Ethics

Christian conduct and moral teaching generally.

Passages that substantially address this topic, in date order.

• Didache 1.1Anonymous · ca. 50–150 (often ca. 100) · There are two ways, of life and of death.
• Didache 1.2Anonymous · ca. 50–150 (often ca. 100) · The way of life: love God and neighbor, and do not do to others what you would not want done to you.
• Didache 1.3Anonymous · ca. 50–150 (often ca. 100) · Bless and pray for enemies, and love those who hate you.
• Didache 1.4Anonymous · ca. 50–150 (often ca. 100) · Turn the other cheek, go the second mile, and do not demand back what is taken.
• Didache 1.5Anonymous · ca. 50–150 (often ca. 100) · Give freely; those who receive without need will answer for it.
• Didache 1.6Anonymous · ca. 50–150 (often ca. 100) · Give with care, knowing to whom you give.
• Didache 11.12Anonymous · ca. 50–150 (often ca. 100) · Ignore a prophet who asks for money for himself.
• Didache 12.2Anonymous · ca. 50–150 (often ca. 100) · Help travelers, but only for two or three days.
• Didache 12.3Anonymous · ca. 50–150 (often ca. 100) · Settlers with a trade must work for their food.
• Didache 12.4Anonymous · ca. 50–150 (often ca. 100) · Find work for settlers without a trade.
• Didache 12.5Anonymous · ca. 50–150 (often ca. 100) · Those unwilling to work are exploiting Christ.
• Didache 13.4Anonymous · ca. 50–150 (often ca. 100) · Without a prophet, give the firstfruits to the poor.
• Didache 13.7Anonymous · ca. 50–150 (often ca. 100) · Give a firstfruit of money, clothing, and all possessions.
• Didache 14.2Anonymous · ca. 50–150 (often ca. 100) · Be reconciled before joining the gathering.
• Didache 15.3Anonymous · ca. 50–150 (often ca. 100) · Correct one another peacefully; shun the unrepentant.
• Didache 2.1Anonymous · ca. 50–150 (often ca. 100) · The second commandment begins.
• Didache 2.2Anonymous · ca. 50–150 (often ca. 100) · Commandments against murder, adultery, abuse of boys, sexual immorality, theft, magic, abortion, and infanticide.
• Didache 2.3Anonymous · ca. 50–150 (often ca. 100) · No perjury, false witness, slander, or grudges.
• Didache 2.4Anonymous · ca. 50–150 (often ca. 100) · Do not be double-minded or two-faced in speech.
• Didache 2.5Anonymous · ca. 50–150 (often ca. 100) · Let your words be true and matched by deeds.
• Didache 2.6Anonymous · ca. 50–150 (often ca. 100) · Do not be greedy, hypocritical, or arrogant, or plot against your neighbor.
• Didache 2.7Anonymous · ca. 50–150 (often ca. 100) · Hate no one; reprove some, pray for others, and love some more than your own life.
• Didache 3.1Anonymous · ca. 50–150 (often ca. 100) · Flee evil and all that resembles it.
• Didache 3.10Anonymous · ca. 50–150 (often ca. 100) · Accept what happens as good, since nothing happens without God.
• Didache 3.2Anonymous · ca. 50–150 (often ca. 100) · Anger and jealousy lead to murder.
• Didache 3.3Anonymous · ca. 50–150 (often ca. 100) · Lust, foul talk, and roving eyes lead to sexual sin.
• Didache 3.4Anonymous · ca. 50–150 (often ca. 100) · Omens, spells, astrology, and magical purifications lead to idolatry.
• Didache 3.5Anonymous · ca. 50–150 (often ca. 100) · Lying and love of money lead to theft.
• Didache 3.6Anonymous · ca. 50–150 (often ca. 100) · Grumbling leads to blasphemy.
• Didache 3.7Anonymous · ca. 50–150 (often ca. 100) · Be meek, for the meek will inherit the earth.
• Didache 3.8Anonymous · ca. 50–150 (often ca. 100) · Be patient, merciful, and gentle, and revere God's words.
• Didache 3.9Anonymous · ca. 50–150 (often ca. 100) · Be humble and keep company with the humble.
• Didache 4.10Anonymous · ca. 50–150 (often ca. 100) · Do not treat slaves harshly, since God is over both master and slave.
• Didache 4.11Anonymous · ca. 50–150 (often ca. 100) · Slaves are to obey their masters with reverence.
• Didache 4.12Anonymous · ca. 50–150 (often ca. 100) · Hate hypocrisy and all that displeases the Lord.
• Didache 4.2Anonymous · ca. 50–150 (often ca. 100) · Seek the company of fellow believers daily.
• Didache 4.3Anonymous · ca. 50–150 (often ca. 100) · Make peace and judge fairly.
• Didache 4.4Anonymous · ca. 50–150 (often ca. 100) · Do not waver in doubt.
• Didache 4.5Anonymous · ca. 50–150 (often ca. 100) · Do not be eager to take but slow to give.
• Didache 4.6Anonymous · ca. 50–150 (often ca. 100) · Give from your earnings as a ransom for your sins.
• Didache 4.7Anonymous · ca. 50–150 (often ca. 100) · Give without hesitation or grumbling; God will repay.
• Didache 4.8Anonymous · ca. 50–150 (often ca. 100) · Share everything with fellow believers, as you share in immortal things.
• Didache 4.9Anonymous · ca. 50–150 (often ca. 100) · Discipline your children and teach them the fear of God from youth.
• Didache 5.1Anonymous · ca. 50–150 (often ca. 100) · The way of death: a catalogue of sins.
• Didache 5.2Anonymous · ca. 50–150 (often ca. 100) · Those on the way of death oppress the poor and kill children.
• Didache 6.2Anonymous · ca. 50–150 (often ca. 100) · Bear the Lord's whole yoke if you can; otherwise do what you can.
• Didache 6.3Anonymous · ca. 50–150 (often ca. 100) · Keep food rules as you can, but never eat food offered to idols.
• 1 Clement 13.1Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · Be humble, boasting only in the Lord, and remember Jesus's teaching.
• 1 Clement 13.2Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · Jesus's sayings on mercy, forgiveness, and judgment.
• 1 Clement 14.3Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · Be kind, as God is kind.
• 1 Clement 16.17Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · If the Lord was so humble, how much more should we be.
• 1 Clement 19.1Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · The humility of the saints has benefited every generation.
• 1 Clement 2.1Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · The Corinthians were humble, generous, and attentive to Christ's words and sufferings.
• 1 Clement 2.5Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · They bore no grudges.
• 1 Clement 2.6Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · They hated division and shared one another's failings.
• 1 Clement 2.7Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · They were always ready to do good.
• 1 Clement 2.8Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · God's commandments were written on their hearts.
• 1 Clement 21.8Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · Children should be raised in Christ's discipline.
• 1 Clement 3.2Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · Pride bred jealousy, strife, and disorder.
• 1 Clement 3.4Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · Jealousy, through which death entered the world, has driven out peace.
• 1 Clement 30.1Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · As God's holy portion, flee slander, impurity, drunkenness, rebellion, adultery, and pride.
• 1 Clement 30.2Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · God opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble.
• 1 Clement 30.3Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · Be humble and self-controlled, justified by deeds, not words.
• 1 Clement 30.4Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · Much talk does not make one righteous.
• 1 Clement 30.5Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · Do not use many words.
• 1 Clement 30.6Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · Seek praise from God, not self.
• 1 Clement 30.7Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · Let others testify to our good deeds.
• 1 Clement 30.8Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · Arrogance marks the cursed; humility, the blessed.
• 1 Clement 33.1Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · Faith is no excuse for idleness; hurry to do good.
• 1 Clement 33.7Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · The righteous and God himself are adorned with good works.
• 1 Clement 33.8Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · Do the work of righteousness with all your strength.
• 1 Clement 34.1Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · The good worker has confidence before his employer.
• 1 Clement 34.2Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · Be eager to do good.
• 1 Clement 34.4Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · Do not be idle in good works.
• 1 Clement 35.5Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · Keep your mind on God and cast away all sin.
• 1 Clement 35.6Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · Those who do or approve of these sins are hateful to God.
• 1 Clement 35.8Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · The hypocrite's sins.
• 1 Clement 38.2Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · Strong and weak, rich and poor, wise and humble should serve one another without boasting.
• 1 Clement 4.7Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · Jealousy led to fratricide.
• 1 Clement 48.6Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · —the greater one is, the humbler one should be.
• 1 Clement 49.1Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · Love keeps Christ's commandments.
• 1 Clement 49.5Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · A hymn to love, which unites, forgives, and makes perfect.
• 1 Clement 53.5Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · Moses's great love for his people.
• 1 Clement 55.1Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · Pagan rulers gave their lives or went into exile for their people.
• 1 Clement 55.2Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · Christians have given themselves up to free or feed others.
• 1 Clement 59.4Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · Intercession for the afflicted, the sick, the hungry, and prisoners.
• 1 Clement 6.4Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · Jealousy has destroyed cities and nations.
• 1 Clement 62.2Clement of Rome · ca. 95–97 (range ca. 70–100) · Summary of the letter: faith, repentance, love, self-control, and concord.
• Epistle of Barnabas 10.4Anonymous · ca. 70–135 (often ca. 130) · Birds of prey stand for people who live by robbing others.
• Epistle of Barnabas 10.6Anonymous · ca. 70–135 (often ca. 130) · The hare stands for corrupters of boys.
• Epistle of Barnabas 10.7Anonymous · ca. 70–135 (often ca. 130) · The hyena stands for adulterers and corrupters.
• Epistle of Barnabas 10.8Anonymous · ca. 70–135 (often ca. 130) · The weasel stands for those who commit impure acts with the mouth.
• Epistle of Barnabas 18.1Anonymous · ca. 70–135 (often ca. 130) · The Two Ways: light and darkness, with their angels.
