Clement of Alexandria · a new plain-English translation from the original language
"Lord, who has believed our report?" says Isaiah. For "faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of God," says the apostle. "How then shall people call on one they have never trusted? And how shall they trust one of whom they have never heard? And how shall they hear apart from someone proclaiming it? And how shall anyone proclaim it unless he has been sent out?" As scripture puts it: "How lovely are the feet of those who bring good news." Do you see how he traces faith, through hearing and through the preaching of the apostles, back to the word of the Lord and the Son of God? Do we still fail to understand that the word of the Lord is itself a proof? For just as playing ball does not depend only on the one who throws the ball skillfully, but also requires the one who catches it gracefully, so that the exercise may be carried out according to the rules of the game, so too teaching turns out to be trustworthy only when the faith of the hearers - being, so to speak, a kind of natural skill - joins in cooperation toward learning.
So too the earth cooperates, being fertile, toward the casting down of seeds. For neither is the finest instruction of any use without the receptivity of the learner, nor indeed is prophecy of use without the ready compliance of the hearers being present. Indeed dried sticks, standing prepared to take in the force of a flame, kindle all the more readily; and the well-known stone draws iron by kinship, just as the Sochian tear-gum draws bits of straw to itself, and amber stirs up chaff; and the things drawn are persuaded by them, being drawn by an inexpressible force, not as by causes, but as by co-causes. Since the form of wickedness is twofold - the one working through deceit and concealment, the other leading and carrying off by force - the divine word cries out, calling all together, knowing well, especially, those who will not be persuaded; nevertheless, since it is within our power to be persuaded or not, so that none may have the excuse of ignorance, it has made the call a just one, while requiring of each according to his capacity. For to some, together with the willing, the being able is also present, since they have grown in this through joint training and have been purified; but others, even if they are not yet able, already have the willing. Now willing is the work of the soul, but doing is not without the body. Nor indeed are things measured by the outcome alone, but judgment is also made by each person's choice - whether he chose readily, whether he repented of the things in which he sinned, whether he gained understanding concerning the things in which he stumbled, and changed his mind, which is to say, came to know afterward; for repentance is a slow knowledge, but the first knowledge is sinlessness.
Repentance, then, is also an achievement of faith; for if one does not believe that the thing he was formerly possessed by is a sin, he will not turn from it either; and if he does not believe that punishment hangs over the one who transgresses, and salvation for the one who lives according to the commandments, neither in that case will he change. And indeed hope too is constituted out of faith. The followers of Basilides, at any rate, define faith as an assent of the soul to something among the things that do not move the senses, because it is not present. But hope is the expectation of the acquisition of a good; and the expectation must necessarily be a believing one. And the believer is the one who steadfastly keeps the things entrusted to him; and there are entrusted to us the accounts concerning God and the divine words, the commandments, together with the carrying out of the precepts. This is the faithful servant, the one praised by the Lord. And when it says "God is faithful," it signifies that it is worthy to believe him who declares; and his word is what declares, and he himself, God, would be faithful. How then, if believing is a kind of supposing, do the philosophers consider the things from them to be certain? For voluntary supposition prior to demonstration is not mere supposition, but assent to something strong.
And who could be stronger than God? Now unbelief is a weak, negative supposition of the opposite, just as distrust is a disposition ill-disposed to receive faith. And faith is a voluntary supposition and a fair-minded anticipation prior to apprehension, while expectation is an opinion about the future; but the expectation of other things is an opinion about what is unclear; whereas confidence is a firm judgment concerning something. Therefore we believe - toward whatever we place our confidence in - unto divine glory and salvation; and we have placed our confidence in God alone, whom we know will not transgress the things well promised to us, things which were also made and given to us by him out of goodwill for our sake. Now goodwill is the wish for good things for another, for that other's own sake. For he himself is without need; but the benefaction and the kindness from the Lord terminate upon us, being a divine goodwill, and a goodwill directed toward doing good. And if it was reckoned to Abraham as righteousness that he believed, and we are the seed of Abraham through hearing, then we too must believe. For we are Israelites, not through signs, but through hearing, being obedient. For this reason, "Rejoice, you barren one who does not bear; break forth and cry aloud," it says, "you who are not in labor; for many are the children of the desolate woman, more than of her who has the husband. You have come to live within the enclosure of the people; your children have been blessed within the tents of the fathers." And if the same dwelling places are announced by prophecy both to us and to the patriarchs, God is shown to be one for both covenants.
At any rate it goes on more clearly: "You have inherited the covenant of Israel," speaking of the calling from the nations, of her who was once barren of this husband - who is the Word - once desolate before the bridegroom. "But the righteous shall live by faith," the faith in accordance with the covenant and the commandments, since these two, though differing in name and time, given dispensationally according to age and advancement, being one in power - the one old, the other new - are supplied through the Son by the one God. To which the apostle also refers in his letter to the Romans, saying: "For the righteousness of God is revealed in it from faith to faith," teaching that the single salvation, carried forward from prophecy to its fulfillment in the gospel, comes through one identical Lord. "This instruction," he said, "I commit to you, my child Timothy, following the prophecies once spoken over you, that armed with them you may fight the noble fight, keeping hold of faith and a clear conscience - which some have thrown aside and so wrecked their faith," because they had fouled with unbelief the conscience that came from God.
It is therefore no longer reasonable to disparage faith as something facile and common and belonging, moreover, to whoever happens along. For if the practice were merely human, as the Greeks supposed, it would long ago have died out; but it grows, and there is no place where it is not. I say, then, that faith - whether it was founded upon love or upon fear, as its accusers claim - is something divine, torn apart neither by any other worldly attachment, nor dissolved by present fear. For love makes the faithful through their affection toward faith, while faith is the foundation of love, bringing in return good deeds - just as the law's tutor, fear, comes from those things by which one believes. And fear too is believed to exist. For if being is shown in acting - but that which is future and merely threatens, and does not act and is not present, is nevertheless believed, then the one believed to exist is not himself the begetter of the faith, insofar as he is tested by it and found worthy of belief.
Divine, then, is so great a change - a man becoming faithful out of unbelief, and coming to believe both through hope and through fear. And indeed faith appears to us as the first inclination toward salvation; after which fear, hope, and repentance, advancing together with self-control and endurance, lead us on to both love and knowledge. Fittingly, then, the apostle Barnabas, from whom he says he received it: "I was eager to send you a portion, little by little, so that together with your faith you might also have complete knowledge." Of our faith, then, the assistants are fear and endurance, and the things that fight along with us are patience and self-control. When these things, then, he says, remain purely toward the Lord, wisdom, understanding, discernment, and knowledge rejoice together with them. Since, then, the aforementioned virtues are elements of knowledge, it turns out that faith is the more elemental thing, being as necessary to the one possessing gnosis as breathing is to living for one who lives in this world; and just as one cannot live without the four elements, so knowledge cannot follow without faith. This, then, is the foundation of truth.
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