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

Translated by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson.

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Chapter IX.--On the Different Kinds of Cause.

Of Causes, some are Procatarctic and some Synectic, some Co-operating, some Causes sine qua non.

Those that afford the occasion of the origin of anything first, are Procatarctic; as beauty is the cause of love to the licentious; for when seen by them, it alone produces the amorous inclinanation, but not necessarily.

Causes are Synectic (which are also univocally perfect of themselves) whenever a cause is capable of producing the effect of itself, independently.

Now all the causes may be shown in order in the case of the learner. The father is the Procatarctic cause of learning, the teacher the Synectic, and the nature of the learner the cooperating cause, and time holds the relation of the Cause sine qua non.

Now that is properly called a cause which is capable of effecting anything actively; since we say that steel is capable of cutting, not merely while cutting, but also while not cutting. Thus, then, the capability of causing (to parektikon) signifies both; both that which is now acting, and that which is not yet acting, but which possesses the power of acting.

Some, then, say that causes are properties of bodies; and others of incorporeal substances; others say that the body is properly speaking cause, and that what is incorporeal is so only catachrestically, and a quasi-cause. Others, again, reverse matters, saying that corporeal substances are properly causes, and bodies are so improperly; as, for example, that cutting, which is an action, is incorporeal, and is the cause of cutting which is an action and incorporeal, and, in the case of bodies, of being cut,--as in the case of the sword and what is cut [by it].

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