Clement of Alexandria · a new plain-English translation from the original language
Nevertheless, let us first offer what appears on the surface, and the reason for which the parable was spoken. Let it teach the wealthy that they must not neglect their own salvation as though already condemned in advance, nor again must riches be cast into the sea, nor condemned as a plot against life and an enemy, but rather one must learn in what manner and how wealth is to be used and life is to be acquired. For since no one is altogether lost merely because he is rich and afraid, nor is everyone altogether saved by being confident and believing that he will be saved, come, let us examine what hope the Savior sketches out for them, and how what is without hope might become secure, and what is hoped for might be attained as a possession.
The Teacher, then, when asked which is the greatest of the commandments, says: "You shall love the Lord your God with your whole soul and with your whole strength," and that no commandment is greater than this — and quite reasonably so, for it has been enjoined concerning the first and the greatest, God himself our Father, through whom all things came into being and exist, and to whom the things being saved return again. Since we have thus been loved beforehand by him, and have obtained our very coming-to-be from him, it is not holy to hold anything else as more venerable or more honored, repaying only this grace, small as it is, for things so great, and having nothing else whatsoever to contrive as recompense toward a God who is complete and in need of nothing — but by the very act of loving the Father, receiving incorruption for one's own strength and power. For to the degree that one loves God, to that degree one slips further within, into God himself.
And second in rank, and in no way lesser than this,
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