Clement of Alexandria: STROMATA (MISCELLANIES), Part III, Complete

Translated by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson.

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To inquire, then, respecting God, if it tend not to strife, but to discovery, is salutary. For it is written in David, "The poor eat, and shall be filled; and they shall praise the Lord that seek Him. Your heart shall live for ever." [2971] For they who seek Him after the true search, praising the Lord, shall be filled with the gift that comes from God, that is, knowledge. And their soul shall live; for the soul is figuratively termed the heart, which ministers life: for by the Son is the Father known.

We ought not to surrender our ears to all who speak and write rashly. For cups also, which are taken hold of by many by the ears, are dirtied, and lose the ears; and besides, when they fall they are broken. In the same way also, those, who have polluted the pure hearing of faith by many trifles, at last becoming deaf to the truth, become useless and fall to the earth. It is not, then, without reason that we commanded boys to kiss their relations, holding them by the ears; indicating this, that the feeling of love is engendered by hearing. And "God," who is known to those who love, "is love," [2972] as "God," who by instruction is communicated to the faithful, "is faithful;" [2973] and we must be allied to Him by divine love: so that by like we may see like, hearing the word of truth guilelessly and purely, as children who obey us. And this was what he, whoever he was, indicated who wrote on the entrance to the temple at Epidaurus the inscription:--

"Pure he must be who goes within

The incense-perfumed fane."

And purity is "to think holy thoughts." "Except ye become as these little children, ye shall not enter," it is said, "into the kingdom of heaven." [2974] For there the temple of God is seen established on three foundations--faith, hope, and love.

[2971] Ps. xxii. 26.

[2972] 1 John iv. 16.

[2973] 1 Cor. i. 9, x. 13.

[2974] Matt. xviii. 3.

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