The Stromata, or Miscellanies

Benevolence is the wishing of good things to another for his sake. For He needs nothing; and the beneficence and benignity which flow from the Lord terminate in us, being divine benevolence, and benevolence resulting in beneficence. And if to Abraham on his believing it was counted for righteousness; and if we are the seed of Abraham, then we must also believe through hearing. For we are Israelites, who are convinced not by signs, but by hearing. Wherefore it is said, “Rejoice, O barren, that barest not; break forth and cry, you that did not travail with child: for more are the children of the desolate than of her who has an husband.” “You have lived for the fence of the people, your children were blessed in the tents of their fathers.” And if the same mansions are promised by prophecy to us and to the patriarchs, the God of both the covenants is shown to be one.

Accordingly it is added more clearly, “You have inherited the covenant of Israel,” speaking to those called from among the nations, that were once barren, being formerly destitute of this husband, who is the Word,— desolate formerly—of the bridegroom. “Now the just shall live by faith,” which is according to the covenant and the commandments; since these, which are two in name and time, given in accordance with the [divine] economy— being in power one— the old and the new, are dispensed through the Son by one God.

As the apostle also says in the Epistle to the Romans, “For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith,” teaching the one salvation which from prophecy to the Gospel is perfected by one and the same Lord. “This charge,” he says, “I commit to you, son Timothy, according to the prophecies which went before on you, that you by them might war the good warfare; holding faith, and a good conscience; which some having put away concerning faith have made shipwreck,” because they defiled by unbelief the conscience that comes from God.

Accordingly, faith may not, any more, with reason, be disparaged in an offhand way, as simple and vulgar, appertaining to anybody. For, if it were a mere human habit, as the Greeks supposed, it would have been extinguished. But if it grow, and there be no place where it is not; then I affirm, that faith, whether founded in love, or in fear, as its disparagers assert, is something divine; which is neither rent asunder by other mundane friendship, nor dissolved by the presence of fear.

For love, on account of its friendly alliance with faith, makes men believers; and faith, which is the foundation of love, in its turn introduces the doing of good; since also fear, the pædagogue of the law, is believed to be fear by those, by whom it is believed. For, if its existence is shown in its working, it is yet believed when about to do and threatening, and when not working and present; and being believed to exist, it does not itself generate faith, but is by faith tested and proved trustworthy.

Such a change, then, from unbelief to faith— and to trust in hope and fear, is divine. And, in truth, faith is discovered, by us, to be the first movement towards salvation; after which fear, and hope, and repentance, advancing in company with temperance and patience, lead us to love and knowledge. Rightly, therefore, the Apostle Barnabas says, “From the portion I have received I have done my diligence to send little by little to you; that along with your faith you may also have perfect knowledge. Fear and patience are then helpers of your faith; and our allies are long-suffering and temperance.

These, then,” he says, “in what respects the Lord, continuing in purity, there rejoice along with them, wisdom, understanding, intelligence, knowledge.” The fore-mentioned virtues being, then, the elements of knowledge; the result is that faith is more elementary, being as necessary to the Gnostic, as respiration to him that lives in this world is to life. And as without the four elements it is not possible to live, so neither can knowledge be attained without faith. It is then the support of truth.