Clement of Alexandria · a new plain-English translation from the original language
Yes indeed, in the letter to the Corinthians the apostle Clement, he too, sketching for us a kind of type of the Gnostic, says: "For which visitor ever stayed among your people without putting your all-virtuous and steadfast faith to the test? Who did not marvel at your sober and reasonable piety in Christ? Who did not proclaim the magnificent character of your hospitality? Who did not bless your perfect and secure knowledge? For you did everything free of favoritism, following God's own statutes as your rule," and so on. Then more plainly: "Let us therefore fix our gaze on those who have perfectly ministered to his surpassing splendor. Consider Enoch: found righteous through obedience, he was carried off out of this life; consider Noah, who trusted and so was rescued; consider Abraham, named friend of God for his faith and his welcome of strangers, and called father of Isaac besides. On account of welcome given to strangers and reverence, Lot escaped Sodom unharmed; on account of faith and the welcome she gave strangers, Rahab the harlot was kept safe; on account of endurance joined with faith, wrapped in goatskins and sheepskins and woven camel's hair, they wandered about heralding the kingdom of Christ" — he means Elijah and Elisha, and Ezekiel and John, the prophets.
For the friend of God, Abraham, called on account of a free faith, was not puffed up by his glory, but said with moderate feeling: "I am earth and ashes." And concerning Job it is written thus: "Now Job was righteous and blameless, true and godly, abstaining from every evil." This man, who conquered the tempter through endurance and both bore witness and was borne witness to by God, clings to lowliness of mind and says: "No one is clean from defilement, not even if his life is but a single day." Moses, the faithful servant in all his house, said to the one addressing him from the bush: "Who am I, that you send me? I am feeble of speech and slow of tongue," to minister the voice of the Lord through a human tongue. And again: "I am a vapor from a pot." For God sets himself against the proud, but gives grace to the humble.
Yes, and David too, of whom the Lord, bearing witness, declares: "I have discovered a man suited to my own heart, David, Jesse's son; with sacred oil have I anointed him." Yet he himself says to God: "Show me mercy, O God, in keeping with your abundant mercy, and by your many compassions wipe away my offense. Scrub me still further clean of my lawlessness, and purify me from my failing; for my lawlessness stands known to me, and my failing confronts me continually." Then, hinting at the sin that falls outside the law, moderating his feeling in a Gnostic manner, he adds: "It is against you alone that I have failed, doing what is displeasing in your sight." For scripture says somewhere: "The Lord's breath is a torch that searches out the innermost recesses of the belly," and the more one who practices righteousness becomes possessed of knowledge, the more closely does that luminous breath attend to him. So it is that the Lord comes close to the just, and not one of the schemes and calculations we devise slips past him — I mean the Lord Jesus, who by the almighty will is overseer of our heart, whose blood was consecrated on our behalf.
Let us therefore respect those who lead us and hold them in reverence; let us honor our elders, let us guide the young into training under God. For blessed is he who teaches and carries out the Lord's business as it deserves; that belongs to a mind of magnanimity and to one that contemplates the truth. Let us correct our women toward what is good; let them display, it says, the lovable character of chastity; let them show forth the pure resolve of their gentleness; let them make manifest through their silence the reasonableness of their tongue; let them extend their love not according to partial preferences, but equally and piously toward all who stand in reverence of God. Let our little ones have a portion in the discipline that belongs to Christ; let them learn what power lowliness of mind has with God, what pure love can accomplish with God, how good and great a thing reverence for the Lord is, saving all who conduct themselves in it piously with a pure heart. For he examines every thought and hidden calculation, he whose breath is within us, and whenever he wishes, he withdraws it.
All these things the faith that is in Christ confirms. "Come, children," says the Lord, "listen to me, and I shall instruct you in reverence toward the Lord. Who among you desires life, and longs for good days?" Then he adds a Gnostic mystery of the week and the eighth day: "Hold your tongue back from evil and your lips from uttering deceit; step away from wrong and pursue what is good, chase after peace and run it down." For through these words he hints at knowledge, teaching that one is perfected both by abstaining from evils and by the exercise of good deeds, both in deed and in word. "The Lord's eyes rest on the just, and his attention is turned toward their plea; yet the Lord sets his face against those who commit evil, wiping out all memory of them from the earth."
"The just man called out, and the Lord listened, and rescued him from every one of his troubles." "Numerous are the sinner's blows, but mercy shall wrap around those who set their hope on the Lord." He says that the one who hopes genuinely is encompassed by an abundance of mercy; for it is written in the letter to the Corinthians: "Through Jesus Christ our dull and shadowed understanding puts forth new growth into the light. Through him the Master willed that we should taste of immortal knowledge." And displaying more explicitly the distinguishing mark of knowledge, he adds: "Since, then, these matters lie plain before us already, and we have bent down into that deep well of divine understanding, it is our duty to carry out everything methodically, whatever the Master has directed us to accomplish, each at its proper season. As for the one who is wise, let him give proof of it not merely through speech, but through good deeds; let the lowly-minded refrain from testifying about himself, and instead let another give that testimony on his behalf; let the one pure in flesh not boast of it, aware that self-control was supplied to him by someone other than himself. Consider, brothers, that the greater the knowledge we have been counted worthy to receive, the greater also is the danger to which we are exposed."
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