Clement of Alexandria · a new plain-English translation from the original language
Our holy Savior ranks poverty and wealth, and things like these, on both the spiritual and the sensible plane; for in saying, "Blessed are those persecuted for righteousness' sake," he plainly teaches us to seek the martyr's witness in every circumstance: whoever is poor for righteousness' sake testifies that righteousness, which he loved, is a good thing, and if he hungers and thirsts for righteousness' sake, he testifies that righteousness is the finest thing to attain.
Likewise too the one who weeps and mourns for righteousness' sake testifies that the best law is good. So then, just as he calls the persecuted blessed, so also he calls blessed those who hunger and thirst for righteousness' sake -- he who welcomes the genuine longing which not even famine has been able to cut off. Even if they hunger for righteousness itself, they are blessed; and blessed likewise is he who is poor, be it in spirit or in material things, evidently for righteousness' sake. Is it not, then, simply the poor, but those who have willed to become poor for righteousness' sake, whom he calls blessed -- those who have utterly despised the honors of this world for the securing of the good -- and likewise also those who have become fair in character and body through purity, and the well-born and glorious, those who through righteousness have advanced to adoption as sons and because of this have received authority to become children of God, and to walk upon serpents and scorpions, and to have dominion also over demons and over the army of the adversary.
And in general the Lord's discipline draws the soul away from the body with gratitude, provided that the soul itself also tears itself away by a change of state. For "he who finds his soul will lose it, and he who loses it will find it," if only we cast our perishable part upon God's incorruptibility. Now the will of God is the knowledge of God, which is fellowship with incorruption. Whoever, then, recognizing by the reasoning of repentance that his soul is sinful, will lose it from the sin out of which it has been torn, and having lost it will find it in accordance with obedience -- the soul revived through faith yet dead toward sin. And this, in fact, amounts to finding the soul: knowing oneself.
As for the conversion toward divine things, the Stoics say it comes about through a change, the soul changing over into wisdom; Plato says it comes about when the soul receives a turning about toward the better and a conversion out of a kind of night into day. At once the philosophers too grant a reasonable departure from life to the virtuous man, if something should so deprive him of the power to act that no hope of action is left him any longer; but the judge who by compulsion forces the beloved to deny his faith seems to me to expose who is a friend to God and who is not. Here there is no longer room even for comparison, as to which one would rather choose -- a human threat or the love of God; and in a way abstention from evil deeds is found to be a diminishing and quenching of vices, since their activity is destroyed through inaction, and this is what the saying "dispose of your belongings and distribute to the needy, then come along with me" means -- that is, follow what is spoken by the Lord.
Now some say that by "possessions" he meant the things foreign to the soul, but they cannot say how these are distributed to the poor. But -- since God apportions all things to all according to merit, the economy being just -- "having despised, then," he says, "the possessions which God apportions through your greatness, follow what is spoken by me," hastening toward the ascent of the spirit, being justified not by abstinence from evils alone, but further perfected by the Lord's beneficence. At once he exposed the man who boasted of having fully kept the law's commandments, for not having loved his neighbor; for love, which has lordship over the sabbath by gnostic ascent, promises active benefit. And I think one ought to have come to the saving word neither through fear of punishment nor through some promised reward, but for the sake of the good itself.
Such people take their stand at the sanctuary's right side; but those who suppose that by giving away perishable things they are exchanging them for imperishable ones are termed, in the parable of the two brothers, hired hands -- and does not the matter of likeness and image arise here, so that some hold citizenship with the Savior through likeness to him, while others, standing at the left, hold it merely through the image of these hired hands? There are, then, three things arising out of the truth, a single root underlying the pair, yet the choice between them not equal -- rather, the difference in that choice is not equal. I think it differs whether one chooses through imitation or one chooses through knowledge, just as the heated object differs from the illuminated one, with respect to fire and to light. The light, then, of the likeness according to Scripture is Israel, whereas the other is merely an image. And what does the parable of Lazarus signify to the Lord, presenting the image of a rich man and a poor man? And what is meant by "a man cannot be slave to two masters at once, God and money," the Lord here naming the love of riches?
