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Translated by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson.
Clement of Alexandria in Print
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128 Pages
Page 32
But it is my purpose, as I reckon, and not without reason, to live according to the Word, and to understand what is revealed; [1906] but never affecting eloquence, to be content merely with indicating my meaning. And by what term that which I wish to present is shown, I care not. For I well know that to be saved, and to aid those who desire to be saved, is the best thing, and not to compose paltry sentences like gewgaws. "And if," says the Pythagorean in the Politicus of Plato, "you guard against solicitude about terms, you will be richer in wisdom against old age." [1907] And in the Theoetetus you will find again, "And carelessness about names, and expressions, and the want of nice scrutiny, is not vulgar and illiberal for the most part, but rather the reverse of this, and is sometimes necessary." [1908] This the Scripture [1909] has expressed with the greatest possible brevity, when it said, "Be not occupied much about words." For expression is like the dress on the body. The matter is the flesh and sinews. We must not therefore care more for the dress than the safety of the body. For not only a simple mode of life, but also a style of speech devoid of superfluity and nicety, must be cultivated by him who has adopted the true life, if we are to abandon luxury as treacherous and profligate, as the ancient Lacedaemonians adjured ointment and purple, deeming and calling them rightly treacherous garments and treacherous unguents; since neither is that mode of preparing food right where there is more of seasoning than of nutriment; nor is that style of speech elegant which can please rather than benefit the hearers. Pythagoras exhorts us to consider the Muses more pleasant than the Sirens, teaching us to cultivate wisdom apart from pleasure, and exposing the other mode of attracting the soul as deceptive. For sailing past the Sirens one man has sufficient strength, and for answering the Sphinx another one, or, if you please, not even one. We ought never, then, out of desire for vainglory, to make broad the phylacteries. It suffices the gnostic [1911] if only one hearer is found for him. [1912] You may hear therefore Pindar the Boeotian, [1913] who writes, "Divulge not before all the ancient speech. The way of silence is sometimes the surest. And the mightiest word is a spur to the fight." Accordingly, the blessed apostle very appropriately and urgently exhorts us "not to strive about words to no profit, but to the subverting of the hearers, but to shun profane and vain babblings, for they increase unto more ungodliness, and their word will eat as doth a canker." [1914]
[1906] [Revelation is complete, and nothing new to be expected. Gal. i. 8, 9.]
[1907] Plato's Politicus, p. 261 E.
[1908] Plato's Theaetetus, p. 184 C.
[1909] [2 Tim. ii. 14.]
[1911] The possessor of true divine knowledge
[1912]
"[Fit audience find though few." Paradise Lost, book. vii. 31. Dante has the same thought. Pindar's phonanta sunetoisn, Olymp., ii. 35.]
[1913] [Here I am sorry I cannot supply the proper reference.]
[1914] 2 Tim. ii. 14, 16, 17.
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