Clement of Alexandria · a new plain-English translation from the original language
Locating the Father and Architect of this cosmos is hard labor, and once one has located him, telling of him to everyone is a sheer impossibility; for no way exists to put him into words, unlike the remaining objects of study, so says Plato, that lover of truth. For he had listened attentively to how Moses the supremely wise, ascending the mountain (for the purpose of sacred contemplation, up to the peak of things grasped by intellect) was of necessity ordered that the entire nation should not climb up alongside him; and when Scripture states, "Moses went into the thick darkness in which God dwelt," this reveals to those capable of grasping it that God is unseen and beyond speech, and that this darkness is in truth the disbelief and lack of knowledge belonging to the many, a darkness set before the brightness of truth so as to obstruct it. Orpheus the theologian likewise, having drawn benefit from this idea, once declared: "He is one, whole unto himself; out of that one all else took its shape" (or, it is also written, "took its growth"), and adds: "no mortal creature looks upon him, yet he looks upon every creature." And still more plainly he continues further along: "Him I cannot glimpse; for a cloud has settled firmly all around him. For upon all mortal beings mortal eyes have been placed, tiny ones, since flesh and bone have taken root over them."
The apostle attests to what has already been said, when he states, "I am acquainted with a man in Christ who was snatched up as far as a third level of heaven," and from there into paradise, "where he caught unspeakable sayings, words a human tongue has no permission to voice" — thereby gesturing toward the unspeakability of God, not appending that prohibition on account of any statute or dread of a command, but signifying by human capacity that the divine cannot be voiced, given that only past a third level of heaven does utterance begin to be granted, fittingly, to those select souls undergoing initiation there into the mysteries. For I too am aware that Plato conceives of numerous heavens (since the many illustrations drawn from non-Greek philosophy are, for now, set aside by Scripture on my part, held back for their fitting moment according to my earlier pledges). Certainly, puzzling in the Timaeus over whether one should posit several worlds beyond this one or merely this single one, he shows no anxiety about terminology, using world and heaven as interchangeable names; and his words go this way: "Have we then spoken correctly of a single heaven, or would it be truer to describe many, indeed countless ones? A single one, at least if it was shaped after its model."
But also, in that letter sent by the Romans to the Corinthians, we find written, "a sea without limit for humankind, and the worlds that lie beyond it." Appropriately, then, the noble apostle cries out once more, "How deep are the riches and the wisdom and the knowledge belonging to God!" And could this not be exactly what the prophet was pointing toward, when he ordered that the unleavened loaves be baked as "concealed ones," indicating that the truly sacred teaching about the Unbegotten and his powers ought to remain concealed as a mystery? Backing this up, the apostle states plainly in his letter to the Corinthians: "Among the mature we speak wisdom, though not a wisdom belonging to this present age, nor to the rulers of this age, who are being brought to nothing; rather we speak God's wisdom, held within a mystery, wisdom kept concealed." And elsewhere he again says: "toward complete recognition of the mystery of God found in Christ, within whom lie stored every treasure of wisdom and understanding, kept out of sight." Our own Savior confirms these very points, saying words to this effect: "To you has been granted the privilege of knowing the mystery belonging to the kingdom of the heavens." And once more the Gospel reports that our Savior delivered his message to the apostles under cover of mystery; since indeed the prophecy about him states, "His lips will open into parables, and he will voice matters concealed since the world's founding." And earlier still, through the parable about the leaven, the Lord clarifies this same concealment; for he says: "The kingdom of the heavens resembles leaven, taken by a woman and buried within three measures of flour, until it had all risen." For either the tripartite soul finds salvation through obedience by means of the spiritual power concealed inside it through faith, or else the potency of the word entrusted to us, being forceful and vigorous, quietly and imperceptibly pulls toward itself anyone who has accepted it and made it his own within, drawing his entire being together into a single whole.
Most wisely, then, has this been written by Solon concerning God: "Of understanding the unseen measure is hardest to conceive, which alone holds the limits of all things." For the divine, as the poet of Acragas says, "is not possible to approach, within reach of our eyes, or to grasp with hands, by which the greatest highway of persuasion falls upon the mind of men." And John the apostle: "God has never at any time been seen by anyone; the uniquely-begotten God, the one residing close to the Father's breast, that one has made him known" — using the term "breast" for what is unseen and beyond speech in God; and some have accordingly called it the "depth," as having encompassed and taken to its bosom all things, being itself unreachable and boundless. Yes indeed, this is the most intractable of all discourses concerning God. For since the origin of every matter is hard to discover, surely the first and most venerable origin of all is hard to point out — that origin which is the cause to all other things both of their coming to be and of their continuing to be once they have come to be. For how could that be expressible which is neither genus nor differentia nor species nor individual nor number, and moreover is not even an accident, nor that to which an accident has happened? Nor indeed could one rightly call it a whole; for "whole" is classed under magnitude, and it is the father of all wholes. Nor again may parts be spoken of it; for the One is indivisible, and for this very reason also infinite — not conceived of as infinite in the sense of the untraversable, but in the sense of the unextended and having no limit — and therefore also without shape and without name.
And if we ever name it, we do not, in calling it properly, call it either "One" or "the Good" or "Mind" or "Being itself" or "Father" or "God" or "Demiurge" or "Lord" — not as bringing forth a name proper to it do we speak, but out of our perplexity we make use of good names, so that the understanding may have something to lean upon, rather than wandering about among other things. For it is not the particular terms taken singly that indicate God, but all of them together, taken as a whole, are indicative of the power of the Almighty; for the things said are expressible either from what belongs to them or from their relation to one another, and none of these can be applied in speaking of God. But neither is he grasped by demonstrative knowledge; for this is built up out of prior and more knowable things, and nothing exists prior to the Unbegotten. It remains, then, by divine grace and by the Word that comes from him alone, to conceive the Unknown — as Luke too, in the Acts of the Apostles, records Paul as saying: "Men of Athens, I perceive that in every respect you are rather given to reverence of the divine. For as I passed through and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar on which was inscribed: 'To an unknown god.' What therefore you worship without knowing it, this I proclaim to you."
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