At once, when called to the invitation of the dinner, the lovers of property, though called, do not come -- not on account of possessing, but on account of possessing with attachment. "The foxes have dens" -- he called those who spend their time around wealth mined and dug out of the earth wicked men and earthborn foxes. Likewise also concerning Herod: "Go and tell that fox: I am driving out demons and performing healings today and tomorrow, and on the third day my work is completed." "Birds of heaven" -- he called those set apart in heaven from the other birds, truly pure, those winging their way toward the knowledge of the heavenly word. For indeed not only wealth and glory and marriage, but also poverty, brings countless cares to one unable to bear it -- and does he not perhaps hint at these very cares in the parable of the fourfold sowing, saying that the word's seed, having landed among brambles and briers, was strangled by them and never bore fruit?
It is necessary, then, to learn how one must make use of each of the things that befall us, so as to be trained through gnostic right-living into a settled state fit for eternal life. "For I beheld," it says, "the godless man raised high and towering like the cedars of Lebanon, and I went by," Scripture says, "and look, he had vanished; I searched for him, but no trace of him could be found." "Guard innocence and behold uprightness, for there is a remnant for the peaceable man." This describes the man who trusts sincerely with all his heart and rests in peace throughout his whole soul; for "this people honor me only with their lips, while their heart stands far off from the Lord." "They bless with the mouth yet curse within the heart; their affection for him was spoken, not felt, and their tongue deceived him, for their heart was crooked toward him and they kept no faith with his covenant."
"Therefore let the deceitful lips be struck dumb, which speak lawlessness against the righteous." And again: "May the Lord destroy all the deceitful lips and the tongue that speaks great things," those who declared, "We shall make our tongue great; our lips belong to us alone -- what master rules over us?" "On account of the wretchedness of the destitute and the sighing of the poor, I will rise up now," says the Lord; "I will place him securely; I will speak of it openly" -- for Christ belongs to those of humble mind, not to those lifted up over his flock. "Therefore do not gather for yourselves riches here on earth, where moth and decay consume them and burglars dig through and carry them off" -- perhaps the Lord says this reproaching the lovers of property, and perhaps also those who are simply full of care and anxiety, and indeed also the lovers of the body; for passions and ailments and degraded reasonings corrode both the rational faculty and the entire person, yet our genuine wealth lies wherever the mind's own kinship rests. Further, he hands down the communal principle of righteousness, showing that one ought to give back to the habit of one's former conduct the things that habit acquired for us, and run back to God asking for mercy. This is truly the purse that does not grow old, provision for eternal life, an unfailing treasure in heaven, "because I will show mercy on whomever I show mercy," says the Lord.
He says these things also to those wishing to become poor on account of righteousness, since they have learned from the commandment that "wide and roomy is the path leading off to ruin, and numerous are those who journey along it" -- speaking of nothing else but dissoluteness and love of women, love of glory, love of power, and similar passions. "Fool," he thus said, "this very night they demand your soul; and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?" And the commandment runs literally thus: "Watch yourselves, then, against every kind of greed, for one's life is not measured by how much one owns. For what benefit is there to a man who gains the entire world yet loses his own soul? Or what could a man offer in return for his soul? Therefore I say: do not be anxious for your soul, what you will eat, nor for your body, what you will put on; for the soul is more than food, and the body more than clothing." And again: "For your Father knows that you need all these things; but first pursue the kingdom of heaven together with its righteousness, since these are the great matters, and the lesser things needed for life will be supplied to you besides."
Does he not plainly exhort us to pursue the gnostic life, and urge us to seek the truth both in deed and in word? Christ, then, who trains the soul, reckons as rich not the giving but the intention. Zacchaeus, then -- though some say Matthias -- the chief tax-collector, having heard the Lord deem him worthy that he should come to him, said, "Behold, Lord, half of my possessions I give as alms, and if I have wrongfully exacted anything from anyone, I restore it fourfold." Of him too the Savior said, "The Son of Man, having come today, found what was lost." Again, having observed at the treasury the rich man casting in proportionately to his wealth, and the widow casting in two copper coins, he said the widow had cast in more than all of them; for he gave out of his surplus, but she contributed out of her want.
That he referred everything to the training of the soul is shown by: "Blessed are the gentle, since the earth will be their inheritance." The gentle are those who have brought to an end within the soul the truceless battle of anger and desire and the forms that lie beneath these. He commends gentleness chosen freely, not gentleness forced by necessity. For with the Lord there are both rewards and many dwelling-places according to the proportion of lives lived; for "whoever welcomes a prophet because he is a prophet will get a prophet's reward, and whoever welcomes an upright man because he is upright will get an upright man's reward, and whoever welcomes even one of these lowly disciples will not go without reward." Again, the differences according to merit, the noble recompenses of virtue, he has signified through the hours not equal in number, and further, through the equal wage rendered to each of the workers (that is, salvation, which the denarius intimates), he has made known the equal justice by means of those who worked at mismatched hours.
