how anyone who {291} knows God will endure to hear that said, when he casts his eye upon our life and the evils with which we are mixed up. For in this way (and it is a thing not fit to speak of) God would be sinning in his parts, that is, if the parts are parts of the whole and complete the whole--if they do not complete it, they would not be parts. However, God, by nature (_physei_) being rich in pity (_eleos_), of his goodness he cares for us who are not his members nor by nature his children (_mete morion onton autou mete physei teknon_). Indeed this is the chief proof of God's goodness, that though this is our position with regard to him, by nature utterly 'alienated' from him, he nevertheless cares for us. For the instinct of kindness to offspring is natural (_physike_) in animals, and so is friendship with the like-minded based on old acquaintance, but God's pity is rich towards us who in no respect have anything to do with him, I mean, in our being (_ousia_) or nature or the peculiar property of our being (_dynamei te oikeia tes ousias hemon_), but merely by our being the work of His will."[108] "The God of the Whole (_ton helon_), who is above every voice and every thought and every conception, could never be set forth in writing, for his property is to be unspeakable."[109] It follows that the language of the Bible is not to be taken literally when it attributes feelings to God. Clement has cited texts which speak of "joy" and "pity" in connexion with God, and he has to meet the objection that these are moods of the soul and passions (_tropas psyches kai pathe_). We mistake, when we interpret Scripture in accordance with our own experience of the flesh and of passions, "taking the will of the passionless God (_tou apathous theou_) on a line with our own perturbations (_kinemasi_). When we suppose that the fact in the case of the Almighty is as we are able to hear, we err in an atheistic way. For the divine was not to be declared as it _is_; but as we, fettered by flesh, were able to understand, even so the prophets spoke to us, the Lord accommodating himself to the weakness of men with a mind to save them {292} (_soterios_)." Thus the language of our emotions, though not properly to be employed, is used to help our weakness.[110] For God is, in fact, "without emotion, without wrath, without desire" (_apathes_, _athumos_, _anepithumetos_).[111] Clement repeatedly recurs with pleasure to this conception of "Apathy"; it is the mark of God, of Christ, of the Apostles, and of the ideal Christian, with whom it becomes a fixed habit (_hexis_).[112]