some, but most things are only threatened, while in all of it he has counseled mankind and shown what course to follow. And it is a worthy skill, this instilling of fear so that we may avoid sin; "for reverence toward the Lord drives sin away, and whoever lacks that reverence cannot be declared upright," as the passage puts it. And God's punishing is never a matter of anger, but has regard for justice, since it is not advantageous for justice to be set aside for our sake. And each of us chooses his own punishments, sinning of his own will; "the cause lies with the one who chooses; God is blameless." "And if our injustice establishes God's righteousness, what shall we say? Is God unjust who inflicts wrath? By no means." He says, then, by way of warning: "I will whet my blade to a keen edge, and my hand shall lay hold on justice; I will pay back my foes and repay those who bear me hatred; my shafts I will drench in blood, and my blade shall consume flesh, along with the gore of the fallen." Here it is plain that whoever bears no hostility toward the truth, and holds no hatred for the Word, would never work against their own deliverance, and so would be spared the penalties that hostility brings. "The wreath granted by wisdom, then," as wisdom herself puts it, "is reverence for the Lord." Most plainly, then, the Word has revealed his own dispensation through the prophet Amos, saying, "I overthrew you, as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and you became as a brand plucked from the fire, and not even so did you return to me, says the Lord." See how God, out of love of the good, seeks repentance, and quietly shows his own loving-kindness even amid the dispensation of the threat. "I will turn my face away from them," he says, "and I will reveal what will come of them." For wherever the Lord's countenance rests, peace and gladness follow, but wherever it withdraws, there wickedness slips in. He does not wish, then, to look upon evils, for he is good; and when he willingly looks away, human nature, through unbelief, comes to possess wickedness. "Behold, then," says Paul, "the kindness and severity of God: upon those who fell, severity, but upon you, kindness, if you continue in his kindness," that is, in faith toward Christ. And hatred of evil follows upon the good, insofar as he is good by nature. Therefore I would agree that he does punish the unbelieving (for punishment is for the good and benefit of the one punished, being a correction of one who resists), but that he does not wish to take vengeance. For vengeance is a repayment of evil directed toward the advantage of the avenger. And he who teaches us to pray for those who mistreat us would not desire to take vengeance.
But that God is good, even unwillingly, all men confess; and that this same God is also just, I need adduce no further arguments, having set down the evangelical voice of the Lord itself; for he declares his own oneness: "that all of them may be one, just as you, Father, dwell in me and I in you, so that they too may exist as one within us, in order that the world may come to believe that you have sent me. And the glory you gave to me I have given to them, so that they may be one, just as we ourselves are one; I within them and you within me, so that they may be brought to completeness as one"; and God is one, and stands beyond that one, and above the monad itself. Therefore the word "you," bearing demonstrative force, points to the one who by himself genuinely exists, who existed, exists now, and shall exist, and shows him to be God, for whom, though there are three tenses, one name is set: "the one who is." And that this same God, who alone is, is also just, the Lord will himself bear witness in that same gospel, saying: "Father, those whom you have given me, I wish that where I am they also may be with me, that they may behold my glory which you have given me, because you loved me before the foundation of the world. Righteous Father, and the world has not known you, but I have known you, and these have known that you sent me; and I have made known to them your name, and will make it known." This is he "who renders the sins of the fathers upon the children, to those who hate, and shows mercy to those who love." For he who sets some on the right hand and some on the left, insofar as he is understood as Father, being good, is called by that alone which he is, good; but insofar as he is understood as Son, the Word being in the Father, he is called just, from the mutual relation of love, † a name measured by equality of power. "He shall judge a man," it says, "according to his works," God having made known to us Jesus as the face of a good balance, through whom, as by an evenly weighted scale, we have come to know God also. On this point Wisdom too states plainly, "compassion and anger both belong to him"; for he alone holds mastery over each: "a powerful one who grants pardon, yet pours out fury; matching the vastness of his compassion is likewise his correction"; since both compassion and correction aim at rescuing the ones corrected. And indeed that he, "who is God and Father to our Lord Jesus," is himself good, that very Word will once more attest, "that he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked," and moreover, saying "become compassionate, as your Father is compassionate," and yet also, when he says outright, "no one is good except my Father who is in the heavens"; and again on these matters he says, "my Father causes his sun to rise and shine on everyone."
It should be noted here that he acknowledges his own Father as both good and as maker of the world, and no one questions that the maker is just. And again he says, "my Father makes it rain on the righteous and the unrighteous alike." And insofar as he sends rain, he is the maker of waters and clouds, and insofar as he does so upon all alike, he distributes justly and in equal measure † of virtue, but insofar as he is good, he does so upon the just and the unjust alike. Most plainly, then, we reason that there is one and the same God, somewhat as follows: because "I will gaze upon the heavens, that work of your fingers," and "the maker of the skies has his home within them," and "heaven serves as your throne," so sang the Holy Spirit; and the Lord, in the prayer, says "our Father, present in the heavens"; and the skies belong to the one who fashioned the world; it cannot be denied, then, that the Lord is offspring of the Maker. And since everyone acknowledges the Maker to be just, and the Lord is offspring of the Maker, the Lord must therefore be offspring of the just one. For this reason Paul too says, "but now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been manifested," and again, that you may the more take it to mean God, "the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ, unto all who believe; for there is no distinction," and moreover, bearing witness to the truth, adds a little after, "in the forbearance of God, for the demonstration that he is just and that he justifies the one who has faith in Jesus." And knowing that the just is good, he plainly states elsewhere, "with the result that the law is sacred, and its commandment sacred, righteous, and good," placing both titles under one and the same power. But also, "no one knows except his Father"; the same, then, is his Father, being one, made known through many powers; and this was the meaning of "no one has known the Father," who was all things, before the Son came; so that it becomes manifest in truth that of all things there is one God alone, who is good, just, creator, Son in Father, to whom be glory forever, amen.
But neither is it foreign to the saving word to rebuke with solicitous care. For indeed this too is a remedy of divine love of humanity, from which the blush of shame flowers forth and a sense of disgrace at sinning steals in. For if one must find fault, and rebuke is necessary, it is then the fitting occasion to wound the soul that has grown callous — not mortally, but savingly — gaining, at the cost of a little pain, an eternal deliverance from death. Great is the wisdom shown in his tutelage, and manifold is the manner of his providential ordering toward salvation. For the Educator bears witness on behalf of the good, and he calls forth those who are called to what is better, and turns aside from their impulse those who hasten to do wrong, and exhorts them to change over to a better life. For neither of these is without its testimony, the one bearing witness to the other; and the grace arising from such testimony is greatest, but also the passionate quality of his anger — if indeed one must call his admonition anger — is a mark of love for humanity, since it is for humanity's sake that God stoops even to such feelings — it is on that same account that the divine Word took on human flesh.
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