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Translated by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson.
Clement of Alexandria in Print
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128 Pages
Page 31
Chapter X.--To Act Well of Greater Consequence Than to Speak Well.
Wherefore the Saviour, taking the bread, first spake and blessed. Then breaking the bread, [1897] He presented it, that we might eat it, according to reason, and that knowing the Scriptures we might walk obediently. And as those whose speech is evil are no better than those whose practice is evil (for calumny is the servant of the sword, and evil-speaking inflicts pain; and from these proceed disasters in life, such being the effects of evil speech); so also those who are given to good speech are near neighbours to those who accomplish good deeds. Accordingly discourse refreshes the soul and entices it to nobleness; and happy is he who has the use of both his hands. Neither, therefore, is he who can act well to be vilified by him who is able to speak well; nor is he who is able to speak well to be disparaged by him who is capable of acting well. But let each do that for which he is naturally fitted. What the one exhibits as actually done, the other speaks, preparing, as it were, the way for well-doing, and leading the hearers to the practice of good. For there is a saving word, as there is a saving work. Righteousness, accordingly, [1899] is not constituted without discourse. And as the receiving of good is abolished if we abolish the doing of good; so obedience and faith are abolished when neither the command, nor one to expound the command, is taken along with us. [1900] But now we are benefited mutually and reciprocally by words and deeds; but we must repudiate entirely the art of wrangling and sophistry, since these sentences of the sophists not only bewitch and beguile the many, but sometimes by violence win a Cadmean victory. [1901] For true above all is that Psalm, "The just shall live to the end, for he shall not see corruption, when he beholds the wise dying." [1902] And whom does he call wise? Hear from the Wisdom of Jesus: "Wisdom is not the knowledge of evil." [1903] Such he calls what the arts of speaking and of discussing have invented. "Thou shalt therefore seek wisdom among the wicked, and shalt not find it." [1904] And if you inquire again of what sort this is, you are told, "The mouth of the righteous man will distil wisdom." [1905] And similarly with truth, the art of sophistry is called wisdom.
[1897] ["Eat it according to reason." Spiritual food does not stultify reason, nor conflict with the evidence of the senses.]
[1899] [Matt. xii. 37.]
[1900] [Acts viii. 30.]
[1901] A victory disastrous to the victor and the vanquished.
[1902] Ps. xlviii. 10, 11, Sept.
[1903] Ecclus. xix. 22.
[1904] Prov. xiv. 6.
[1905] Prov. x. 31.
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