They will work, then, according to the dwelling-places proportioned to the honors of which they were deemed worthy, fellow-workers in the ineffable economy and service. "Those who seem to be preeminently distinguished in living a holy life," says Plato, "are those who are freed and released from these earthly places as from prisons, and arrive above at a pure dwelling." And again, more clearly, he says the same thing thus: "Of these very ones, those who have sufficiently purified themselves through philosophy live altogether without bodies for all time" -- though he assigns them certain forms, to some airy ones, to others fiery ones. He further adds: "And they arrive at dwellings still more beautiful than these, which it is neither easy to describe nor is the time sufficient at present." Whence fittingly, "blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted." For those who have repented of the evils in which they formerly lived will be present at the calling; for this is what "to be comforted" means. There are two modes of the one who repents: the more common one is fear over what has been done; the more particular one is the shame which the soul feels before itself out of conscience, whether here or elsewhere, since no place is idle with respect to God's beneficence.
Again he says, "Happy are the compassionate, for mercy will be shown to them." Now mercy is not, as certain philosophers have imagined, sorrow felt over someone else's misfortune, but rather something noble, as the prophets say: "I desire mercy," he says, "and not sacrifice." He wants those to be merciful not only who perform mercy, but also those who wish to show mercy even when they cannot, those for whom acting lies within their intention. For sometimes we wish, by giving money or by bodily effort, to show mercy, as by helping one in need, or attending one who is sick, or standing by one in distress, and we are not able, whether through poverty or sickness or old age (for this too is a natural sickness), to carry through the intention we set out upon, unable to bring to completion what we had resolved. Those who have resolved, then, whose intention is equal, will share the same honor as those who were able, even if others surpass them in resources.
Since two paths are found leading toward salvation's completion -- deeds and understanding -- he pronounced blessed those clean of heart, since God will be seen by them. And if we truly look at the truth, knowledge -- by which the purification of the soul's ruling faculty comes about -- is itself also a good activity. Good things, then, are some in and of themselves, others by participation in the good, as we say of noble actions; but without the intermediate things, which indeed hold the rank of matter, neither good nor bad actions come to be constituted -- I mean, for instance, life and health and the other things that are necessary or circumstantial. He wishes, then, that those who arrive at the knowledge of God should be pure with respect to bodily desires, and holy in their reasonings, so that the ruling faculty may have nothing spurious overshadowing its own power.
When, then, the soul lingers in contemplation, consorting purely with the divine, the one who gnostically partakes of the holy quality comes to be, ever more attentively, in a settled state of impassible identity, so that he no longer merely has knowledge and possesses understanding, but is himself understanding and knowledge.
Blessed, then, are the peacemakers. Those who tame and civilize the law that wages counter-war against the disposition of our mind — the threats of anger and the baits of desire and the other passions, all that make war on reason — and who have lived out their lives with knowledge, good works, and true reasoning, will be restored to that most dear adoption as sons. The perfect peacemaking would be that which keeps the peaceable disposition unshaken through every circumstance that befalls, calling the administration of the world holy and beautiful, grounded in the understanding of things divine and things human, whereby it counts the tensions within the cosmos as the loveliest harmony of all creation. And such people make peace also with those here who are warred upon by the stratagems of sin, teaching them by instruction to change over to faith and to peace.
A summary, I think, of every virtue, teaching us the need to despise death, more gnostically, for love toward God: how blessed, he says, are they who have endured persecution because of righteousness, since they will be named children of God; or, as it stands among some who have tampered with the gospel texts: how blessed, he says, are they persecuted on account of righteousness, since they will be made complete. And how blessed are they persecuted because of me, since a place awaits them where persecution can no longer touch them. And blessed are you whenever people despise you, whenever they shut you out, whenever they hurl your name aside as something vile because of the Son of Man — provided, of course, that we do not abhor those who persecute us and that we endure the punishments from them without hating them, thinking we have been tried more slowly than we expected, but knowing further that any trial whatsoever is an occasion of martyrdom.
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