Clement of Alexandria · a new plain-English translation from the original language
And how much more useful is the opposite course — for a man who has acquired sufficient possessions neither to suffer hardship himself over his property nor to fail to help those whom he ought? For what fellowship could be left among men, if no one had anything? And how could this doctrine not be found plainly opposed to and at war with many other fine doctrines of the Lord? "Make friends for yourselves out of the mammon of unrighteousness, that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal dwellings." "Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys nor thieves break through." How could anyone feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, and gather in the homeless — things whose neglect he threatens with fire and outer darkness — if each person himself were beforehand lacking in all these things? But indeed he himself lodges as a guest with Zacchaeus and Levi and Matthew, rich men and tax collectors, and he does not command them to give up their money, but having laid down its just use and taken away its unjust use he proclaims: "Today salvation has come to this house." So highly does he praise their usefulness that even with this added condition he still enjoins fellowship — to give drink to the thirsty, to give bread to the hungry, to receive the homeless, to clothe the naked. But if it is not possible to fulfill these needs except by means of money, and yet he commands men to renounce money, what else would the Lord be doing than urging the same things both to be given and not given, to feed and not feed, to receive and to shut out, to share and not to share — which of all things is the most irrational.
One must not, then, cast away money, which is also useful to one's neighbors —
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