Clement of Alexandria, Miscellanies 18

Having shown a small glimpse to those who love to behold the truth, drawn from the law concerning sacrifices — a passage that mystically distinguishes both the common Jews and the heresies as unclean, removing them from the divine church of clean and unclean animals — let us stop our discourse here. Scripture hands over to God the animals that are clean and acceptable, those that both divide the hoof and chew the cud; these represent the priests who make their way to the Father and to the Son through the faith of the righteous — for this stability belongs to those who divide the hoof — those who meditate on the words of God night and day and are sent forth in the vessel of the soul's teachings. The law allegorizes this practice of a clean animal chewing the cud as a spiritual exercise. But those that have neither characteristic, or only one, it sets apart as unclean. First, those that chew the cud but do not divide the hoof: these signify the many Jews who have the words of God in their mouths, yet lack the faith and the foundation that leads through the Son to the Father, a foundation fixed upon the truth. Hence the race of such creatures is slippery, as though they were not cloven-hoofed nor supported by the double garment of faith; for, "no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him" (Matt 11:27). In turn, equally unclean are those that divide the hoof but do not chew the cud. These point to the heretics, who have laid hold of the name of Father and Son, yet weaken and wear away the precise clarity of the divine words, and also the works of righteousness, not advancing more accurately even if they do advance at all. To such people the Lord says, "Why do you call me 'Lord, Lord,' and not do what I tell you?" (Luke 6:46). But those that neither divide the hoof nor chew the cud are completely unclean. "You, however, Megarians," says Theognis, "are neither third nor fourth nor twelfth, neither in word nor in number, but like the dust that the wind blows away from the face of the earth and like a drop from a bucket."

Having gone through these matters and sketched the ethical topic as in a summary, and having sown the seeds of the true knowledge here and there, scattered as we promised, so that it would not be easy for the chance reader among the uninitiated to find the unwritten traditions of the saints, let us proceed to the promise. The Stromata do not resemble gardens carefully laid out with plants set in rows for the pleasure of the eye. Rather, they are like a mountain, shady and thick with cypresses and planes, laurel and ivy, apples and olives and figs planted together, with fruit-bearing and barren trees intentionally intermingled because of those who dare to steal and snatch the ripe fruit, the Scripture itself willing to remain hidden. From this mixed planting the farmer, by grafting and transplanting, will fashion a beautiful paradise and a delightful grove. Therefore the Stromata pay attention neither to order nor to phrasing; indeed, they deliberately do not wish to be Greek even in language, and they have scattered the sowing of the doctrines covertly and not according to the obvious sense, so that those who read — if any happen to be preparing themselves — must be diligent and inventive. For there are many things obscure and varied, because of the differences among the fish. And so, after this seventh Stromata, we will begin the discourse anew from another starting point.