Clement of Alexandria · a new plain-English translation from the original language
The philosophy that follows Moses is divided fourfold: into the historical, and that properly called legislative — both of which would belong to the ethical discipline — the third into the priestly, which already belongs to the contemplation of nature, and fourth, above all these, the theological kind, the epopteia, which Plato says truly belongs to the great mysteries, and which Aristotle calls the study that comes after the physical treatises. And the dialectic according to Plato, as he says in the Statesman, is a science discovering the manifestation of the things that are, a possession the self-controlled man acquires, not so he might speak or act toward other men for the sake of it, the way those now called dialecticians do, busying themselves with sophistical matters, but so he becomes able to speak what pleases God and act in ways pleasing to God, insofar as that lies within his power.
True dialectic, being mingled with true philosophy, examines things and tests their powers and authorities, and thereby rises up gradually toward the mightiest of all substances, and even ventures further still, up toward the universe's God, laying claim not to acquaintance with mortal affairs but to a knowledge of divine and heavenly realities, which is accompanied also by the proper use of human affairs, both in word and in deed. Fittingly, then, scripture too, wishing us to become dialecticians of this sort, exhorts us: "Become approved money-changers," rejecting the base coin while holding fast to what is good. For this in truth is dialectic — a prudence that divides among intelligible things, that shows each of the things that are, unmixed and pure, in its underlying reality; or a power that divides among the genera of things, descending as far as the most particular, presenting each of the things that are so as to appear pure, just as it is.
Hence this alone leads by the hand to true wisdom, which is a divine power, knowing the things that are as they are, possessing perfection, released from every passion — and this not without the Savior, who through the divine Word led down for us, and stripped away from the eye of the soul, the misty ignorance poured over it by base conduct, and granted us the best gift, "that we might well know both god and man." This is he who in truth showed how we are to know ourselves; this is he who uncovers the Father of the universe to whomever he wishes, and so far as human nature is capable of comprehending; "for no one knew the Son except the Father, nor the Father except the Son, and whomever the Son chooses to reveal him."
Fittingly, then, the apostle says he came to know the mystery by revelation, "as I wrote before briefly, by which, when you read, you are able to perceive my understanding in the mystery of Christ." He said "by which you are able," since he knew that some had received only milk, not yet solid food — it was not simply "milk" without qualification. In three ways, then, we must take the intent of the law: either as revealing a sign, or as establishing a commandment for right conduct, or as declaring something in the manner of prophecy. I know well that it belongs to men of understanding to distinguish and pronounce upon such things; for not all scripture is "one Mykonos" for the purpose of understanding, as those who deal in proverbs say. Rather one must approach it in as dialectical a manner as possible, tracking down the sequence of the divine teaching.
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