Clement has left on record many of his meditations upon the efficacy, the duty, and the blessed comfort of prayer.  When he speaks of God, and of the Christian in prayer, (for prayer he defines to be “communion or intercourse with God,”) his language becomes often exquisitely beautiful, and sometimes sublime.  It is impossible by a few detached passages to convey an adequate estimate of the original; and yet a few sentences may show that Clement is a man whose testimony should not be slighted.

“Therefore, keeping the whole of our life as a feast every where, and on every part persuaded that God is present, we praise him as we till our lands; we sing hymns as we are sailing.  The Christian is persuaded that God hears every thing; not the voice only, but the thoughts....  Suppose any one should say, that the voice does not reach God, revolving as it does in the air below; yet the thoughts of the saints cut not only through the air, but the whole world.  And the divine power like the light is beforehand in seeing through the soul....  He” (the Christian whom he speaks of throughout as the man of divine knowledge) “prays for things essentially good.

“Wherefore it best becomes those to pray who have an adequate knowledge of God, and possess virtue in accordance with Him—­who know what are real goods, and what we should petition for, and when, and how in each case.  But it is the extreme of ignorance to ask {126} from those who are not gods as though they were gods....  Whence since there is one only good God, both we ourselves and the angels supplicate from Him alone, that some good things might be given to us, and others might remain with us.  In this way he (the Christian) is always in a state of purity fit for prayer.  He prays with angels, as being himself equal with angels; and as one who is never beyond the holy protecting guard.  And if he pray alone he has the whole choir of angels with him.” [Stromata, lib. vii.  Sec. 7. p. 851, &c.; Section xii. p. 879.]

Clement has alluded to instances alleged by the Greeks of the effects of prayer, and he adds, “Our whole Scripture is full of instances of God hearing and granting every request according to the prayers of the just.” [Lib. vi.  Sec. iii. p. 753.]

Having in the same section referred to the opinion of some Greeks as to the power of demons over the affairs of mortals, he adds, “But they think it matters nothing whether we speak of these as gods or as angels, calling the spirits of such ‘demons,’ and teaching that they should be worshipped by men, as having, by divine providence, on account of the purity of their lives, received authority to be conversant about earthly places, in order that they may minister to mortals.” [Lib. vi.  Sec. iii. p. 755.]