Clement of Alexandria · a new plain-English translation from the original language
Readiness to see what is needful contributes much through preliminary training. And exercise for the mind would be the objects of thought. Threefold is the nature of these, viewed as they concern quantities, magnitudes, and propositions. For reasoning that proceeds from demonstrations implants in the soul of the one who follows it an exact conviction, so that he does not think the thing demonstrated could be otherwise, and it does not allow us to fall prey to those who would trip us up by deceit. In these studies, then, the soul is purified of things perceived by sense and is rekindled, that it may at some point be able to discern the truth. For nourishment, and good upbringing when it is preserved, makes natures good, and good natures, when they lay hold of such upbringing, grow still better than they were before, both in other respects and in respect of begetting, just as also among the other animals. Wherefore also he says: "Go to the ant, O sluggard, and become wiser than she, who lays up much and varied food at the harvest against the threat of winter; or turn to the bee and observe what a diligent laborer she is; for she likewise, roaming across the entire meadow, fashions a single honeycomb."
But if you pray in your chamber, as the Lord taught, worshipping in spirit, then the management of the household would no longer concern the house alone, but also the soul — what one must apportion to it, in what manner and in what measure; and what one must set aside and keep in reserve within it, and when these things must be brought forth, and to whom. For men do not become good and noble by nature, but by learning, just as physicians and pilots do. We all alike, at any rate, look upon the vine and the horse, but the farmer will know whether the vine is good or bad for bearing fruit, and the horseman will readily distinguish a spiritless horse from a swift one. Now the fact that some are by nature better disposed than others toward virtue indicates certain pursuits in which those so disposed excel the rest, but it charges none of those who are better endowed with perfection in virtue, since even those who are ill disposed toward virtue, when they obtain the fitting education, for the most part attain to nobility of character, and conversely those who are aptly disposed become bad through neglect. But by nature, in turn, God fashioned us to be sociable and just.
Whence one must not say that justice appears from mere convention alone, but must understand that the good of creation is rekindled from the commandment, the soul being trained by learning to be willing to choose what is most excellent. But just as we say it is possible to be faithful even without letters, so too we acknowledge that it is not possible to understand the things spoken in the faith without having learned. For it is not faith taken simply, but faith concerned with learning, that produces the acceptance of what is well said and the rejection of what is foreign to it. And if ignorance is at once a lack of education and a lack of learning, then teaching implants the knowledge of things divine and human. But just as it is possible to live rightly in poverty of life, so too it is possible in abundance, and we acknowledge that it is both easier and quicker to hunt down virtue with the aid of preliminary education — though virtue is not unattainable even without these — except that even then it belongs to those who have learned and have trained their faculties of perception together with it. For, says Solomon, hatred stirs up strife, but instruction guards the paths of life, so that one may not be deceived, may not be robbed by those who have practiced the evil art of harming their hearers. And instruction that is unrefuted goes astray, he says, and there must be present the refutative element, for the sake of driving off the deceptive opinions of the sophists.
Well indeed does Anaxarchus the Eudaemonist also write, in his work On Kingship: "Much learning greatly benefits, and greatly harms, the one who has it: it benefits the one who is skillful, but harms the one who readily utters every word in every assembly. One must know the due measure of the occasion, for this is the boundary of wisdom. And as many as sing even at the doors, even if somehow they sing something wise, are not reckoned as being in wisdom, but have the disposition of folly." And Hesiod says: "...of the Muses, who make a man abounding in speech, inspired, of clear voice" — for he calls the man abounding in speech one who is resourceful in words, and the one of clear voice formidable, and the inspired one the man of experience and philosophy and knowledge of the truth.
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