Clement seems to think that it hardly has any function in true gnostics whose soul is dominated by the super- natural agape ¯ love. They give up their mundane identity and the patterns of desire and self-assessment which belong to this level of the soul: Love is no longe r a desire of him who loves: it is loving affinity restoring the gnostic to the unity of faith, without his having any further need of time or of space. Already established by love in those things that he will possess, having anticipated hope by gnosis, he no longer longs for anything, having everything