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

Translated by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson.

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Page 32

I am aware that Plato assents to Heraclitus, who writes: "The one thing that is wise alone will not be expressed, and means the name of Zeus." And again, "Law is to obey the will of one." And if you wish to adduce that saying, "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear," you will find it expressed by the Ephesian [3137] to the following effect: "Those that hear without understanding are like the deaf. The proverb witnesses against them, that when present they are absent."

But do you want to hear from the Greeks expressly of one first principle? Timaeus the Locrian, in the work on Nature, shall testify in the following words: "There is one first principle of all things unoriginated. For were it originated, it would be no longer the first principle; but the first principle would be that from which it originated." For this true opinion was derived from what follows: "Hear," it is said, "O Israel; the Lord thy God is one, and Him only shalt thou serve." [3138]

"Lo [3139] He all sure and all unerring is,"

says the Sibyl.

Homer also manifestly mentions the Father and the Son by a happy hit of divination in the following words:--

"If Outis, [3140] alone as thou art, offers thee violence,

And there is no escaping disease sent by Zeus,--

For the Cyclopes heed not Aegis-bearing Zeus." [3141]

And before him Orpheus said, speaking of the point in hand:--

"Son of great Zeus, Father of Aegis-bearing Zeus."

[3137] Heraclitus

[3138] Deut vi. 4.

[3139] See Exhortation, p. 194, where for "So" read "Lo."

[3140] "Houtis, Noman, Nobody: a fallacious name assumed by Ulysses (with a primary allusion to ms, tis, metis, Odyss., xx. 20), to deceive Polyphemus."--Liddell and Scott. The third line is 274 of same book.

[3141] Odyss., ix. 410.

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