Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 17.4

Summary: So there is a good and a bad wealth, one to be gained and one to be discarded; and poverty is blessed when it is spiritual.

Greek text · Stählin 3:170

ἀλλὰ καὶ δεύτερος, ὁ ἀκερδὴς καὶ ἄζηλος καὶ δύσκτητος καὶ ἐπιζήμιος, οὕτως καὶ πλοῦτος ὃ μέν τις ἀγαθῶν, ὃ δὲ κακῶν, εἴ γε τὸν πλοῦτον καὶ τὸν θησαυρὸν οὐκ ἀπηρτημένους ἴσμεν ἀλλήλων τῇ φύσει. καὶ ὁ μέν τις πλοῦτος κτητὸς ἂν εἴη καὶ περίβλητος, ὃ δὲ ἄκτητος καὶ ἀπόβλητος· τὸν αὐτὸν δὲ τρόπον καὶ πτωχεία μακαριστὴ μὲν ἡ πνευματική.

English · Claude translation

and also a second kind, profitless, unenviable, hard to get, and harmful, so too there is a wealth of good things and a wealth of evil things, since we know that wealth and treasure are not separated from each other by nature. The one wealth is to be acquired and embraced, the other not acquired but thrown away. In the same way, poverty too is blessed when it is spiritual.

About this passage

Source

Stählin 3:170 · Otto Stählin, ed., Clemens Alexandrinus, vol. 3, Stromata Buch VII und VIII, Excerpta ex Theodoto, Eclogae propheticae, Quis dives salvetur, Fragmente, GCS 17 (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1909) · Greek text: Otto Stählin, Clemens Alexandrinus 3 (GCS 17, 1909), digitized by the First Thousand Years of Greek project (Open Greek and Latin), CC BY-SA 4.0

Text

As printed in Stählin, GCS 17. Manuscript variants and the editor's apparatus are not reproduced; no textual problem is noted in this passage.

Translation

Claude translation (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27 · Translated by Claude from the Greek text of Stählin (1909); made independently of existing English translations.

Compare

Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 2 (1885) (an older public-domain English translation, whole volume at CCEL; checked against ours only after ours was made)

Topics

Ethics

Cite this passage

Clement of Alexandria, Quis div. 17.4 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-quis-dives/17/4/).

Plain text

Clement of Alexandria, Quis div. 17.4 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-quis-dives/17/4/).