Clement of Alexandria · a new plain-English translation from the original language
Here the followers of Basilides, expounding this saying, say that the Archon, when he heard the utterance of the ministering spirit, was struck with astonishment both at what he heard and at what he saw, having been given glad tidings beyond his hopes, and that his astonishment was called "fear," becoming the beginning of a wisdom that discriminates by kind, and distinguishes, and perfects, and restores; for it is not only the world but also the Election that he who is set over all things, having distinguished it, sends forward. And Valentinus too, in a certain letter, appears to have had some such notion in mind when he wrote, in these very words: "And just as fear came upon that molded figure on the part of the angels, when it uttered things greater than its molding, on account of him who had invisibly deposited in it a seed of the substance from above and who was speaking with boldness; so too among the generations of worldly men the works of men became objects of fear to their makers — statues, for instance, and images, and everything that hands produce in the name of a god. For Adam, having been molded in the name of Man, produced fear because of the pre-existing Man, as though that Man were himself established within him; and they were terror-struck and quickly made the work disappear."
But since there is one single first principle, as will be shown later, these men will be shown to be fashioning mere trills and warblings. Now since it was deemed advantageous by God that men should be schooled beforehand through the Law and the Prophets by means of the Lord, it is said that "reverence toward the Lord forms the starting point of wisdom," a saying given by the Lord through Moses to people who are stubborn and unyielding in spirit; for those whom argument fails to persuade, dread subdues. And this the Word who trains us, foreseeing from above, fitted as an instrument suited to each of the two dispositions, purifying appropriately unto the reverent fear of God. Now consternation is a fear arising from an unaccustomed appearance, or from an unexpected apparition, † inasmuch as it is also of a message brought. But fear proper is felt toward something that has come to be, or that exists, or is an excessive wonder. They fail to notice, then, that by means of consternation they have made subject to passion the very greatest God, the one hymned by them, and represent him as having existed in ignorance before the consternation. If, then, ignorance preceded the consternation, and the consternation and the fear became the beginning of wisdom — the fear of God — then it is in danger of following that ignorance was the causal starting point not only of the wisdom of God and of the whole making of the world, but also of the very restoration of the Election itself.
Is the ignorance, then, of good things or of base things? But if of good things, why does it cease at consternation? And then the minister and the preaching and the baptism become superfluous for them. But if of base things, how is evil the cause of the noblest things? For if ignorance had not preexisted, the attending spirit would never have descended, nor would the Ruler have been seized with consternation, as they themselves say, nor would he have derived from fear a beginning of wisdom for the discrimination of the Election and of worldly things. But if the fear of the preexisting Man made the angels plot against their own molded work, on the ground that the invisible seed of the substance from above was implanted in the created thing, then either they were jealously provoked by an empty supposition — which is implausible, namely that angels should become the sole authors, so to speak, of a creation entrusted to them, as if it were some child of their own, having been convicted of utter ignorance; or else they were moved while held fast by foreknowledge — but then they would not have plotted against that through which they undertook the very thing they had foreknown, nor would dread of their own handiwork have overtaken them, once they grasped through foreknowledge the seed sent from above; or, finally, they dared the deed relying on knowledge — but this too is impossible, since, having learned the surpassing excellence present in Man within the Fullness, and moreover the fact of the image, in which they had received both the archetype and, along with the rest of the knowledge, its incorruptibility, they would not plot against it.
To these men, then, and to certain others, and above all to the followers of Marcion, Scripture cries out, though they do not hear: "Whoever gives ear to me will dwell secure, resting untroubled, undisturbed by dread of any harm." What, then, do they wish to say of the Law? It is not evil they will name it, but righteous — thereby splitting apart the good from the righteous. Now the Lord, in commanding us to fear evil, does not remove evil by evil, but destroys the contrary by its contrary. And evil is contrary to good, as the just is to the unjust. If, then, he has called the abstention from evils "fearlessness," which the fear of the Lord produces, then fear is good, and the fear that comes from the Law is not only just but also good, since it does away with vice; and by introducing fearlessness through fear, it produces not freedom from passion by means of passion, but moderation of passion by means of discipline. When, therefore, we hear: "Honor the Lord, and you shall be strong, but besides him fear no other," we understand "to fear" as meaning "to sin," and "to follow the commandments given by God" as being the honoring of God.
Now dread is fear of the divine. But even if fear is a passion, as some wish to maintain, on the ground that fear is a passion, not every fear is a passion. Superstition, at any rate, is a passion, being a fear of demons that is both excessive and passionate; but conversely, the fear of the God who is free from passion is itself free from passion. For one does not fear God himself, but rather the falling away from God; and he who dreads this — falling into evils — fears and dreads the evils; and he who dreads this fall wishes to be incorruptible and free from passion himself. "The wise man, being afraid, turned away from evil, but the fool mingles with it in overconfidence," says Scripture; and again, in the fear of the Lord, it says, "there is hope of strength."
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