• Epistle of Barnabas 19.10Anonymous · ca. 70–135 (often ca. 130) · Remember the judgment; seek the saints; work to save souls or give for your sins.
• Epistle of Barnabas 19.11Anonymous · ca. 70–135 (often ca. 130) · Give without grumbling; keep the teaching unaltered; judge justly.
• Epistle of Barnabas 19.12Anonymous · ca. 70–135 (often ca. 130) · Make peace, confess sins, and pray with a clean conscience.
• Epistle of Barnabas 19.2Anonymous · ca. 70–135 (often ca. 130) · Love, fear, and glorify God; hate hypocrisy.
• Epistle of Barnabas 19.3Anonymous · ca. 70–135 (often ca. 130) · Be humble; plot no evil against a neighbor.
• Epistle of Barnabas 19.4Anonymous · ca. 70–135 (often ca. 130) · No sexual immorality, adultery, or abuse of boys; be gentle and forgiving.
• Epistle of Barnabas 19.5Anonymous · ca. 70–135 (often ca. 130) · Love your neighbor; do not kill a child by abortion or after birth; teach children to fear God.
• Epistle of Barnabas 19.6Anonymous · ca. 70–135 (often ca. 130) · Do not covet; keep company with the humble; accept what comes as from God.
• Epistle of Barnabas 19.7Anonymous · ca. 70–135 (often ca. 130) · Slaves respect masters; masters must not treat slaves harshly.
• Epistle of Barnabas 19.8Anonymous · ca. 70–135 (often ca. 130) · Share everything; guard the tongue; keep pure.
• Epistle of Barnabas 19.9Anonymous · ca. 70–135 (often ca. 130) · Be generous; cherish those who teach you God's word.
• Epistle of Barnabas 2.2Anonymous · ca. 70–135 (often ca. 130) · Faith's helpers: fear, endurance, patience, self-control.
• Epistle of Barnabas 20.1Anonymous · ca. 70–135 (often ca. 130) · The way of darkness: a list of vices leading to eternal death.
• Epistle of Barnabas 20.2Anonymous · ca. 70–135 (often ca. 130) · Those on the way of darkness oppress the poor and kill children.
• Epistle of Barnabas 21.2Anonymous · ca. 70–135 (often ca. 130) · An appeal to the well-off to do good to those among them.
• Epistle of Barnabas 3.3Anonymous · ca. 70–135 (often ca. 130) · The true fast: justice, freeing the oppressed, feeding the hungry.
• Epistle of Barnabas 3.5Anonymous · ca. 70–135 (often ca. 130) · God will answer those who show mercy.
• Epistle of Barnabas 4.10Anonymous · ca. 70–135 (often ca. 130) · Do not live in isolation; gather and seek the common good.
• Shepherd of Hermas, Mandate 1.2 (26.2)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · Faith, fear of God, and self-control lead to life.
• Shepherd of Hermas, Mandate 10.1.4 (40.4)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · Those absorbed in worldly business cannot understand divine things.
• Shepherd of Hermas, Mandate 12.1.2 (44.2)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · Evil desire is wild and consumes the worldly.
• Shepherd of Hermas, Mandate 12.2.1 (45.1)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · Chief evil desires: another's spouse, wealth, food, drink, luxury.
• Shepherd of Hermas, Mandate 12.3.1 (46.1)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · Serve good desire by righteousness, truth, faith, and gentleness.
• Shepherd of Hermas, Mandate 2.1 (27.1)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · Be simple and innocent like little children.
• Shepherd of Hermas, Mandate 2.2 (27.2)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · Do not slander or listen to slander.
• Shepherd of Hermas, Mandate 2.4 (27.4)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · Give to everyone in need without hesitation.
• Shepherd of Hermas, Mandate 2.5 (27.5)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · Receivers answer to God for why they took.
• Shepherd of Hermas, Mandate 3.1 (28.1)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · Love truth, for the Lord who dwells in you is true.
• Shepherd of Hermas, Mandate 3.5 (28.5)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · From now on speak only truth, and you will live.
• Shepherd of Hermas, Mandate 4.1.1 (29.1)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · Keep purity; let no thought of another's wife enter your heart.
• Shepherd of Hermas, Mandate 4.1.2 (29.2)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · Even the thought is sin; the deed brings death.
• Shepherd of Hermas, Mandate 4.4.3 (32.3)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · Keep purity, and the Shepherd will dwell in your house.
• Shepherd of Hermas, Mandate 5.2.8 (34.8)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · Put on patience; mastering anger helps keep all the commandments.
• Shepherd of Hermas, Mandate 6.2.5 (36.5)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · Anger, excess, lust, greed, and pride are signs of the evil angel.
• Shepherd of Hermas, Mandate 8.10 (38.10)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · Works of mercy: care for widows and orphans, hospitality, patience, restoring the fallen.
• Shepherd of Hermas, Mandate 8.2 (38.2)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · Refrain from evil, never from good.
• Shepherd of Hermas, Mandate 8.3 (38.3)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · A list of vices to refrain from.
• Shepherd of Hermas, Mandate 8.5 (38.5)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · More vices: theft, lying, greed, deceit, vanity.
• Shepherd of Hermas, Mandate 8.9 (38.9)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · The chief goods: faith, fear of God, love, concord, truth, endurance.
• Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude 1.1 (50.1)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · Christians live as foreigners; why build up possessions here?
• Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude 1.11 (50.11)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · Do not covet; do your own work and be saved.
• Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude 1.6 (50.6)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · Keep only what is sufficient and be ready to leave.
• Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude 1.8 (50.8)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · Instead of fields, buy afflicted souls; care for widows and orphans.
• Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude 1.9 (50.9)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · God made you rich to serve the needy; such property awaits you in heaven.
• Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude 10.3.2 (113.2)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · The virtues remain only in a pure house.
• Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude 10.4.2 (114.2)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · Everyone should be rescued from hardship.
• Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude 10.4.3 (114.3)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · Failing to rescue the desperate makes one guilty of their blood.
• Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude 10.4.4 (114.4)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · Do good now, before the tower is completed and you are shut out.
• Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude 2.5 (51.5)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · The rich is poor in prayer; the poor is rich in prayer. The rich support the poor.
• Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude 2.7 (51.7)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · Rich and poor each serve God with what they have.
• Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude 4.5 (53.5)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · Bear fruit; avoid too many business affairs.
• Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude 5.1.5 (54.5)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · The true fast is to avoid evil and keep God's commands.
• Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude 5.3.7 (56.7)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · On a fast day eat only bread and water, and give the money saved to widows, orphans, or the needy.
• Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude 5.7.1 (60.1)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · Keep your flesh pure so that the Spirit may bear witness to it.
• Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude 5.7.2 (60.2)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · Defiling the flesh defiles the Spirit.
• Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude 6.5.5 (65.5)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · Every indulged vice is a harmful luxury.
• Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude 8.7.6 (73.6)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · God's commandments concern humility, not rank.
• Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude 8.9.1 (75.1)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · Two-thirds dry sticks are believers who grew rich and proud and lived like pagans.
• Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude 9.13.8 (90.8)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · They were seduced by the women in black and stripped off the virtues.
• Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude 9.15.2 (92.2)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · The twelve virgins are Faith, Self-control, Power, Patience, Simplicity, Innocence, Purity, Cheerfulness, Truth, Understanding, Concord, and Love.
• Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude 9.15.3 (92.3)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · The twelve women are Unbelief, Incontinence, Disobedience, Deceit, and eight other vices.
• Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude 9.20.1 (97.1)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · The thorny mountain: the rich and the overbusy.
• Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude 9.20.2 (97.2)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · The rich avoid fellow believers for fear of being asked for help.
• Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude 9.23.4 (100.4)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · If God forgives those who confess, how can a sinner hold a grudge?
• Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude 9.24.2 (101.2)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · The simple and generous who share with all without hesitation.
• Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude 9.30.4 (107.4)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · The round stones are believers whose wealth dimmed them but who stayed faithful.
• Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude 9.30.5 (107.5)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · God trimmed their wealth, leaving enough to do good.
• Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude 9.31.4 (108.4)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · The baptized must keep simplicity, forgive offenses, and heal divisions.
• Shepherd of Hermas, Similitude 9.32.2 (109.2)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · Return your spirit to God whole, as you received it.
• Shepherd of Hermas, Vision 1.1.2 (1.2)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · Seeing Rhoda bathing, Hermas wishes he had such a wife.
• Shepherd of Hermas, Vision 1.1.8 (1.8)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · Even an evil desire in the heart is a great sin.
• Shepherd of Hermas, Vision 1.2.4 (2.4)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · Such a thought is sinful even for a tested servant of God.
• Shepherd of Hermas, Vision 1.3.1 (3.1)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · God is angry because Hermas failed to correct his family.
• Shepherd of Hermas, Vision 2.3.1 (7.1)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · Hermas must forgive his family and stop neglecting them.
• Shepherd of Hermas, Vision 3.6.3 (14.3)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · Cracked stones are those who keep grudges behind a show of peace.
• Shepherd of Hermas, Vision 3.6.5 (14.5)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · Round stones are the rich, who deny the Lord in persecution to keep their wealth.
• Shepherd of Hermas, Vision 3.6.6 (14.6)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · The rich become useful to God only when their wealth is cut away.
• Shepherd of Hermas, Vision 3.8.4 (16.4)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · The second is Self-control, daughter of Faith.
• Shepherd of Hermas, Vision 3.8.7 (16.7)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · Each virtue is born from the one before, from Faith to Love.
• Shepherd of Hermas, Vision 3.9.2 (17.2)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · Share food with the needy; do not consume in excess alone.
• Shepherd of Hermas, Vision 3.9.4 (17.4)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · Not sharing harms those who have.
