Clement of Alexandria · a new plain-English translation from the original language
For this reason, then, the Savior, taking bread, first spoke and gave thanks; then, breaking the bread, he set it forth, so that we might indeed eat rationally, and, having come to know the Scriptures, might conduct our life in accordance with obedience. And just as those who employ a wicked word differ in nothing from those who employ wicked deeds (for slander is the minister of the sword, and blasphemy produces grief, from which come the overturnings of life — these would be the works of the wicked word), so too those who employ a good word draw near to those who accomplish good works. At any rate, the word also restores the soul and urges it on toward nobility of character; and blessed is the one who is ambidextrous in both. Neither, then, is the man capable of speaking well to be reproached by the one who does good, nor is the man capable of doing good to be reviled by the one who speaks well; rather, let each be judged by what he is naturally suited to accomplish. What the one shows by deed, the other speaks in word, as it were preparing the road for well-doing and leading his hearers toward beneficence. For there is indeed a saving word, just as there is a saving deed. Righteousness, at any rate, is not constituted apart from word.
Just as the experience of kindness received vanishes once the act of doing good is removed, so obedience and trust are nullified unless the precept and its interpreter are held together as one. As things now stand, we are of use to one another both in words and in deeds. But the art of contentious wrangling and sophistry is to be altogether refused, since even the very phrases of the sophists not only bewitch and steal away the many, but, forcing their way through, sometimes carry off a Cadmean victory. For nothing is truer than that psalm: the just man will go on living until the last day, since he will not look upon decay, when he observes the wise perishing. Whom then does he call wise? Hear it from the Wisdom of Jesus: there is no wisdom in the knowledge of wickedness. This, then, is what he means — the wisdom that the arts of rhetoric and dialectic have devised. You will seek wisdom among the wicked, then, and you will not find it. And if you ask again, what sort of wisdom is this? — he will tell you: the mouth of the righteous shall drip wisdom. But the sophistic art is called wisdom only by an equivocal use of the name shared with truth.
For my part, I think it fitting to make it my aim to live in accordance with reason and to grasp what is signified, never to court fine speech so as to be content merely with hinting at what is meant. By what name this thing I wish to set forth is designated is of no concern to me. For I know well that to be saved, and to lend aid to those who are eager to be saved, is the best thing, not to arrange dainty little phrases as one arranges ornaments. And if you keep to this, says the Pythagorean in Plato's Statesman, of not being zealous over mere names, you will appear richer in understanding as you grow old. And again, in the Theaetetus you may find: an easy carelessness about names and words, not examined with precision, is for the most part no mark of ill breeding, but rather the opposite of this is illiberal, though there are times when it is necessary. These things Scripture has expressed as concisely as possible, saying: be not many in words. For diction is like clothing upon the body, but the matters themselves are flesh and sinew. One ought not, then, to care for the clothing ahead of the safety of the body. For the one who has taken up the true life must practice not only a frugal diet but also a plain and unelaborate speech, free of excess and affectation, if indeed we are to refuse luxury as treacherous and profligate, just as the ancient Lacedaemonians refused perfume and purple, rightly supposing and naming garments treacherous and unguents treacherous, since neither is that preparation of food fine which has more seasonings than nourishment, nor is that use of speech elegant which is able to please its hearers more than to profit them. Pythagoras counsels us to hold the Muses sweeter than the Sirens, teaching us to practice wisdom not with pleasure, and exposing the rest of soul-enchantment as deceitful. One man sufficed to sail past the Sirens, and one other sufficed to answer the Sphinx — or, if you like, not even one is needed.
One ought never, then, to broaden one's phylacteries out of a zeal for vain glory; for the man of true knowledge it is enough even if only a single hearer is found. One may indeed also hear Pindar the Boeotian writing: do not break open the ancient word to all; there are times when the paths of silence are most trustworthy, but the word that prevails is the goad of battles. The blessed apostle, then, insists most earnestly, exhorting us not to fight over words to no useful purpose, to the ruin of those who hear, but to turn away from profane empty talk. For such people advance further into impiety, and their word will spread like gangrene.
← All of Clement of Alexandria: Exhortation, Instructor & Miscellanies