Clement of Alexandria · a new plain-English translation from the original language
All the faithful, then, are good and befitting God and worthy of the title which they wear about them like a diadem. Yet nevertheless there are already some who are even more elect than the elect, and are so much the more distinguished the less conspicuous they are, in a manner hauling themselves up out of the surge of the world, like ships, and drawing themselves back to safety, not wishing to seem holy. And if someone should call them so, they are ashamed, hiding in the depth of their mind the unutterable mysteries, and disdaining that their own nobility be seen in the world — those whom the Word calls "the light of the world" and "the salt of the earth." This is the seed, the image and likeness of God, and his genuine child and heir, sent here as into a kind of foreign sojourn by the great dispensation and proportion of the Father; for whose sake both the visible and the invisible things of the world have been fashioned, some for servitude, others for discipline, and others for his instruction. And all things, so long as the seed remains here, are held together, and once it has been gathered in, all things will most swiftly be dissolved.
← All of Clement of Alexandria: Exhortation, Instructor & Miscellanies