• Shepherd of Hermas, Vision 3.9.5 (17.5)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · Help the hungry now, before it is too late.
• Shepherd of Hermas, Vision 3.9.6 (17.6)Hermas · ca. 100–150 · The groans of the poor will rise to God against the proud rich.
• 2 Clement 10.1Anonymous · ca. 100–150 · Pursue virtue and flee vice and ungodliness.
• 2 Clement 11.1Anonymous · ca. 100–150 · Serve God with a pure heart and trust his promise.
• 2 Clement 12.5Anonymous · ca. 100–150 · “Neither male nor female”: brothers and sisters without lustful thoughts.
• 2 Clement 13.1Anonymous · ca. 100–150 · Repent, and live so that outsiders do not blaspheme God's name.
• 2 Clement 13.4Anonymous · ca. 100–150 · Outsiders laugh when Christians fail to love even their friends.
• 2 Clement 14.3Anonymous · ca. 100–150 · Keep the flesh pure, the copy, to share in the Spirit, the original.
• 2 Clement 15.1Anonymous · ca. 100–150 · Following this counsel on self-control saves both hearer and preacher.
• 2 Clement 16.2Anonymous · ca. 100–150 · Master evil desires, and share in the mercy of Jesus.
• 2 Clement 16.4Anonymous · ca. 100–150 · Almsgiving, fasting, prayer, and love: almsgiving lightens sin.
• 2 Clement 17.2Anonymous · ca. 100–150 · Help the weak and admonish one another so that all are saved.
• 2 Clement 18.2Anonymous · ca. 100–150 · The preacher confesses he is a sinner still striving for righteousness.
• 2 Clement 3.4Anonymous · ca. 100–150 · We confess Christ by obeying him wholeheartedly.
• 2 Clement 4.3Anonymous · ca. 100–150 · Confess Christ by works of love, purity, and generosity.
• 2 Clement 5.6Anonymous · ca. 100–150 · Live holy lives and do not desire worldly things.
• 2 Clement 6.1Anonymous · ca. 100–150 · No one can serve God and money.
• 2 Clement 6.4Anonymous · ca. 100–150 · This age urges vice; the coming age renounces it.
• 2 Clement 6.9Anonymous · ca. 100–150 · If even the righteous cannot save others, we must keep our baptism pure.
• 2 Clement 8.4Anonymous · ca. 100–150 · Do God's will, keep the flesh pure, and receive eternal life.
• 2 Clement 8.6Anonymous · ca. 100–150 · Keep the flesh pure and the seal of baptism unstained.
• 2 Clement 9.3Anonymous · ca. 100–150 · Guard the flesh as God's temple.
• To the Ephesians 10.2Ignatius of Antioch · ca. 110 (range ca. 105–135) · Answer hostility with gentleness, humility, and prayer.
• To the Ephesians 10.3Ignatius of Antioch · ca. 110 (range ca. 105–135) · Imitate the Lord, who suffered wrong more than anyone, and remain pure.
• To the Ephesians 14.1Ignatius of Antioch · ca. 110 (range ca. 105–135) · Faith is the beginning of life and love its goal; together they are of God.
• To the Ephesians 14.2Ignatius of Antioch · ca. 110 (range ca. 105–135) · Christians are known by their deeds, not their words.
• To the Ephesians 16.1Ignatius of Antioch · ca. 110 (range ca. 105–135) · Those who destroy households will not inherit God's kingdom.
• To the Ephesians 8.2Ignatius of Antioch · ca. 110 (range ca. 105–135) · Because they act in Christ, even the Ephesians' bodily actions are spiritual.
• To Polycarp 4.1Ignatius of Antioch · ca. 110 (range ca. 105–135) · The bishop must care for widows and oversee everything in the church.
• To Polycarp 4.3Ignatius of Antioch · ca. 110 (range ca. 105–135) · Slaves and masters should both avoid pride; slaves should seek God's freedom rather than church-funded release.
• To Polycarp 6.2Ignatius of Antioch · ca. 110 (range ca. 105–135) · Christians are soldiers of God, armed with baptism, faith, love, and endurance, and rewarded for their works.
• To the Smyrnaeans 6.2Ignatius of Antioch · ca. 110 (range ca. 105–135) · The false teachers show no love or care for those in need.
• To the Trallians 8.2Ignatius of Antioch · ca. 110 (range ca. 105–135) · Avoid quarrels that give outsiders reason to blaspheme God's name.
• To the Philippians 10.1Polycarp of Smyrna · ca. 110–135 · Stand firm and follow the Lord's example, loving one another and despising no one.
• To the Philippians 10.2Polycarp of Smyrna · ca. 110–135 · Do good without delay, since almsgiving delivers from death, and live blamelessly so that the Lord is not blasphemed.
• To the Philippians 10.3Polycarp of Smyrna · ca. 110–135 · Woe to anyone who brings the Lord's name into contempt; teach and practice sober living.
• To the Philippians 11.1Polycarp of Smyrna · ca. 110–135 · Polycarp grieves over Valens, a presbyter at Philippi who misused his office, and warns the church against greed.
• To the Philippians 11.2Polycarp of Smyrna · ca. 110–135 · A leader who cannot control his own greed cannot teach others, for greed is idolatry and the saints will judge the world.
• To the Philippians 12.1Polycarp of Smyrna · ca. 110–135 · Polycarp trusts the Philippians' knowledge of Scripture and reminds them to be angry without sinning and not to let the sun go down on their anger.
• To the Philippians 2.2Polycarp of Smyrna · ca. 110–135 · God will raise us as he raised Christ if we do his will, love what he loved, and refuse to repay evil for evil.
• To the Philippians 2.3Polycarp of Smyrna · ca. 110–135 · Polycarp quotes Jesus's teaching on not judging, on forgiving, and on the blessedness of the poor and the persecuted.
• To the Philippians 3.3Polycarp of Smyrna · ca. 110–135 · Faith is the mother of us all, followed by hope and led by love, and whoever loves has fulfilled the commandment of righteousness.
• To the Philippians 4.1Polycarp of Smyrna · ca. 110–135 · Love of money is the root of every trouble, so believers should arm themselves with righteousness and first learn to keep the Lord's commandment themselves.
• To the Philippians 4.2Polycarp of Smyrna · ca. 110–135 · Wives are to be taught to live in faith, love, and purity, to cherish their husbands, and to raise their children in the fear of God.
• To the Philippians 4.3Polycarp of Smyrna · ca. 110–135 · Widows are to pray constantly and avoid slander and greed, knowing that they are God's altar and that God sees every secret thought.
• To the Philippians 5.1Polycarp of Smyrna · ca. 110–135 · Because God is not mocked, believers must live worthily of his commandment.
• To the Philippians 5.3Polycarp of Smyrna · ca. 110–135 · Young men must live pure lives, because the sexually immoral will not inherit God's kingdom, and they must be subject to the presbyters and deacons; the virgins must keep a pure conscience.
• To the Philippians 6.2Polycarp of Smyrna · ca. 110–135 · Those who ask forgiveness must forgive, since all will stand before Christ's judgment seat.
• To Diognetus 10.4Anonymous · ca. 150–200 (disputed) · Loving God, one becomes an imitator of his kindness.
• To Diognetus 10.5Anonymous · ca. 150–200 (disputed) · Imitating God is not domination or wealth.
• To Diognetus 10.6Anonymous · ca. 150–200 (disputed) · Whoever carries others' burdens and gives to the needy imitates God.
• To Diognetus 5.10Anonymous · ca. 150–200 (disputed) · They obey the laws and live above them.
• To Diognetus 5.6Anonymous · ca. 150–200 (disputed) · They marry and have children, but do not abandon infants.
• To Diognetus 5.7Anonymous · ca. 150–200 (disputed) · They share meals, but not beds.
• First Apology 14Justin Martyr · ca. 150–155 · Converted from immorality, magic, greed, and hatred, Christians now live in self-control, share their goods, and pray for enemies.
• First Apology 15Justin Martyr · ca. 150–155 · Christ's teaching on purity, divorce, celibacy, repentance, love of enemies, generosity, and trust in God.
• First Apology 16Justin Martyr · ca. 150–155 · Christ taught patience, truthfulness without oaths, worship of God alone, and that only those who do his will are true Christians.
• First Apology 27Justin Martyr · ca. 150–155 · Christians do not expose infants, who are often raised for prostitution; the pagans do the vices they falsely charge to Christians.
• First Apology 29Justin Martyr · ca. 150–155 · Christians marry only to raise children or remain continent; one young man even sought castration to prove Christian chastity.
• First Apology 39Justin Martyr · ca. 150–155 · Isaiah's prophecy of swords into plowshares is fulfilled: the twelve apostles went out, and Christians now die rather than lie or fight.
• First Apology 43Justin Martyr · ca. 150–155 · Prophecy does not mean fate; humans have free choice, so reward and punishment are just.
• First Apology 44Justin Martyr · ca. 150–155 · God gave humans free choice; the philosophers borrowed from Moses, so there are “seeds of truth” among all.
• Second Apology 11Justin Martyr · ca. 150–160 · Death is a debt all must pay; like Heracles choosing Virtue in Xenophon's story, Christians choose the hard road to true happiness.
• Second Apology 3Justin Martyr · ca. 150–160 · Christians do not kill themselves, since that would defy God's purpose for the human race; but when questioned they will not lie.
• Second Apology 6Justin Martyr · ca. 150–160 · God delays the final judgment for the sake of the Christians; humans and angels act by free choice, not by fate, as the Stoics wrongly teach.
• Second Apology 9Justin Martyr · ca. 150–160 · The threat of eternal punishment is not a scare tactic: without judgment there would be no God who cares, and no virtue or vice.
