Clement of Alexandria · a new plain-English translation from the original language
So that we may not spend excessive time paring down this topic by recalling more and more of the absurd heresies, nor be compelled, in going through each of them one by one against each, to feel ashamed on their account and to draw out our notes to an inordinate length, come, let us divide all the heresies into two classes and make our reply to them accordingly. For either they teach that one should live indifferently, or, singing an overstrained continence, they proclaim it through impiety and contentiousness. First we must deal with the former division. If it is permitted to choose any manner of life, clearly one may also choose the life of continence; and if every life is free of danger for the elect, clearly the life joined with virtue and self-control is far more free of danger. For since authority was given to the Lord of the sabbath, so that even if he had lived licentiously he would have been blameless, much more will the one who has conducted himself in an orderly manner be free of blame; for "all things are lawful, but not all things are expedient," says the apostle. And if indeed all things are lawful, clearly to be self-controlled is lawful too.
Just as the one who employs his authority to live according to virtue is praiseworthy, so much more is he who has given us authority that is free and sovereign, and has permitted us to live as we wish, worthy of reverence and worship, in that he has not left us enslaved by necessity to particular choices and avoidances. But if each of the two possesses freedom from fear alike — the one who chooses incontinence and the one who chooses continence — still the dignity is not the same. For the one who runs aground on pleasures gratifies the body, while the self-controlled man frees his soul, which rules the body, from the passions. And even if they say we have been called to freedom, let us only take care not to make that freedom an opportunity for the flesh, according to the apostle. But if one must gratify desire and must consider a life of reproach a matter of indifference, as they themselves say, then either one must obey all desires without exception — and if so, one must do the most licentious and unholy things of every kind, following those who persuade us to it — or else we shall turn aside from some of our desires, and no longer is life to be lived indifferently, nor are we to be enslaved without restraint to the most dishonorable parts of us, the belly and the genitals, which through desire flatter our corpse. For desire, when ministered to for enjoyment, is nourished and kept alive, just as, cut off like a shoot, it withers away.
How is it possible for one who has been overcome by the pleasures of the body to be made like the Lord, or to have knowledge of God? For desire is the origin of every pleasure, and desire is a kind of pain and anxious craving reaching out after something through lack of it. So that those who have chosen this manner of life seem to me to be doing nothing other than what is proverbially said, suffering things fit only for shame, choosing for themselves an evil that clings to them now and hereafter. Now if all things were permitted and there were no fear of failing of one's hope on account of wicked deeds, perhaps there would be some excuse for them to live badly and pitiably; but since a blessed life has been shown to us through the commandments, which all must hold fast to, neither disregarding any of the things spoken nor making light of what is fitting, even in the smallest degree, but following wherever reason leads — and if we should fail in this, we must of necessity fall into undying evil — then, for those who follow the divine scripture, by which the faithful make their way, so as to be made like the Lord according to their power, life is not to be lived indifferently, but one must keep oneself pure, so far as possible, from pleasures, and take care over one's desires, and attend to the soul, which must be devoted to God alone. For the mind, being pure and rid of all vice, becomes in some way receptive of the power of God, the divine image being raised up within it; and everyone who has this hope in the Lord, it says, purifies himself just as that one is pure.
But it is impossible for those still led by the passions to attain knowledge of God; therefore neither can those who have acquired no knowledge of God attain the hope either. And the ignorance of God seems to stand accused in the one who fails of this end, while a manner of life reveals that one does not know God. For it is altogether impossible for a person to be at once possessed of knowledge and yet not be ashamed of pandering to the body; nor can it ever be made to agree that pleasure is a good, with the truth that only the beautiful is good, or that only the Lord is beautiful and only God is good and only he is to be loved. "But in Christ you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the putting off of the body of the flesh, in the circumcision of Christ. If then you were raised together with Christ, seek the things above, mind the things above, not the things upon the earth. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God" — not the fornication which they practice. "So put to death whatever in you belongs to the earth below: sexual immorality, impurity, base passion, evil desire, the very things bringing on divine wrath." Let them therefore also put away wrath, anger, malice, blasphemy, foul talk out of their mouth, having put off the old man together with his desires, and having put on the new man, who is being renewed unto full knowledge according to the image of him who created him.
For the manner of one's life plainly convicts those who have come to know the commandments, since as is the word, so is the life; and the tree is known from its fruits, not from its flowers and leaves. Knowledge, then, comes from the fruit and from the manner of life, not from the word and the flower; for we say that knowledge is not bare speech, but a certain divine science, and that light which comes to be in the soul out of obedience to the commandments, which makes all things manifest, both the things in the created world, and prepares a man to know himself, and teaches him to become a possessor of God. For what the eye is in the body, that is knowledge in the mind. Let them not call freedom the slavery that comes from pleasure, as though calling bile sweet; for we have learned that freedom which the Lord alone sets us free with, releasing us from pleasures and desires and the other passions. "He who says, I have known the Lord, and does not keep his commandments, is a liar, and in him the truth is not" — so says John.
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