The following text is excerpted from Bentley Layton in The Gnostic Scriptures (Doubleday 1987), p. 235. The text comes from Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis 2.36.2-4. Please refer to Layton for background, bibliography, and notes.
Fragment C
And even as awe overcame the angels in the presence of that modeled form because it uttered sounds superior to what its modeling justified, owing to the agent who had invisibly deposited in it a seed of higher essence and who spoke freely: so too in the races of worldly people, human artifacts become objects of awe for their creators—for example, statues and paintings and everything that (human) hands make as representing a god. For Adam, modeled as representing a human being, made them stand in awe of teh preexistent human being; for precisely the latter stood in him. And they were stricken with terror and quickly concealed the work.
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Kirby, Peter. "Historical Jesus Theories." Early Christian Writings. <http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/1clement-hoole.html>.