• Dialogue with Trypho 10.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Trypho dismisses the rumors and says he has read the Gospel, whose commands seem impossible to keep.
• Dialogue with Trypho 102.4Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · God made angels and men free and judges them while preserving their freedom, as at Babel.
• Dialogue with Trypho 105.6Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Matt 5:20.
• Dialogue with Trypho 110.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Christians have beaten swords into plowshares; each sits under his own vine, that is, is faithful to his own wife.
• Dialogue with Trypho 12.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · The true Sabbath is a life of repentance; the true circumcision is of the heart.
• Dialogue with Trypho 124.4Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Humans were made capable of becoming “gods” and sons of the Most High, but fall like Adam and Eve.
• Dialogue with Trypho 134.1Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Justin criticizes rabbis who permit polygamy by appealing to the patriarchs.
• Dialogue with Trypho 14.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · True washing is of the soul from anger, greed, and envy; the unleavened bread signifies leaving old sins.
• Dialogue with Trypho 14.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · New leaven means new works.
• Dialogue with Trypho 140.4Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · No one is evil by God's fault, but by his own.
• Dialogue with Trypho 141.1Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · God made angels and men free; sin is their own responsibility.
• Dialogue with Trypho 141.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · God foresees but does not cause sin; forgiveness comes through repentance, not mere knowledge of God.
• Dialogue with Trypho 141.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Even David was forgiven only after repentance.
• Dialogue with Trypho 141.4Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · David's fall shows that the patriarchs' marriages were not license; Justin criticizes polygamy.
• Dialogue with Trypho 23.5Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Women cannot be circumcised, yet can be righteous; so circumcision is only a sign.
• Dialogue with Trypho 85.7Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Christ commanded love of enemies, which Isaiah also proclaimed.
• Dialogue with Trypho 88.5Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · God made angels and men free; he rewards and punishes accordingly.
• Dialogue with Trypho 93.1Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · All peoples know naturally that adultery, fornication, and murder are wrong.
• Dialogue with Trypho 93.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · All righteousness is summed up in the two great commandments.
• Dialogue with Trypho 93.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Righteousness is twofold: toward God and toward neighbor.
• Dialogue with Trypho 95.1Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · All humanity is under the law's curse.
• Dialogue with Trypho 96.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Christians pray for their enemies, as Christ taught.
• Martyrdom of Polycarp 10.2Anonymous · ca. 156–160 · Polycarp was willing to explain himself to the governing authority, but not to the mob.
• Oration to the Greeks 11Tatian · ca. 165–172 · The Christian is free of ambition, greed, and fear of death; death came through human free will and sin, not through fate or God.
• Oration to the Greeks 22Tatian · ca. 165–172 · The pantomime actor, playing gods and heroes on stage, teaches vice to the audience, including children.
• Oration to the Greeks 23Tatian · ca. 165–172 · Tatian condemns athletic contests and, far more, the gladiatorial games, in which the rich buy men to be killed for entertainment.
• Oration to the Greeks 28Tatian · ca. 165–172 · Human laws contradict each other, allowing among some peoples what others forbid, such as incest and pederasty.
• Oration to the Greeks 34Tatian · ca. 165–172 · The Greeks honor with statues tyrants, fratricides, adulterers, and prostitutes, while despising the Christian way of life.
• To Autolycus 1.2Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · God is seen only by the eyes of a pure soul; sin clouds them, as rust clouds a mirror.
• To Autolycus 2.34Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · The pagans worship images of dead men; God gave the law and the prophets so that people might know the one God and live righteously.
• To Autolycus 3.10Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · Because Israel had been strangers in Egypt for 430 years, God's law commanded them not to oppress strangers.
• To Autolycus 3.12Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · The prophets, speaking by the one Spirit, agree with the law in teaching justice, mercy, and care for the poor, the orphan, and the widow.
• To Autolycus 3.13Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · Scripture forbids unchastity even in thought; the Gospel forbids lustful looks, marrying a divorced woman, and divorce except for sexual immorality.
• To Autolycus 3.14Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · Christians are taught to love their enemies, to do good without boasting, and to obey and pray for the authorities.
• To Autolycus 3.15Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · Christians, who may not even watch gladiatorial shows or immoral plays, cannot be guilty of promiscuity or cannibalism; their life is marked by chastity, monogamy, righteousness, and the rule of God.
• To Autolycus 3.6Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · Plato's community of wives and the incest and sodomy taught (so Theophilus says) by Epicurus and the Stoics show that the charges of immorality belong to the philosophers.
• To Autolycus 3.9Theophilus of Antioch · ca. 180–185 · Christians confess one God, who governs all things by providence and gave the holy law of the Ten Commandments through Moses to Israel and, through them, to the world.
• A Plea for the Christians 11Athenagoras · ca. 176–180 · Christian teaching is shown by its fruit: even uneducated Christians love their enemies, do not retaliate, and love their neighbors, as the philosophers do not.
• A Plea for the Christians 12Athenagoras · ca. 176–180 · Christians live pure lives because they expect God's judgment and know the Father, Son, and Spirit; those who deny judgment are called pious, but Christians are not.
• A Plea for the Christians 32Athenagoras · ca. 176–180 · Christians are forbidden even lustful looks and keep their “brothers and sisters” chaste, even in the kiss of greeting.
• A Plea for the Christians 33Athenagoras · ca. 176–180 · Christians marry only for children, many remain celibate, and marriage is for life: divorce and remarriage, and even remarriage after a spouse's death, are condemned as adultery.
• A Plea for the Christians 34Athenagoras · ca. 176–180 · Those who accuse Christians of vice practice prostitution and pederasty themselves; the real cannibalism is their violence against defenseless Christians.
• A Plea for the Christians 35Athenagoras · ca. 176–180 · Christians cannot be murderers: they will not even watch gladiatorial shows, and they condemn abortion and the exposure of infants as murder.
• On the Resurrection of the Dead 22Athenagoras · ca. 177–180 (if by Athenagoras) · The virtues themselves (courage, self-control, prudence, justice) belong to the whole person, body and soul, and cannot be exercised by a soul alone.
• The Instructor 1.1.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Clement introduces the Word as Exhorter, Instructor, and Teacher: having converted us, he now trains our conduct and heals our passions.
• The Instructor 1.1.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The Word will also be the Teacher of doctrine, but as Instructor he first guides practice by precept and by good and bad examples.
• The Instructor 1.1.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · As the body needs a physician before it can work, the soul needs the Instructor to heal its passions before it can be taught.
• The Instructor 1.10.94Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Praise and blame are both necessary medicines: blame for the hardened, praise for the willing; Scripture warns the young against the company of sinners.
• The Instructor 1.10.95Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Ezekiel's portrait of the righteous man outlines the Christian life that leads to eternal life.
• The Instructor 1.12.100Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The Word is Savior because he heals with rational medicines; we owe him gratitude, and must contemplate God, live by the truth, and make our words match our deeds.
• The Instructor 1.12.98Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Jesus, who formed, regenerated, and instructs the human being, shows us the true life; imitating him, we are transformed toward God's image and likeness and learn a simple, self-sufficient life.
• The Instructor 1.12.99Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Christ's instruction is for peace, not war; it needs no luxury, and it forms a noble disposition that shows itself in every part of daily life.
• The Instructor 1.13.101Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Sin is whatever is contrary to right reason (the Word); obedience to the Word is faith, and produces right action.
• The Instructor 1.13.102Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Sin makes man like the beasts; right action (duty) is obedience to the Word's commands, leading to eternal rest in God, and the Christian life is a system of such rational actions.
• The Instructor 1.13.103Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The Lord's commandments, written down as spiritual precepts, direct both this life and the eternal life; Clement will outline the latter from Scripture.
• The Instructor 1.3.9Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · We must love the Word in return and imitate him, the sighted guide in our darkness, so that God's image and likeness may be fulfilled in us.
• The Instructor 1.4.10Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Men and women have the same virtue, the same Instructor, and the same salvation; in the age to come the distinction of sex no longer matters.
• The Instructor 1.7.55Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The famous tutors of antiquity failed to form their pupils' character; the Persian princes learned only archery and grew up in incest and license.
• The Instructor 1.8.65Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Reproof, rebuke, and admonition are like surgery, medicine, and diet for the soul; like a general, the Word punishes for the good of those he leads.
• The Instructor 2.1.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Book 2 begins the practical instruction with the body: others live to eat, but the Christian eats to live, cleansing the soul's eye and purifying the flesh.
• The Instructor 2.1.10Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Christians may accept invitations and eat what is set before them, giving thanks, but should avoid gluttony, refrain for the sake of the weak, and not eat with a brother who lives immorally.
• The Instructor 2.1.11Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Paul and the Pythagoreans say abstaining from meat and wine is good; eating meat is not sin, but gluttonous table manners make people like pigs and dogs.
• The Instructor 2.1.12Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Excess in food is the clearest vice; Paul rebuked the Corinthians whose common suppers shamed the poor.
• The Instructor 2.1.13Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Christians should eat with decorum, not talk with their mouths full, and do all to God's glory, as the Lord's simple meal of bread and fish shows.
• The Instructor 2.1.14Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The fish Peter caught stands for simple, God-given food and for putting away greed; not everything permitted is profitable, and God, who feeds the birds, provides our needs.
• The Instructor 2.1.15Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Simple foods such as bulbs, olives, vegetables, milk, cheese, and fruit are healthy; the risen Lord ate broiled fish; the glutton is ruled by a “belly-demon.”
• The Instructor 2.1.16Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Matthew ate no meat and John the Baptist ate locusts and honey; but Peter's vision shows that food is indifferent, and the middle way is best.
• The Instructor 2.1.17Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The mean is having what is necessary; the law's food restrictions trained the Jews in frugality by breaking the habit of luxury.
• The Instructor 2.1.18Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Plato condemned the luxurious life, as David's simple distribution of bread shows; those whose god is the belly face destruction.
