In his doctrine of God we find that he has fallen a victim to the
unfortunate negative method, which he calls "analysis." It is the
method which starts with the assertion that since God is exalted above
Being, we cannot say what He is, but only what He is not. Clement
apparently objects to saying that God is above Being, but he strips
Him of all attributes and qualities till nothing is left but a
nameless point; and this, too, he would eliminate, for a point is a
numerical unit, and God is above the idea of the Monad. We shall
encounter this argument far too often in our survey of Mysticism, and
in writers more logical than Clement, who allowed it to dominate their
whole theology and ethics.

The Son is the Consciousness of God. The Father only sees the world as
reflected in the Son. This bold and perhaps dangerous doctrine seems
to be Clement's own.

Clement was not a deep or consistent thinker, and the task which he
has set himself is clearly beyond his strength. But he gathers up most
of the religious and philosophical ideas of his time, and weaves them
together into a system which is permeated by his cultivated, humane,
and genial personality.

Especially interesting from the point of view of our present task is
the use of mystery-language which we find everywhere in Clement. The
Christian revelation is "the Divine (or holy) mysteries," "the Divine
secrets," "the secret Word," "the mysteries of the Word"; Jesus Christ
is "the Teacher of the Divine mysteries"; the ordinary teaching of the
Church is "the lesser mysteries"; the higher knowledge of the Gnostic,
leading to full initiation ([Greek: epopteia]) "the great mysteries."
He borrows _verbatim_ from a Neopythagorean document a whole sentence,