Fragment  A

THE DIVINE WORD PRESENT IN THE INFANT

Text excerpted: Hippolytus of Rome, Against Heresies 6.42.2

FOR Valentinus says he saw a newborn babe, and questioned it to find out who it was. And the babe answered him saying that it was the Word.

Thereupon, he adds to this a certain pompous tale, intending to derive from this his attempt at a sect.
note: The interpretation of motive is the polemists.

Fragment  C

ADAM`S FACULTY OF SPEECH

Text excerpted: St.Clement of Alexandria, Miscellanies, 2.36.2-4

AND EVEN as awe overcame the angels in the presence of that modeled form because it uttered sounds superior to what its modeling justified, owing to the agent who had invisibly deposited in it a seed of higher essence and who spoke freely: so too in the races of the worldly people, human artifacts become objects of awe for their creators - for example, statues and paintings and everything that (human) hands make as representing a god.

For Adam, modeled as representing a human being, made them stand in awe of the preexistent human being ; for precisely the latter stood in him. And they were stricken with terror and quickly concealed the work.

Fragment  D

ADAM`S NAME

Text excerpted: St.Clement of Alexandria, Miscellanies, 4.89.6-4.90.1

HOWEVER much a portrait is inferior to an actual face, just so is the world worse than the living realm. Now, what is the cause of the (effectiveness of the) portrait? It is the majesty of the face that has furnished to the painter a prototype so that the portrait might be honored by his name.

For the form was not reproduced with perfect fidelity, yet the name completed the lack within the act of modeling. And also god`s invisible cooperates with what has been modeled to lend it credence.

Fragment  E

JESUS` DIGESTIVE SYSTEM

Text excerpted: St.Clement of Alexandria, Miscellanies, 3.59.3

HE WAS continent, enduring all things. Jesus digested divinity; he ate and drank in a special way, without excreting his solids. He had such a great capacity for continence that the nourishment within him was not corrupted, for he did not experience corruption.

Fragment  F

ANNIHILATION OF THE REALM OF DEATH

Text excerpted: St.Clement of Alexandria, Miscellanies, 4.89.1-3

FROM  the beginning you (plur.) have been immortal, and you are children from eternal life. And you wanted death to be allocated to yourselves so that you might spend it and use it up, and that death might die in you and through you. For when you nullify the world and are not yourselves annihilated, you are lord over creation and all corruption.

Now, like Basilides, he supposes that there is a people that by its (very) nature is saved; that this race, indeed, has come down to us for the destruction of death; and that the origination of death is the work of the creator of this world. Accordingly, he understands the scriptural passage (Exodus 33:20) "No one shall see the face of god and live" as though god were the cause of death.

note: the cursive section is St.Clement of Alexandria`s response to the above pre-eucharistic text.

Fragment  G

THE SOURCE OF COMMON WISDOM

Text excerpted: St.Clement of Alexandria, Miscellanies, 6.52.3 - 4

MANY of the things written in publicly available books are found in the writings of god`s church. For this shared matter is the utterances that come from the heart, the law that is written in the heart. This is the people of the beloved, which is beloved and which loves him.

Fragment  H

THE VISION OF GOD

from the "Epistle on Attachments"

Text excerpted: St.Clement of Alexandria, Miscellanies, 2.114.3 - 6

AND ONE there is who is good! His free act of speaking is the manifestation of the son. And through him alone can a heart become pure, when every evil spirit has been put out of the heart. For the many spirits dwelling in the heart do not permit to become pure ; rather, each of them performs its own acts, violating it in various ways with improper desires. And in my opinion the heart experiences something like what happens in a caravansary. For the latter is full of holes and dug up and often filled with dung, because while they are here, people live in an vulgar way and take no forethought for the property since it belongs to someone else. Just so, a heart too is impure by being the habitation of many demons, until it experiences forethought. But when the father, who alone is good, visits the heart, he makes it holy and fills it with light. And so a person who has such a heart is called blessed, for that person will see god.
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