• The Instructor 2.1.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Food is for life, not pleasure; simple food gives health and strength, while elaborate cookery breeds disease.
• The Instructor 2.1.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Gluttons search the world for delicacies, spending their lives around the kitchen.
• The Instructor 2.1.4Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Gluttony has no limit; the belly will be destroyed; and those who call their lavish dinners agapai (love feasts) profane the holy name of love.
• The Instructor 2.1.5Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Simple food makes people stronger and wiser; true love (agapē) is heavenly food, never failing, and must not be dragged down to the level of banquets.
• The Instructor 2.1.6Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The law hangs on love of God and neighbor; the church's supper is a sign of love, not love itself, for God's kingdom is not food and drink.
• The Instructor 2.1.7Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The church's common meal should serve love and be plain and moderate; gluttony makes human beings like beasts, crawling on their bellies like the serpent.
• The Instructor 2.1.8Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Isaiah condemns the feasting of those who say “let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die”; Christians avoid food offered to idols, not from fear but for conscience's sake and for the weak.
• The Instructor 2.1.9Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Food is indifferent in itself, but Christians must not eat at the table of demons or cause the weak to stumble; they should use God's gifts as masters and seek the heavenly food.
• The Instructor 2.10.100Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The light within us is not overcome by darkness; the fornicator is dead to God; modesty must never be put off, and in the resurrection the pure flesh will put on incorruption like the angels.
• The Instructor 2.10.101Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The Word dwells in us as in a temple, which sexual sin defiles; the fate of those who sinned at Peor is a warning, and Sirach warns against following desires.
• The Instructor 2.10.102Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Sexual desire must be ruled; only the married may sow, at the right time; and the Lord's words about ravens and lilies teach that we need not care for costly food or clothing.
• The Instructor 2.10.103Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The lilies are clothed by God; Christians are told not to seek “what” they will eat, that is, dainties and luxury, which the nations seek, but plain food, which the Father knows we need.
• The Instructor 2.10.104Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · If the Lord removes anxiety even about food and clothing, he condemns cosmetics and finery all the more; the “grass” thrown into the oven is the crowd that loves display.
• The Instructor 2.10.105Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The rich man in purple and Lazarus illustrate the fate of the lovers of finery; Sparta allowed ornaments only to courtesans, while effeminate Athenians wore gold.
• The Instructor 2.10.106Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Love of finery is idolatry of a mere image of beauty; clothing is needed only to protect the body against cold and heat.
• The Instructor 2.10.107Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Since clothing serves a need common to men and women, it should be similar for both; women may have softer fabrics, but not silks and transparent fabrics that reveal the body.
• The Instructor 2.10.108Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Dyed clothing is useless and suggestive; white suits those pure within, as Daniel's vision of the Ancient of Days and the martyrs' white robes in Revelation show.
• The Instructor 2.10.109Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Embroidered and dyed clothing is for display; Scripture forbids boasting in clothing; the faithful are clothed with incorruption; a wife who loves finery falls away from God and her husband, like Eriphyle.
• The Instructor 2.10.110Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Prodicus pictured virtue in white and vice in gaudy clothes; the queen's golden robes in Psalm 45 are the church's adornment of faith, in which Christ shines like gold.
• The Instructor 2.10.111Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Women's clothing may be soft but not ornate; it is shameful to spend wealth on covering the body, which Adam covered with leaves; wool is only sheep's hair.
• The Instructor 2.10.112Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · John the Baptist wore camel's hair and ate locusts and honey, and Elijah wore a sheepskin: examples of frugal, simple life.
• The Instructor 2.10.113Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Isaiah went naked and barefoot and Jeremiah wore only a loincloth; trailing robes are pretentious; the Lord's long robe signifies the Scriptures, and he is clothed with light.
• The Instructor 2.10.114Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Women should not bare any part of the body; Scripture commands the head to be veiled; purple clothing draws the eyes of men and inflames vanity.
• The Instructor 2.10.115Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Costly purples and fine linens make their wearers worth less than their clothes; the foolish pursue what seems good instead of what is truly good.
• The Instructor 2.10.83Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The aim of marital intercourse is children, and in begetting a human being cooperates with God; seed must not be wasted in unnatural acts. Moses's prohibition of the hare and the hyena was read as a symbolic ban on pederasty and adultery.
• The Instructor 2.10.84Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Clement agrees with the moral meaning of the prohibition but rejects the belief that animals change their sex: seasonal changes in birds alter color and voice, not nature.
• The Instructor 2.10.85Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The hyena does not change sex or have both sexes; its supposed female organ is only a fleshy growth, a mark of its lust.
• The Instructor 2.10.86Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The hyena's perversion is a picture of unnatural lust; Plato called pederasty beastly, and Paul condemns unnatural relations as dishonorable passions.
• The Instructor 2.10.87Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Nature itself, by the structure of the body, forbids homosexual acts and other unfruitful intercourse; Jeremiah's “hyena's den” condemns idolatry.
• The Instructor 2.10.88Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The hare's constant mating was read as a symbol; the prohibition of eating it teaches abstinence from excessive intercourse, intercourse with pregnant women, homosexual acts, pederasty, and adultery.
• The Instructor 2.10.89Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Moses forbade sexual immorality, adultery, and the corruption of boys openly; the punishment of Sodom was written as a warning to us.
• The Instructor 2.10.90Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · We should regard boys as sons and other men's wives as daughters, and control the sexual organs with modesty; nature permits marriage for procreation, not excess or relations with youths.
• The Instructor 2.10.91Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Plato, learning from Moses, forbade sowing where seed cannot grow; the law forbids homosexual intercourse and adultery; sexual union is lawful only with one's own wife.
• The Instructor 2.10.92Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Seed must not be wasted; Moses forbade intercourse during menstruation, and Clement holds that intercourse during pregnancy is also wrong, since pleasure alone, even in marriage, is not a lawful aim.
• The Instructor 2.10.93Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The organs of generation, which God created, are not shameful to name; during pregnancy nature is at work and should not be disturbed; lust breeds many passions, and Scripture prays to be delivered from them.
• The Instructor 2.10.94Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Whether to marry at all is a real question; even within marriage intercourse is not to be used freely, since, as Democritus said, it exhausts the body.
• The Instructor 2.10.95Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Marriage is to be accepted, for God wills humanity to multiply, but not for licentiousness; intercourse not aimed at children outrages nature.
• The Instructor 2.10.96Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Marriage aims at children; abortion, used to hide sexual immorality, destroys humanity with the embryo; the married should not have intercourse by day, the time for prayer, reading, and good works.
• The Instructor 2.10.97Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Marital intercourse should be occasional and modest, at night after the day's prayers, and marked by dignity toward one's wife; love founded on lust soon fades and turns to hate.
• The Instructor 2.10.98Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Licentious speech must not even be named among Christians; intercourse is risky except for procreation, and adultery leads to death.
• The Instructor 2.10.99Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Even pagan poetry condemns adultery and homosexual acts; those who sin in darkness forget that God's eyes see all, as Sirach, Isaiah, and Heraclitus say.
• The Instructor 2.11.116Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Ornate sandals with gold, jewels, and erotic inscriptions show vanity; footwear should be chosen according to nature.
• The Instructor 2.11.117Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Shoes are for protection; women should wear plain shoes, while men may go barefoot; John the Baptist's words about the Lord's sandal strap show plain footwear.
• The Instructor 2.12.118Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Precious stones and pearls fascinate the foolish like fire fascinates children; the true pearl is Christ, the pure Word, through whom the flesh, reborn in water, becomes precious.
• The Instructor 2.12.119Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The jeweled walls of the heavenly Jerusalem are symbols of the apostles and the Spirit; those who read them literally as an excuse for luxury do not understand God's will.
• The Instructor 2.12.120Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · God gives necessities openly and hides luxuries; all things are made for sharing, and the loving person says “Why should I not share?”; spending on people is better than on jewels.
• The Instructor 2.12.121Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Costly things are for no one's pride; ornaments should be thrown away, since true beauty is inner virtue: justice, self-control, courage, and godliness.
• The Instructor 2.12.122Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Love of finery teaches deceit; women loaded with gold chains are like rich prisoners in fetters.
• The Instructor 2.12.123Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Gold ornaments are chains and even the bonds of Aphrodite's adultery; serpent-shaped jewelry recalls the serpent that deceived Eve.
• The Instructor 2.12.124Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Clement quotes Aristophanes's long comic catalogue of women's clothes, cosmetics, and jewelry.
• The Instructor 2.12.125Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Women waste their wealth on burdensome ornaments; the Lord called the hoarding rich man a fool; Apelles mocked a pupil who painted Helen rich instead of beautiful.
• The Instructor 2.12.126Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The Hebrews melted their women's ornaments into the golden calf; the prophets condemn ornaments as the trappings of idolatry and unfaithfulness.
• The Instructor 2.12.127Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Christian women should reject courtesan-like adornment and be adorned with good works.
• The Instructor 2.12.128Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Natural beauty needs no ornament and ugliness is only exposed by it; Christian women should embrace simplicity, which is sufficiency, born of justice.
• The Instructor 2.12.129Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The Christian woman's jewelry should be generosity, good works, modesty, self-control, and wisdom; the ears should not be pierced for earrings but opened to true teaching.
• The Instructor 2.2.20Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · To drink Christ's blood is to share his incorruption: the mingling of the cup and the Word is called the Eucharist, which sanctifies body and soul. The young should for the most part avoid wine, which inflames desire.
• The Instructor 2.2.21Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The impulses of youth must be cooled by water; grown men should take their midday meal dry, since excess drink shows incontinence.
• The Instructor 2.2.22Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Water should be drunk in moderation; wine may be taken sparingly in the evening, and the elderly may drink more freely, but always within the limits of a clear mind.
• The Instructor 2.2.23Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Wine in moderation helps health and good humor; it should be mixed with plenty of water, both being God's gifts.
