Clement of Alexandria — Stromata 3
The most of men have a disposition unstable and heedless, like the nature of storms. Want of faith has done many good things, and faith evil things. And Epicharmus says, Don't forget to exercise incredulity; for it is the sinews of the soul . Now, to disbelieve truth brings death, as to believe , life; and again, to believe the lie and to disbelieve the truth hurries to destruction. The same is the case with self-restraint and licentiousness. To restrain one's self from doing good is the work of vice ; but to keep from wrong is the beginning of salvation . So the Sabbath , by abstinence from evils , seems to indicate self-restraint. And what, I ask, is it in which man differs from beasts, and the angels of God , on the other hand, are wiser than he? You made him a little lower than the angels .
For some do not interpret this Scripture of the Lord, although He also bore flesh, but of the perfect man and the gnostic, inferior in comparison with the angels in time, and by reason of the vesture [of the body]. I call then wisdom nothing but science, since life differs not from life. For to live is common to the mortal nature, that is to man , with that to which has been vouchsafed immortality ; as also the faculty of contemplation and of self-restraint, one of the two being more excellent. On this ground Pythagoras seems to me to have said that God alone is wise, since also the apostle writes in the Epistle to the Romans, For the obedience of the faith among all nations, being made known to the only wise God through Jesus Christ ; Romans 16:26-27 and that he himself was a philosopher , on account of his friendship with God .
Accordingly it is said, God talked with Moses as a friend with a friend. Exodus 33:11 That, then, which is true being clear to God , immediately generates truth . And the gnostic loves the truth . Go, it is said, to the ant, you sluggard, and be the disciple of the bee; thus speaks Solomon. Proverbs 6:6, 8 For if there is one function belonging to the peculiar nature of each creature, alike of the ox, and horse, and dog, what shall we say is the peculiar function of man? He is like, it appears to me, the Centaur, a Thessalian figment, compounded of a rational and irrational part, of soul and body.
Well, the body tills the ground, and hastes to it; but the soul is raised to God: trained in the true philosophy , it speeds to its kindred above, turning away from the lusts of the body, and besides these, from toil and fear , although we have shown that patience and fear belong to the good man. For if by the law is the knowledge of sin , Romans 3:20 as those allege who disparage the law, and till the law sin was in the world; Romans 5:13 yet without the law sin was dead, Romans 7:6 we oppose them. For when you take away the cause of fear , sin , you have taken away fear ; and much more, punishment, when you have taken away that which gives rise to lust . For the law is not made for the just man, 1 Timothy 1:9 says the Scripture . Well, then, says Heraclitus, They would not have known the name of Justice if these things had not been.