Clement of Alexandria, Miscellanies 12

In the twenty-third book of his *Exegetics*, Basilides comments on the words that punish people 'according to the testimony.' He says: 'I tell you this: as many as fall under these so-called afflictions, either they have sinned in other hidden faults and are led to this good by the kindness of the One who guides all things, being truly accused of different sins than the ones they are punished for, so that they may not suffer as condemned for admitted evils, nor be reviled as the adulterer or the murderer, but because they have been made Christians— which will comfort them so that they do not even seem to suffer; or even if someone has not sinned at all and comes to suffer (rare though that is), yet this one will not suffer by the force of any power, but will suffer as the infant who seems not to have sinned.'

Then, returning to the point, he adds: 'So the infant, not having sinned beforehand, or at least not having sinned in action, yet having within itself the capacity to sin, when subjected to suffering is benefited, gaining much that is hard to win. Thus even the perfect person who has not sinned in deed, if he suffers, has suffered in a way exactly resembling the infant. For he has within himself the sinful tendency, but because he did not take the opportunity to sin, he did not sin. Therefore the fact that he did not sin is not to be reckoned to his credit. For just as the one who wants to commit adultery is an adulterer, even if he does not accomplish the act, and the one who wants to commit murder is a murderer, even if he cannot kill, so also the sinless one of whom I speak, if I see him suffering, even if he has done no evil, I will say the evil lies in his willingness to sin. For I will say all things rather than say that evil lies in God’s forethought.'

Then, pressing further, he speaks plainly about the Lord as if about a man: ‘If, leaving aside all these arguments, you come to calumniate me through certain persons, saying, “So-and-so sinned, for so-and-so suffered,” then if you permit, I will say: he did not sin, but was like the suffering infant. But if you force the argument more strongly, I will say: whoever you name as a man is a man, and God is just. For no one is pure from filth, as someone has said. But Basilides’ hypothesis says that the soul, having sinned beforehand in another life, endures its punishment here: the elect one enduring it through martyrdom, the other being purified by its own punishment.'