that nature is bad, made out of bad materials ((
Greek characters)); therefore one ought not to people this world, but to abstain from marriage ((Greek characters)). Now Clement, to whom in general the Old Testament is much more congenial and convincing than the New, takes this very much amiss. He sees in it their flagrant ingratitude to and enmity and rebellion against him who has made the world, the just demiurgus, whose work they themselves are, and yet despise the use of his creatures, in impious rebellion "forsaking the natural opinion" ((Greek characters)). At the same time, in his holy zeal, he will not allow the Marcionites even the honour of originality, but, armed with his well-known erudition, he brings it against them, and supports his case with the most beautiful quotations, that even the ancient philosophers, that Heraclitus and Empedocles, Pythagoras and Plato, Orpheus and Pindar, Herodotus and Euripides, and also the Sibyls, lamented deeply the wretched nature of the world, thus taught pessimism. Now in this learned enthusiasm he does not observe that in this way he is just giving the Marcionites water for their mill, for he shows that
"All the wisest of all the ages"
have taught and sung what they do, but confidently and boldly he quotes the most decided and energetic utterances of the ancients in this sense. Certainly they cannot lead him astray. Wise men may mourn the sadness of existence, poets may pour out the most affecting lamentations about it, nature and experience may cry out as loudly as they will against optimism, – all this does not touch our Church Father: he holds his Jewish revelation in his hand, and remains confident. The demiurgus made the world. From this it is a priori certain that it is excellent,