• The Instructor 2.2.24Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Excess wine confuses speech and sight, as in Pentheus's drunken vision of two suns, and leads to anger, folly, and every kind of fall.
• The Instructor 2.2.25Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The Word should be present especially at banquets, to keep them from drunkenness; wisdom is the art of living and must accompany us always.
• The Instructor 2.2.26Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The drunkard is a ridiculous and pitiable sight; we should shape ourselves so as not to become such a spectacle.
• The Instructor 2.2.27Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Drunkenness is defined and condemned; Proverbs shows the drunkard in rags, full of woes, with the livid eyes of a corpse, dead to the Word.
• The Instructor 2.2.28Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Proverbs warns against drunkenness, likening the drunkard to a pilot lost in a storm at sea, whose mind is shipwrecked on pleasure.
• The Instructor 2.2.29Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Paul forbids drunkenness; Christ changed water into wine but did not permit drunkenness; wine is a symbol of his blood; drink only to meet need, keeping the soul dry and clear.
• The Instructor 2.2.30Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Seeking rare imported wines is a sign of incontinence; for the self-controlled one local wine, the gift of one God, is enough.
• The Instructor 2.2.31Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Drink with decorum, slowly and without gulping; do not show off in drinking, for wine has ruined many.
• The Instructor 2.2.33Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The Encratites, who reject wine, are answered by the Lord's example; women should drink modestly and not expose themselves, and all should behave as in the Lord's presence.
• The Instructor 2.2.34Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Drunkards have their reason in their belly, like the astrologers' “headless” figure; Noah's drunkenness is recorded as a warning; enough wine is enough.
• The Instructor 2.3.35Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Gold and silver cups, costly vessels, and luxurious furniture are useless and harmful; the time is short.
• The Instructor 2.3.36Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Paul's teaching on living “as though not” applies all the more to luxury; the Lord bids us sell our goods and follow him, possessing only faith, confession, and kindness.
• The Instructor 2.3.37Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Riches end in Hades; household goods should be judged by usefulness, not costliness, since a plain knife, basin, lamp, or bed serves just as well.
• The Instructor 2.3.38Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The Lord ate simply, reclined on grass, washed feet with a towel, and asked for water in a clay jar; a Christian's goods should suit a single, simple life.
• The Instructor 2.3.39Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Wealth ill-used is vice's citadel and love of money the root of all evils; luxury extends even to golden chamber pots. True wealth is freedom from desire, and wisdom is bought only with the Word.
• The Instructor 2.4.40Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Revels and all-night drinking parties with flutes, dances, and cymbals have no place at a Christian feast; we should walk decently as in the day.
• The Instructor 2.4.41Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Flutes and pipes suit beasts and idolaters, and sensual music corrupts; the instruments of Psalm 150 are to be understood spiritually as the tongue, mouth, body, and church.
• The Instructor 2.4.43Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · At meals Christians should love God through thanksgiving and psalms and their neighbor through good conversation; singing to the lyre or cithara, as David did, is not blameworthy.
• The Instructor 2.5.45Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Jesters and buffoonery have no place among Christians: speech is the fruit of character, and ridiculous speech comes from a ridiculous character.
• The Instructor 2.5.46Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Laughter is natural but must be moderated: a smile befits the self-controlled, while loud laughter is the mark of the fool.
• The Instructor 2.5.47Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · One should be neither a loud laugher nor sullen, but thoughtful; a smile must suit the occasion and the company.
• The Instructor 2.5.48Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Laughter is a danger to the young; wine makes the foolish laugh and dance, loosens the tongue into foul speech, and exposes hidden character.
• The Instructor 2.6.49Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Christians must avoid and discourage foul speech, which defiles; the Instructor guards the ears with chaste words like wrestlers' ear-guards and turns the eyes to good things.
• The Instructor 2.6.50Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Paul forbids foul and foolish talk; we will give account for every idle word; keeping company with the righteous guards ears and eyes.
• The Instructor 2.6.51Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Hate evil and cling to good; avoid shameful sights, words, and deeds, as Noah's sons covered their father's nakedness.
• The Instructor 2.6.52Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The Instructor cuts off sin at its root, forbidding foul words as the path to foul deeds; the body and marriage are not shameful, only their misuse; idle chatter must also be avoided.
• The Instructor 2.7.53Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Mockery at meals breeds enmity and is sinful; better to keep silent; and the young should generally stay away from banquets.
• The Instructor 2.7.54Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Wisdom warns against dining and drinking with married women; if women must be present they should be modestly dressed, and men should keep their eyes and posture decorous.
• The Instructor 2.7.55Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · At table the self-controlled eat little and slowly, do not reach first or linger long, and sit decorously.
• The Instructor 2.7.56Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The self-controlled leave meals early; the apostles avoided serving tables and forbade idol offerings, blood, strangled things, and sexual immorality; drunkenness brings both foolish laughter and tears.
• The Instructor 2.7.57Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Elders may tease the young gently in ways that teach modesty; but mockery should be passed over in silence, for it is dangerous.
• The Instructor 2.7.58Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Speech should be measured to the listener: the old may speak at feasts, the young briefly when asked; the voice should be neither loud nor inaudible.
• The Instructor 2.7.59Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Avoid contentious argument and immoderate speech; a measured voice befits the self-controlled, as Odysseus's rebuke of the babbling Thersites shows.
• The Instructor 2.7.60Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Wisdom forbids idle chatter even in prayer; at table Christians should avoid rude noises and habits, and behave with calm and decorum, for the Christian belongs to peace.
• The Instructor 2.8.61Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Garlands and perfumes are unnecessary; the sinful woman who anointed Jesus's feet honored him with what she had, and her perfume symbolizes his teaching spreading to the ends of the earth.
• The Instructor 2.8.64Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Aristippus argued that perfume does not harm a man any more than a horse; but for rational beings such indulgence is blameworthy, and luxury invents endless perfumes.
• The Instructor 2.8.65Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Some cities banished perfumers; Christians should smell of goodness and of Christ, anointed with the Spirit as Christ himself was anointed.
• The Instructor 2.8.66Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Some mild perfumes may be allowed to women, but in excess they smell of the funeral; perfume can make men effeminate.
• The Instructor 2.8.67Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · As luxury is shut out of taste, so it must be shut out of smell; the incense the High Priest offers is spiritual, the fragrance of love; plain oil is enough for the body.
• The Instructor 2.8.68Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Some fragrances have medicinal uses and may be used as remedies; but pleasure without usefulness belongs to the character of a courtesan.
• The Instructor 2.8.69Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Moderate use of ointment for health is allowed, as Sirach commends the physician and perfumer; but lavish perfume is effeminate, and even makes hair gray sooner.
• The Instructor 2.8.70Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Garlands belong to revels; flowers are best enjoyed in the meadow and by sight, glorifying the Creator, not worn on the head where they chill it and give no pleasure.
• The Instructor 2.8.71Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Flowers and beauty fade; the Christian's crowns are spouse, marriage, and children, and Christ is the crown of the church; flowers have medicinal properties but garlands are for revelers.
• The Instructor 2.8.72Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The early Greeks did not use garlands; Christians avoid them because they are dedicated to idols and used in the service of demons.
• The Instructor 2.8.76Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Perfumes made from flowers have medicinal value, and all these things were created for our good use; the godly may enjoy flowers' scent but should not wear garlands.
• The Instructor 2.9.77Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Before sleep we should bless God and call on the Word; luxurious bedding is harmful as well as self-indulgent, and plain level beds are healthier.
• The Instructor 2.9.78Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Neither luxury nor Cynic hardship: Christians should sleep on a simple, moderately firm bed, as Jacob slept with a stone for a pillow and saw the heavenly vision.
• The Instructor 2.9.80Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Wisdom and Paul call us to watchfulness and sobriety as children of the day; light food and discipline keep us wakeful, and the inner light should be turned within.
• The Instructor 2.9.81Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Overeating brings heavy sleep and clouds the soul, as Lot's drunken sleep shows; Christians should rise at night to study, work, or spin, and not sleep by day.
• The Instructor 3.1.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Knowing oneself leads to knowing and becoming like God; desire, shape-shifting like Proteus, degrades the human being, but the one in whom the Word dwells has true beauty and is made like God.
• The Instructor 3.1.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · God freed the flesh and adorned it with immortality; love is true beauty, as Paul describes it; the Lord himself had no outward beauty, but showed the true beauty of goodness and immortality.
• The Instructor 3.10.49Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Young men should exercise in the gymnasium; women should exercise in spinning, weaving, and housework, like the woman of Proverbs 31, Sarah, and Rachel.
• The Instructor 3.10.50Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Scripture gives examples of humble work: Rachel pastured sheep and Jacob tended Laban's flocks; men may wrestle, play ball, walk, hoe, draw water, and chop wood.
• The Instructor 3.10.51Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Reading aloud and plain wrestling are good exercise, not for rivalry or show; in exercise as in everything, the mean between idleness and excess is best.
• The Instructor 3.10.52Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Humble self-help and service to others, like Abraham serving his guests, are good exercise; fishing is allowed, but the better fishing is catching people through baptism.
• The Instructor 3.11.53Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Soft clothing and gold need not be wholly forbidden, but the Instructor, as charioteer, must rein in the passions; Christians should wear plain white clothing, witnessing by good conduct among the Gentiles.
• The Instructor 3.11.54Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The self-controlled have plain, seemly dress; the law of leprosy, where the one wholly white is clean, and Plato's preference for white teach simplicity.
• The Instructor 3.11.55Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · White and simple dress reflects a pure character; plain undressed wool keeps warm in winter and suits an easy, sufficient life.
• The Instructor 3.11.56Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Women may wear softer but plain clothing; Christians should put on Christ; ears should not be pierced; whoever thinks gold adorns him is worth less than gold.
