Clement of Alexandria · a new plain-English translation from the original language
I for my part would say this too: since some things belong to the soul within, and others lie outside it, and if the soul makes good use of them, these outward things too appear good, but if it uses them wickedly, they appear wicked — does he who bids us alienate our possessions thereby renounce first those things whose removal still leaves the passions remaining, or rather those things whose removal makes even our possessions useful? Now the man who has cast away his worldly abundance can still be rich in his passions even when the material is no longer present; for the disposition works out its own effect, and chokes and presses the reasoning faculty, and inflames it with the desires that are bred along with it. It has therefore done him no good at all to be poor in money while he is rich in passions. For he has not cast away the things that ought to be cast away, but the things that are indifferent, and has cut himself off from what was useful, while he has kindled the more fiercely the innate matter of vice through the want of outward things. What must be renounced, then, is our possessions insofar as they are harmful — not insofar as one, if he knows their right use, is able to profit others by them as well. What benefits is what is administered with prudence and self-control and piety; what must be thrust away is what does harm; but the outward things themselves do no harm.
So then the Lord too introduces the use of outward things, bidding us put away not the necessities of life, but the things that make bad use of these; and these are
← All of Clement of Alexandria: Exhortation, Instructor & Miscellanies