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

Translated by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson.

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Page 62

As, then, the minutest particle of steel is moved by the spirit of the Heraclean stone, [3518] when diffused [3519] over many steel rings; so also, attracted by the Holy Spirit, the virtuous are added by affinity to the first abode, and the others in succession down to the last. But those who are bad from infirmity, having fallen from vicious insatiableness into a depraved state, neither controlling nor controlled, rush round and round, whirled about by the passions, and fall down to the ground.

For this was the law from the first, that virtue should be the object of voluntary choice. Wherefore also the commandments, according to the Law, and before the Law, not given to the upright (for the law is not appointed for a righteous man [3520] ), ordained that he should receive eternal life and the blessed prize, who chose them.

But, on the other hand, they allowed him who had been delighted with vice to consort with the objects of his choice; and, on the other hand, that the soul, which is ever improving in the acquisition [3521] of virtue and the increase of righteousness, should obtain a better place in the universe, as tending in each step of advancement towards the habit of impassibility, till "it come to a perfect man," [3522] to the excellence at once of knowledge and of inheritance.

[3518] The magnet. [So called from the Lydian Magnesia.]

[3519] Lowth here reads ekteinomeno, agreeing with pneumati, instead of ekteinomene, as in the Oxford text.

[3520] 1 Tim. i. 9.

[3521] Instead of epigesin, the corrupt reading of the text, epiktesin (as above), epidosin, and ep' exegesin have been proposed.

[3522] Eph. iv. 13.

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