• The Instructor 3.11.57Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Women may wear a gold ring only as a seal for household goods; a wife with an unchaste husband may adorn herself to please him alone, while gently leading him to simplicity.
• The Instructor 3.11.58Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Dignity comes from removing excess; husbands should entrust the household to their wives; men may have a signet ring for sealing only; freedom lies in the soul, not in ornaments.
• The Instructor 3.11.59Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Christians should live freely as God's adopted children; a man's signet ring should be worn on the little finger and engraved with a dove, fish, ship, lyre, or anchor, not idols or weapons.
• The Instructor 3.11.60Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Christians should not engrave lovers on their rings; men should keep short hair and a beard, not shaved bare, as the psalmist praises Aaron's anointed beard.
• The Instructor 3.11.61Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Hair should be cut only as needed, the moustache trimmed with scissors, and the beard left alone for its dignity; a distinctive appearance helps keep people from sinning.
• The Instructor 3.11.62Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Short hair toughens a man's head; women should tie their hair simply with a plain pin, since elaborate braiding damages the hair and makes them fearful of spoiling it.
• The Instructor 3.11.63Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Wigs are godless: when the presbyter lays on hands in blessing he blesses someone else's hair; wives who wear false hair deceive their husbands and shame Christ; gray hair should not be dyed.
• The Instructor 3.11.64Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · True beauty is first the soul's, adorned by the Spirit with the virtues; bodily beauty comes from health, temperate food, and drink, not cosmetics.
• The Instructor 3.11.65Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Exercise produces genuine beauty by using up the surplus of food through heat; in an idle body food is not properly absorbed.
• The Instructor 3.11.66Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Idleness breeds excess and lust, which exercise dissolves; those made in God's image should not dishonor him with cosmetics; wives should adorn themselves with modesty and the hidden beauty of the heart.
• The Instructor 3.11.67Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Women's true adornment is their own handiwork and household care, in which husband, children, and God rejoice; the valiant woman of Proverbs is a crown to her husband.
• The Instructor 3.11.68Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Women should correct theatrical postures, walks, and voices; Proverbs warns of the harlot's honeyed lips; Samson was defeated by a harlot, but Joseph by his chastity defeated Potiphar's wife.
• The Instructor 3.11.69Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Affected, mincing walks are the mark of catamites and courtesans; the harlot's steps do not lead to life.
• The Instructor 3.11.70Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The eyes must be guarded, for ogling is adultery with the eyes; the Lord says to cut out the offending eye; the eye is the lamp of the body, revealing what is within.
• The Instructor 3.11.71Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Paul commands us to put sexual immorality to death, but some women flaunt themselves with mastic, pins, and painted faces, like the foolish woman in Proverbs who calls to passers-by.
• The Instructor 3.11.72Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Proverbs warns against the adulteress's stolen waters, which lead to Hades; Isaiah threatens the vain daughters of Zion with humiliation.
• The Instructor 3.11.73Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Mistresses should keep their maidservants chaste, for a servant's license reflects on her mistress; walking should be dignified, not showy, and no sign of softness should appear in a man.
• The Instructor 3.11.74Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Masters should treat servants with fairness and kindness, as Peter teaches; Zeno's portrait of the modest, manly young man is a good model.
• The Instructor 3.11.75Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Men should not idle in barbershops and taverns or gamble; only good company benefits, as the prohibition of pork symbolically teaches avoidance of swinish people.
• The Instructor 3.11.76Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The food laws allegorically teach us to avoid plunderers and keep company with the righteous, who ruminate on the Word; Christians should not attend the games and theaters, which are full of disorder and lust.
• The Instructor 3.11.77Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The shows inflame lust and fill the mind with shameful images; spectacles that kill without pity, waste wealth, and provoke riots are not harmless play.
• The Instructor 3.11.78Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Every believer must pursue the true philosophy of loving God and neighbor; even the unlettered can hear, for faith's book is love, and one can live in the world in a godly way.
• The Instructor 3.11.79Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Buyers and sellers should name one honest price without oaths; Christ drove the dishonest from the temple; men and women should come to church modestly, and women should be veiled at prayer.
• The Instructor 3.11.80Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Christians should be at all times what they appear in church; instead many change like the octopus, returning from worship to love songs, drinking, and revelry.
• The Instructor 3.11.81Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Those who say “let us eat and drink” are already dead to God, and Paul excludes such sinners from the kingdom; love is shown by goodwill, not by the church kiss, which should be holy and restrained.
• The Instructor 3.11.82Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · A kiss is not love, for love of God is keeping his commandments; greetings should be quiet and inward, and one should turn away from gazing at women.
• The Instructor 3.11.83Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · One can sin by looking as well as touching, so Christians must guard their eyes and avoid even suspicion, as Paul and Sirach teach.
• The Instructor 3.12.84Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Husbands should show restraint toward their wives before the servants; the greatest bond of marriage is self-control, sweeter than gold or power.
• The Instructor 3.12.85Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Good precepts are to be welcomed even from pagan wisdom; Christians, redeemed by Christ's blood, should leave pagan vices behind, fenced in by the cross, and live in good order.
• The Instructor 3.12.86Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The Instructor speaks sternly for our salvation, desiring repentance rather than death; earthly goods are named after the true goods that God has prepared for us.
• The Instructor 3.12.87Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The Instructor now gives a summary of Scripture's commandments, leaving interpretation to the Teacher; he leads the child on the way of salvation to the treasures of wisdom revealed through law, prophets, Christ, and the Spirit.
• The Instructor 3.12.88Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The whole law is summed up in the Golden Rule and the two great commandments, but the Instructor will set out the commandments in detail.
• The Instructor 3.12.89Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The Decalogue, signified by the letter iota (ten), and Isaiah's call to wash and do justice sum up the commandments; good works themselves are prayer acceptable to God.
• The Instructor 3.12.90Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · God hears the one who acts justly; the fast God chooses is freeing the oppressed and feeding the hungry, and the sacrifice he wants is a broken spirit and a heart that glorifies him.
• The Instructor 3.12.91Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Scripture teaches forgiveness, honesty for soldiers and tax collectors, impartial judgment, love that covers sins, and giving Caesar his due and God his.
• The Instructor 3.12.92Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Scripture condemns liars and the conceited, blesses the humble and merciful, and commands love of enemies and faith in prayer; servants must be treated as equals before God.
• The Instructor 3.12.93Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Servants should be corrected, not punished; the Lord condemns love of glory, welcomes the repentant sinner, and counts every kindness to the needy as done to himself.
• The Instructor 3.12.94Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The law of Moses was written on stone, the law of the apostles on hearts; the Instructor now gives the apostolic commands, beginning with Ephesians on truth, anger, and kindness.
• The Instructor 3.12.95Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The apostolic household code: wives, husbands, children, fathers, slaves, and masters; then Paul's exhortations to walk by the Spirit, bear burdens, be at peace, pray, and speak graciously.
• The Instructor 3.12.96Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · More apostolic counsels: train for godliness, serve believing masters faithfully, give generously, love sincerely, pray constantly, and practice hospitality.
• The Instructor 3.12.98Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The Instructor hands us over to the Teacher; the church is the school and Christ the Bridegroom its only Teacher, the propitiation for the world's sins, whom we know by keeping his commandments.
• The Instructor 3.2.10Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Love of finery is insatiable and blind like Wealth itself; women who adorn themselves to be seen betray adultery, and Jeremiah calls their beautifying vain.
• The Instructor 3.2.11Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Animals rejoice in their natural beauty, but women seek artificial beauty with cosmetics and mirrors, like masks; Christians should look at the unseen, not the seen.
• The Instructor 3.2.12Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Moses forbade images; God chose David for his heart, not his looks; Abraham left all his wealth to follow God; only Esther adorned herself rightly, to save her people.
• The Instructor 3.2.13Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Paris's finery and effeminate luxury seduced Helen and brought the Trojan War: without an Instructor to check desire, adornment ruined two continents.
• The Instructor 3.2.14Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · One who is untrained should not take the reins; the fallen angels, lured by fading beauty, and the Shechemites who outraged Dinah, are warnings.
• The Instructor 3.2.4Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Adorned women who neglect the soul are like Egyptian temples: magnificent outside, but with only a cat or crocodile in the inner shrine.
• The Instructor 3.2.5Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Made-up women are like Egyptian temples: behind the curtain of cosmetics is no image of God but a harlot and the serpent; love of finery turns wives into courtesans.
• The Instructor 3.2.6Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Women who spend the day on cosmetics destroy their natural beauty and health and dishonor the Creator, as even the comic poet Menander said.
• The Instructor 3.2.7Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Made-up women are idle ornaments who ruin households and marriages, as the comic poets mock with their catalogue of a woman's toilet.
• The Instructor 3.2.8Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Cosmetics made of vile substances deserve contempt; even the comic poet Alexis ridicules women's tricks to disguise their bodies.
• The Instructor 3.2.9Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The testimony of pagan writers is followed by Scripture: cosmetics betray a sick soul, and Proverbs warns against drinking from a strange river, the adulterous woman or heresy.
• The Instructor 3.3.15Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Men too have caught the disease of luxury, dressing effeminately and removing their body hair in public shops, betraying adultery and perversion.
• The Instructor 3.3.16Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Men who shave and dye their hair try in vain to cheat age and death; old age is venerable, and God himself is called the Ancient of Days with hair white as wool.
• The Instructor 3.3.17Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Only God can make hair white or black; dyeing gray hair counterfeits his work; Christians are to put off the old man, not their gray hair, and men should not groom themselves like women.
• The Instructor 3.3.18Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Men who wear gold ornaments are effeminate; God made woman smooth and gave man a beard as a sign of strength and rule, crowned in age with gray hair.
• The Instructor 3.3.19Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The beard is a sign of manhood older than Eve, who was taken from Adam's side; to remove it is to transgress nature; smoothing marks the effeminate and the adulteress.
