ek: epekeina tes
ousias] (c. Cels. VII. 42-51; [Greek: peri archon] I. 1; Clement made a
closer approach to the heretical abstractions of the Gnostics inasmuch
as he still more expressly renounced any designation of God; see Strom.
V. 12, 13), but he is not [Greek: buthos] and [Greek: sige], being
rather a self-comprehending Spirit, and therefore does not require a
hypostasis (the [Greek: nous]) before he can come to himself.
Accordingly the human intellect is not incapable of soaring up to God as
the later Neoplatonists assert; at least vision is by no means so
decidedly opposed to thought, that is, elevated above it as something
new, as is held by the Neoplatonists and Philo before them. Origen is no
mystic. In accordance with this conception Origen and Clement say that
the perfect knowledge of God can indeed be derived from the Logos alone
(c. Cels VII. 48, 49: VI. 65-73; Strom. V. 12. 85: VI. 15. 122), but
that a relative knowledge may be deduced from creation (c. Cels. VII.
46). Hence they also spoke of an innate knowledge of God (Protrept. VI.
68; Strom. V. 13. 78), and extended the teleological proof of God
furnished by Philo ([Greek: peri archon] I. 1. 6; c. Cels I. 23). The
relatively correct predicates of God to be determined from revelation
are his unity (c. Cels I. 23), his absolute spirituality ([Greek: pneuma
asomatos, aulos, aschematistos])--this is maintained both in opposition
to Stoicism and anthropomorphism; see Orig. [Greek: peri archon] I. 1,
Origen's polemic against Melito's conception of God, and Clem., Strom.
V. 11. 68: V. 12. 82,--his unbegottenness, his immortality (this is
eternity conceived as enjoyment; the eternity of God itself, however, is
to be conceived, according to Clement, as that which is above time; see
Strom. II. 2. 6), and his absolute causality. All these concepts
together constitute the conception of perfection. See Fischer, De Orig.
theologia et cosmologia, 1840.]

[Footnote 721: Orig. [Greek: peri archon] II. 1. 3.]

[Footnote 722: C. Cels V. 23.]

[Footnote 723: L.c.]

[Footnote 724: [Greek: Peri archon] II. 9. 1: "Certum est, quippe quod
praefinito aliquo apud se numero creaturas fecit: non enim, ut quidam
volunt, finem putandum est non habere creaturas; quia ubi finis non est,
nec comprehensio ulla nec circumscriptio esse potest. Quod si fuerit
utique nee contineri vel dispensari a deo, quae facta sunt, poterunt.
Naturaliter nempe quicquid infinitum fuerit, et incompre