Clement of Alexandria · a new plain-English translation from the original language
This wisdom of the world, then, is foolishness with God, and the Lord knows the reasonings of these wise men, that they are vain. Let no one, then, boast, priding himself on human understanding. For it is well written in Jeremiah: "Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, and let not the strong man boast in his strength, and let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, in understanding and knowing that I am the Lord, who exercises mercy and judgment and justice over the earth; for my will rests in such deeds, says the Lord." This is so that we should not be trusting in ourselves, but in the God who raises the dead, as the apostle says: "who rescued us out of a death so immense, so that our trust would rest not in human wisdom, but in God's own power." For the spiritual man judges all things, but he himself is judged by no one. And I hear also his other words: "But this I say, that no one may deceive you with persuasive speech, nor let the one who leads you captive slip in unnoticed." And again: "See to it, then, lest anyone rob you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the elements of the world and not according to Christ." Not every school of philosophy, but rather the Epicurean, the one Paul also singles out in the Acts of the Apostles, denouncing it as one that does away with providence and deifies pleasure — and likewise any other philosophy that has honored the elements without setting over them their maker as cause, and has not conceived of the Creator.
But the Stoics too, whom he also mentions, say — not rightly — that God, being a body, has passed through the most dishonorable matter. He calls logical trifling a "tradition of men." That is why he also writes this: "Avoid the newer disputations, for such contentions are the mark of youths." And virtue is no lover of youths, says the philosopher Plato; and our contest, as Gorgias of Leontini says, requires a twofold virtue, boldness and wisdom — boldness to endure the danger, wisdom to know the riddle. For the word, like the herald's proclamation at Olympia, calls the one who wishes, but crowns the one who is able.
The word does not wish the believer to be immovable toward truth and truly idle. "Seek and you shall find," it says; but it brings the seeking to a finding, driving out empty babbling, and approving instead the contemplation that fortifies our faith. This I say, that no one may deceive you with persuasive speech, says the apostle — meaning, evidently, that we should be taught to discern what is said by such people and be trained to answer what they bring forward.
Just as you welcomed the Lord Christ Jesus, walk accordingly in him — rooted, built up on him, and made firm in the faith, persuasion being that very confirmation of faith — see to it that no one rob you of your faith in Christ through philosophy and empty deceit, which does away with providence, according to the tradition of men. For philosophy according to the divine tradition establishes providence and confirms it; and if providence is done away with, the whole dispensation concerning the Savior appears a myth, since we would then be carried along according to the elements of the world and not according to Christ. For the teaching that follows Christ both deifies the Creator and extends providence down to particulars, and understands that the elements themselves are by nature changeable and created things, and teaches us to conduct our lives with a view toward being made like God, and to receive the dispensation as the guiding principle of all instruction. As for the elements, Diogenes worships air, Thales water, Hippasus fire, and those who posit atoms as first principles — creeping in under the name of philosophy, certain godless little men who are lovers of pleasure.
For this reason I pray, he says, that your love may keep growing, ever fuller, in knowledge and every kind of discernment, so that you may approve the things that differ. Since, when we were infants, says the same apostle, we were enslaved under the elements of the world. Now the infant, even if he is an heir, differs in nothing from a slave until the time appointed by the father. Infants, then, are the philosophers too, unless the Christ makes men of them. For if the son of the slave woman will not inherit along with the son of the free woman, yet he is at least seed of Abraham, though he has not received as his own the gift that comes by promise. But solid food belongs to the perfect, to those who through practice have their faculties trained for the discernment of good and evil. For everyone who partakes of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, being an infant, and not yet understanding the reasoning by which he has come to believe and by which he acts, nor able to render the account of it within himself. But test all things, says the apostle, and hold fast what is good — speaking to spiritual men who examine everything said according to truth, whether it merely seems so or truly partakes of the truth.
Instruction that goes unreproved wanders astray, and blows and reproofs give the instruction of wisdom — reproofs given with love, evidently. For an upright heart seeks knowledge, since he who seeks God will find knowledge together with righteousness, and those who have rightly sought him have found peace. "And I shall know," he says, not the speech of those who are puffed up, but their power — striking with a blow, as he writes, those who imagine themselves wise but are not truly wise. For God's kingdom does not consist in talk — not in what merely seems true by persuasive opinion — but he declared it consists in power; for it is truth alone that carries force. And again: if anyone thinks he has known something, he does not yet grasp it in the manner he must; since truth is at no point identical with opinion, whereas opinion about knowledge puffs up and fills with conceit, while love builds up, occupying itself not with mere opinion but with truth. Hence, if anyone loves, he is known, as it is said.
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