Clement of Alexandria · a new plain-English translation from the original language
Yes indeed, the philosopher Plato holds that our final aim divides into two: one is participated-in and primary, subsisting among the very Forms, and this he names "the good"; the other shares in that primary good and takes on a resemblance from it, and this arises in human beings who claim virtue and genuine philosophy for themselves. That is why Cleanthes too, in the second book of his On Pleasure, says that Socrates taught on every occasion that the same man is both just and happy, and cursed the first man to separate the just from the advantageous as having done an impious thing; for truly impious are those who separate the advantageous from the just that accords with law. Plato himself says that happiness (eudaimonia) is having one's daimon well, and that the "daimon" is what is called the ruling part of our soul, and he says that happiness is the most perfect and most complete good. At times he calls it a life that is in agreement and harmony with itself, and at times the most perfect thing according to virtue, and this he situates in coming to know the good, together with growing like unto God, declaring likeness to consist in becoming just and holy together with prudence. Is this not, indeed, how some among our own people also grasp it: that man received the "according to the image" at once, at the moment he was formed, yet is meant to receive the "according to the likeness" afterward, when he reaches perfection?
Straightaway Plato, teaching that this likeness will come to the virtuous man together with lowliness of mind, is interpreting, somewhere, that saying: "Everyone who humbles himself shall be exalted." At any rate he says in the Laws: "God, as also the ancient account has it, holding the beginning and middle and end of all things, accomplishes his straight course, journeying around according to nature; and justice always follows close upon him, the avenger of those who fall short of the divine law." Do you see how he too attaches reverent caution to the divine law? He goes on, at any rate: "whoever is going to be happy follows closely attached to her, humble and well-ordered." Then, adding to these words what comes next, and offering a warning grounded in fear, he continues: "Well then, what manner of behavior pleases God and keeps close beside him? One conduct, and it has a single ancient formula: that like is dear to like, when it is measured, but unmeasured things are dear neither to one another nor to the measured. So the man who is to become dear to God must, as far as possible, become such a one himself."
And according to this same reasoning, the self-controlled man among us is dear to God, for he is like him, while the man without self-control is unlike and at variance with him. In calling this doctrine ancient, he was darkly hinting at the teaching that has come to him from the Law. And in the Theaetetus, having granted that evils necessarily haunt mortal nature and this region here, he adds: "Wherefore one must try to flee from here to there as quickly as possible; and the flight is likeness to God so far as is possible; and the likeness is to become just and holy together with prudence." And Speusippus, Plato's nephew, says that happiness is a perfect condition among those who are in a natural state, or a possession of good things, a settled state that all men desire, though the good aim at freedom from disturbance; and the virtues would be what produce happiness. And Xenocrates of Chalcedon assigns happiness as the possession of one's own virtue and of the power that serves it. Then, as that in which it comes to be, he plainly means the soul; as that by which, the virtues; as that out of which, as parts, noble actions and worthy states, dispositions, movements and relations; and as that without which it cannot occur, bodily and external goods. For Xenocrates' acquaintance Polemon evidently holds that happiness is self-sufficiency in all good things, or in the most and greatest of them. He teaches, at any rate, that happiness could never exist apart from virtue, but that virtue, even apart from bodily and external goods, is self-sufficient for happiness.
So let these matters stand as they are; the objections to the opinions stated will be set out in due course. But it lies before us ourselves to arrive at an end without end, by obeying the commandments — that is, God — and by having lived according to them blamelessly and with understanding, coming to know what God wills; and growing like unto right reason, insofar as that lies within our reach, is the goal, and the restoration into perfect adoption as sons is accomplished through the Son, who ever glorifies the Father, through the great high priest who has deemed us worthy to be called brothers and fellow heirs. And the apostle, briefly sketching the end in his letter to the Romans, says: "But now, having been set free from sin and enslaved to God, you have your fruit unto sanctification, and the end, eternal life." And knowing that hope is twofold, the one still expected and the other already received, he there teaches that the end is the restoration of that hope; "for endurance," he says, "produces proof, and proof, hope; and hope does not put to shame, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit that was given to us." It is on account of this love that the restoration into hope also comes, which elsewhere he calls the rest that is laid up for us.
You would find similar things in Ezekiel as well, running thus: "The soul that sins, it shall die. And the man who becomes righteous and does judgment and righteousness, who has not eaten upon the mountains, and has not raised his gaze toward the idols belonging to Israel's household, and has not defiled his neighbor's wife, and has not approached a woman during the separation of her uncleanness (for he does not wish that the seed of man be treated with outrage), and shall not wrong a man, he says, shall restore the debtor's pledge, shall not commit robbery, shall give his bread to the hungry and cover the naked, shall not give his silver at interest and shall not take increase, shall turn his hand away from injustice, shall execute a true judgment between a man and his neighbor, shall walk in my statutes and has kept my ordinances so as to do truth — such a one is righteous and will live without fail, declares the Lord Adonai." And Isaiah, urging the believer toward a dignified life and the gnostic toward watchfulness, and showing that human virtue is not identical with God's, puts it this way: "Search for the Lord, and once you have found him, call on him; and when he draws near to you, let the ungodly forsake his ways, and the lawless man his ways, and let him turn back to the Lord, and he shall be shown mercy,"
"even your thoughts from my thought." We, then, according to the noble apostle, from faith await the hope of righteousness. "For in Christ neither circumcision avails anything, nor uncircumcision, but faith working through love." "And we desire that each of you show the same diligence toward the full assurance of hope," until, "after the order of Melchizedek," he has become "a high priest forever." Wisdom, that model of every virtue, voices something akin to Paul: "But whoever heeds me will settle down confident, secure in expectation"; for that recovered expectation goes, under this same term, by the name "hope" once more; and this is why, to the phrase "will settle down," she so fittingly attached "confident," showing that such a person has found repose, having regained the very expectation he had been hoping for; wherefore she adds also: "and he shall be at rest, unafraid of any evil." And directly the apostle, in his first letter to the Corinthians, says expressly: "Become imitators of me, as I also am of Christ," so that this might come about: "If you are mine, and I am Christ's, then you too become imitators of Christ, and Christ of God." He therefore lays down as the aim of faith assimilation to God, so far as it was possible to become just and holy together with prudence, and as the end, the restoration, upon faith, of the promise. From these points, then, arise the wellsprings drawn on by the thinkers who have laid down formal doctrines about the final aim, whom we already noted above. But let this suffice on these matters.
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