The Gnostic himself ministers to God, and exhibits to men the scheme of improvement, in the way in which he has been appointed to discipline men for their amendment. For he is alone pious that serves God rightly and unblameably in human affairs. For as that treatment of plants is best through which their fruits are produced and gathered in, through knowledge and skill in husbandry, affording men the benefit accruing from them; so the piety of the Gnostic, taking to itself the fruits of the men who by his means have believed, when not a few attain to knowledge and are saved by it, achieves by his skill the best harvest.
\n— The Stromata VII.I<\/p>\n
And if the presence of a good man, through the respect and reverence which he inspires, always improves him with whom he associates, with much more reason does not he who always holds uninterrupted converse with God by knowledge, life, and thanksgiving, grow at every step superior to himself in all respects\u2014in conduct, in words, in disposition? Such an one is persuaded that God is ever beside him, and does not suppose that He is confined in certain limited places; so that under the idea that at times he is without Him, he may indulge in excesses night and day.<\/p>\n
Holding festival, then, in our whole life, persuaded that God is altogether on every side present, we cultivate our fields, praising; we sail the sea, hymning; in all the rest of our conversation we conduct ourselves according to rule. The Gnostic, then, is very closely allied to God, being at once grave and cheerful in all things,\u2014grave on account of the bent of his soul towards the Divinity, and cheerful on account of his consideration of the blessings of humanity which God hath given us.
\n— The Stromata VII.VII<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Harvest of the Gnostic The Gnostic himself ministers to God, and exhibits to men the scheme of improvement, in the way in which he has been appointed to discipline men for their amendment. For he is alone pious that serves God rightly and unblameably in human affairs. For as that treatment of plants is best through which their fruits are produced and gathered in, through knowledge and skill in husbandry, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-clement-of-alexandria"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":555,"url":"https:\/\/nemoslibrary.com\/patristics\/clement-of-alexandria-the-perfect-man\/","url_meta":{"origin":744,"position":0},"title":"Clement of Alexandria: The Perfect Man","author":"Nemo","date":"January 1, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"The perfect man, who is incapable of exercising courage: for neither does he meet what inspires fear, as he regards none of the things that occur in life as to be dreaded; nor can aught dislodge him from this\u2014the love he has towards God. Nor does he need cheerfulness of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Clement of Alexandria"","block_context":{"text":"Clement of Alexandria","link":"https:\/\/nemoslibrary.com\/patristics\/category\/clement-of-alexandria\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":538,"url":"https:\/\/nemoslibrary.com\/patristics\/clement-of-alexandria-faith\/","url_meta":{"origin":744,"position":1},"title":"Clement Of Alexandria: Faith","author":"Nemo","date":"March 18, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Faith and Knowledge In order to believe truly in the Son, we must believe that He is the Son, and that He came, and how, and for what, and respecting His passion; and we must know who is the Son of God. Now neither is knowledge without faith, nor faith\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Clement of Alexandria"","block_context":{"text":"Clement of Alexandria","link":"https:\/\/nemoslibrary.com\/patristics\/category\/clement-of-alexandria\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":674,"url":"https:\/\/nemoslibrary.com\/patristics\/clement-of-alexandria-the-stromata-book-v\/","url_meta":{"origin":744,"position":2},"title":"Clement of Alexandria: The Stromata, Book V","author":"Nemo","date":"January 2, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"The Priestly Robe And they say that the robe prophesied the ministry in the flesh, by which He was seen in closer relation to the world. So the high priest, putting off his consecrated robe (the universe, and the creation in the universe, were consecrated by Him assenting that, what\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Clement of Alexandria"","block_context":{"text":"Clement of Alexandria","link":"https:\/\/nemoslibrary.com\/patristics\/category\/clement-of-alexandria\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":667,"url":"https:\/\/nemoslibrary.com\/patristics\/clement-of-alexandria-the-stromata-book-iv\/","url_meta":{"origin":744,"position":3},"title":"Clement of Alexandria: The Stromata Book IV","author":"Nemo","date":"January 1, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"The Golden Race \u201cFor those who seek for gold,\u201d says Heraclitus, \u201cdig much earth and find little gold.\u201d But those who are of the truly golden race, in mining for what is allied to them, will find the much in little. For the word will find one to understand it.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Clement of Alexandria"","block_context":{"text":"Clement of Alexandria","link":"https:\/\/nemoslibrary.com\/patristics\/category\/clement-of-alexandria\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":687,"url":"https:\/\/nemoslibrary.com\/patristics\/clement-of-alexandria-the-stromata-book-vi\/","url_meta":{"origin":744,"position":4},"title":"Clement of Alexandria: The Stromata, Book VI","author":"Nemo","date":"January 4, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"The Lord is Our Garden, He is Our Knowledge In a meadow the flowers blooming variously, and in a park the plantations of fruit trees, are not separated according to their species from those of other kinds. .. the form of the Miscellanies is promiscuously variegated like a meadow. And\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Clement of Alexandria"","block_context":{"text":"Clement of Alexandria","link":"https:\/\/nemoslibrary.com\/patristics\/category\/clement-of-alexandria\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":389,"url":"https:\/\/nemoslibrary.com\/patristics\/clement-of-alexandria-christ-the-true-king\/","url_meta":{"origin":744,"position":5},"title":"Clement Of Alexandria: Christ The True King","author":"Nemo","date":"March 4, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Now among the Greeks, Minos the king of nine years\u2019 reign, and familiar friend of Zeus, is celebrated in song; they having heard how once God conversed with Moses, \u201cas one speaking with his friend.\u201d Moses, then, was a sage, king, legislator. But our Saviour surpasses all human nature. He\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Clement of Alexandria"","block_context":{"text":"Clement of Alexandria","link":"https:\/\/nemoslibrary.com\/patristics\/category\/clement-of-alexandria\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peqR9l-c0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nemoslibrary.com\/patristics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nemoslibrary.com\/patristics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nemoslibrary.com\/patristics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nemoslibrary.com\/patristics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nemoslibrary.com\/patristics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=744"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nemoslibrary.com\/patristics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nemoslibrary.com\/patristics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nemoslibrary.com\/patristics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nemoslibrary.com\/patristics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}