Clement of Alexandria's Use of the Word 'Truth' to Describe God Sitting Enthroned in Heaven in Chapter Fourteen of Book Five of Stromata

My task now is to prove that Clement identified the Episcopal throne of Alexandria as 'truth.' I want to do this in order to demonstrate that Morton Smith, the eminent scholar who discovered the Letter to Theodore, did not realize the true value of his discovery. Nowhere in any of the writings of Morton Smith does he ever put forward the idea that Clement referenced the throne as 'truth' nevertheless I am certain that the concept is buried in his existing writings such as that which appears in Book Five of the Stromata where we read Clement clearly identify God as a 'king' sitting on a real throne:

And the same Orpheus speaks thus: "But to the word divine, looking, attend, Keeping aright the heart's receptacle Of intellect, and tread the straight path well, And only to the world's immortal King Direct thy gaze."

And again, respecting God, saying that He was invisible, and that He was known to but one, a Chaldean by race -- meaning either by this Abraham or his son -- he speaks as follows: "But one a scion of Chaldean race; For he the sun's path knew right well, And how the motion of the sphere about The earth proceeds, in circle moving Equally around its axis, how the winds Their chariot guide o'er air and sea."

Then, as if paraphrasing the expression, "Heaven is my throne, and earth is my footstool," he adds : "But in great heaven, He is seated firm Upon a throne of gold, and neath His feet The earth. His right hand round the ocean's bound He stretches; and the hills' foundations shake To the centre at His wrath, nor can endure His mighty strength. He all celestial is, And all things finishes upon the earth. He the Beginning, Middle is, and End.

But Thee I dare not speak. In limbs And mind I tremble. He rules from on high." And so forth [Clement, Stromata v.14]

There can be no doubt what Clement has in mind by the expression 'he is the beginning, middle and end.' There is a well known rabbinic dictum "The seal of God is Emet," which means Truth and is derived from the letters alef-mem-tav , the first, the middle, and the last letters of the Hebrew alphabet, the beginning, the middle, and the end of all things. Thus Josephus defines God as "the beginning, middle, and end of all things." See Zipser's edition of Josephus "Contra Ap." edited by Jellinek, 1871, pp. 159, 160.In Yoma, 69b and Sanh. 64a, the following is related: "The men of the Great Synagogue prayed to God to remove from the earth the Evil Spirit, as the cause of all the trouble. Immediately a scroll fell from heaven with the word (Truth) written thereon, and thereupon a fiery lion came out of the sanctuary. It was the Spirit of Idolatry leaving the earth. "This legend shows," said R. Ḥanina, "that the seal of God is —Truth." More light is thrown on the passage (Yer. Yeb. xii. 13a, Gen. R. lxxxi.), where the verse (Dan. x. 21), "I shall show thee what is marked upon the writing of truth" (biketab emet) is explained in the following manner: Whatever decree bears the signum of God, , is immutable for, says Simon ben Laḳish: "א is the first, מ the middle, and ח the last letter of the alphabet—this being the name of God according to Isa. xliv. 6 explained Yer. Sanh. i. 18a: 'I am the first [having had none from whom to receive the kingdom]; I am the middle, there being none who shares the kingdom with me; [and I am the last], there being none to whom I shall hand the kingdom of the world.'" Evidently the original utterance in the Apocalypse referred to God (and not to Jesus). A careful investigation of the passage, however, makes it quite probable that the whole was originally written in Hebrew with reference to the verse in Daniel, and owing to its being translated into Greek, the connection between vers. 5 and 6, viz., the reference to , was lost. Compare Justin's "Address to the Greeks," xxv., which says: "Plato, when mystically expressing the attributes of God's eternity, said, 'God is, as the old tradition runs, the end and the middle of all things'; plainly alluding to the law of Moses." Compare also Irenæus, "Adversus Hæreses," xiv. 3.

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