• The Instructor 3.3.20Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Every hair is numbered by God and Christ dwells in us; public depilation is indecent and unnatural; those predestined to be conformed to Christ's image should not disfigure the body.
• The Instructor 3.3.21Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Licentiousness is everywhere: prostitution of women and boys, homosexual acts, and, because of the exposure of infants, fathers unknowingly committing incest with their own children in the brothels.
• The Instructor 3.3.22Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The laws permit prostitution and trade in human beings for pleasure; Moses forbade it, and his prophecy of a land filled with sexual immorality has come true.
• The Instructor 3.3.23Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The old Roman laws punished effeminacy; the beard is natural beauty, anointed like Aaron's; effeminate men betray their character by their dress, walk, and look, as Sirach says.
• The Instructor 3.3.24Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Men who pluck their bodies yet pamper their heads are effeminate; even barbarians like Celts and Scythians wear their hair untended and live frugally.
• The Instructor 3.3.25Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Nomads live simply, even drinking their animals' blood, which Christians may not touch; human blood shares in the Word; the Lord calls us to be stripped of luxury, carrying only the tree of life.
• The Instructor 3.4.26Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The rich keep crowds of slaves for every luxury: cooks, cupbearers, handsome boys, hairdressers, and eunuchs serving as procurers.
• The Instructor 3.4.27Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The true eunuch is one who does not wish to indulge; Samuel warned that a king would take daughters as servants; rich women neglect housework for idle and corrupting company.
• The Instructor 3.4.28Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Rich women parade in litters, visit temples and diviners, and learn love charms that destroy marriages, trading purity for shame.
• The Instructor 3.4.29Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Scripture warns against letting just anyone into the house; rich women surround themselves with effeminate men who are servants of adultery and lewdness.
• The Instructor 3.4.30Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Rich women keep pets, dwarfs, and freaks, yet neglect widows, the old, and orphans, exposing their own babies while raising birds; Christ counts what is done for the least as done for him.
• The Instructor 3.5.31Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Rich women's baths are furnished with luxury and gold vessels, where they dine and drink and display their wealth to attract lovers.
• The Instructor 3.5.32Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Women who will not undress before their husbands bathe naked in mixed public baths or before their slaves, feeding lust.
• The Instructor 3.5.33Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Mixed bathing exposes lust; men should set an example of modesty; we should respect others and ourselves, and above all the Word, who is present everywhere.
• The Instructor 3.6.34Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Wealth should be used worthily and shared; stripped of finery, masters are no different from slaves; the good man stores up treasure in heaven by giving to the poor.
• The Instructor 3.6.35Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Wealth is like a snake, dangerous unless handled with knowledge; the true riches are virtue and wisdom; the rich man is the one who gives, not the one who keeps.
• The Instructor 3.6.36Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Only the good, the Christians, can possess true goods: righteousness and the Word; the one who asks God receives, so the godly possess all things.
• The Instructor 3.7.36Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Chapter 7 opens: luxury wandering into pleasure is a shipwreck.
• The Instructor 3.7.37Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The life of the belly is unworthy of human nature, made by the Beautiful One; love of pleasure and wealth makes it hard to enter the kingdom; luxury only feeds thieves.
• The Instructor 3.7.38Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Elijah's simple meal and the Lord's command to carry no purse teach frugality: Christians should share, give up excess possessions and servants, and travel light, household and all.
• The Instructor 3.7.39Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Husband and wife should travel together with frugality; the body is the measure of possessions; generosity is the staff for the road to heaven, and like a well it refills as it gives.
• The Instructor 3.7.40Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The one who has the Word lacks nothing; the just live not by bread alone but by the Word, the bread of heaven; this wealth inherits God's kingdom.
• The Instructor 3.8.41Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Frugality trains Christians to endure persecution, having no fatherland on earth; examples teach virtue, as Penelope's faithfulness and the Spartans' drunken Helots did.
• The Instructor 3.8.44Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The destruction of Sodom for its luxury, adultery, and pederasty is an instruction to us, as Jude teaches with the examples of Israel in the desert and the fallen angels.
• The Instructor 3.9.46Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · There are four reasons for bathing; pleasure is ruled out, women may bathe for cleanliness and health and men for health only; too much bathing weakens and ages the body.
• The Instructor 3.9.47Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Bathing should be moderate and occasional, not luxurious; above all the soul must be washed by the Word, lest we be like the whitewashed tombs the Lord condemned.
• The Instructor 3.9.48Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The best washing is spiritual, cleansing the inside first, as the Lord taught and Isaiah prophesied; the body can be washed with plain water.
• Exhortation to the Greeks 10.108Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Even the old should turn to God and become like children; the citizen of heaven follows God's laws, written in the commandments and on the heart.
• Exhortation to the Greeks 10.109Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Truth is harsh medicine but heals; it is near us, in hands, mouth, and heart, and we will outgrow custom as children outgrow toys.
• Exhortation to the Greeks 10.93Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Let us repent and desert to God; the inheritance of those who serve the Lord is a treasure no moth or thief can touch.
• Exhortation to the Greeks 10.97Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Alexander, deified in life, died at Babylon; God is perfectly just, and nothing is more like him than a just person.
• Exhortation to the Greeks 11.117Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · The Word, who regenerates human beings and makes them God's temple, calls them to purify that temple and offer themselves to God.
• Exhortation to the Greeks 2.33Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Homer's majestic Zeus was an adulterer, Heracles a seducer, and the goddesses too were adulteresses; such gods make immorality a model.
• Exhortation to the Greeks 4.49Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Hadrian made a god of his beloved Antinous; true beauty is kept pure, not violated.
• Exhortation to the Greeks 4.59Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Christians refuse even to hear songs of the gods' adultery, for they carry God's image in themselves and are God's chosen people.
• Exhortation to the Greeks 4.60Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Many decorate their bedrooms and signet rings with pictures of the gods' sexual escapades.
• Exhortation to the Greeks 4.61Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–200 · Lewd images are the theology of the pagans; Christians renounce even seeing and hearing such things, for the eyes and ears can commit adultery.
• Prophetic Extracts 11.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · The elders were distressed when they did not suffer bodily, fearing that unpunished sins would be punished all at once hereafter.
• Prophetic Extracts 11.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · Fear not bodily illness but sin, the sickness of the soul, since the body is grass and outward goods pass away.
• Prophetic Extracts 12.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · Seek God's kingdom and all else will be added.
• Prophetic Extracts 12.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · Christ limits both our busyness and our anxiety: worry adds nothing to our life.
• Prophetic Extracts 12.4Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · God knows what we need; he wants us emptied of worldly cares and filled with care for him.
• Prophetic Extracts 12.6Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · As faith enters, unbelief leaves; so the soul must not only be emptied,
• Prophetic Extracts 12.7Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · but filled with God; an emptied soul is neither good nor evil, which is nothing.
• Prophetic Extracts 12.8Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · An emptied soul left empty invites the unclean spirit back,
• Prophetic Extracts 12.9Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · with seven others; so the soul emptied of evil must be filled with God, and then the seal of baptism guards it for God.
• Prophetic Extracts 15.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · saying such cases need prayer. The believer is forgiven by the Lord; the one who has attained knowledge no longer sins and so forgives himself the rest.
• Prophetic Extracts 18.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · God's power creates, gives growth, saves each believer suitably, and governs seasons and elements.
• Prophetic Extracts 19.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · Freed from the spirit of slavery and adopted through love, he keeps the commandments out of love and cries “Abba, Father.”
• Prophetic Extracts 20.4Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · Love rules the willing, fear the unwilling; but the fear that instructs leads to Christ and saves.
• Prophetic Extracts 22.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · The soul moves itself, so God's grace asks for its willingness as its contribution to salvation.
• Prophetic Extracts 22.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · To have is to receive; to receive, one must desire; to keep it, one must practice.
• Prophetic Extracts 22.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · God gave the soul free choice: he shows the good, and the soul chooses and keeps it.
• Prophetic Extracts 24.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · Caesar stands for the temporary ruler of this world, whose image is the old, earthy man.
• Prophetic Extracts 24.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · We render to Caesar the earthy image we bore, and to God what is God's; each passion is like a stamp on us.
• Prophetic Extracts 24.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · Now the Lord stamps us with faith and other virtues, so that we bear the heavenly image.
• Prophetic Extracts 27.7Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · The mature Christian is not jealous of knowledge; out of love he may even share it with an unworthy but persistent inquirer.
• Prophetic Extracts 28.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · Knowledge is needed for the soul's training and character; as there is no faith without instruction, there is no understanding without knowledge.
• Prophetic Extracts 30.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · The life of the true knower is free of every evil deed, word, and thought, as Crete is free of dangerous beasts.
• Prophetic Extracts 31.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · The mature Christian is blessed not for long life but for a good life worthy of eternal life; he has grieved no one
• Prophetic Extracts 31.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · except to correct the wounded by the word, sweet and stinging like honey.
• Prophetic Extracts 31.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · With all passion cut away, he lives by the best part of the soul, freed for adoption as God's son.
• Prophetic Extracts 33.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · Kindled by that light and striving to become like it, we become true Israelites of light.
• Prophetic Extracts 33.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · Christ calls friends and brothers those who seek to become like God.
• Prophetic Extracts 34.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · Holy places receive visions and voices, but the purified person is worthy of all divine teaching and power.
• Prophetic Extracts 35.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · As pleasure is release from pain, knowledge is the removal of ignorance.
• Prophetic Extracts 35.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · The most ignorant think they know most, as the soundest sleepers think they are awake.
• Prophetic Extracts 35.4Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · Blessed are those who wake from this sleep to the light and truth.
• Prophetic Extracts 36.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · Whoever would have an obedient disciple must combine faith with desire, training and testing the truth of doctrines for himself;
• Prophetic Extracts 36.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · only when prepared should he engage others' questions, as fledglings first exercise in the nest.
• Prophetic Extracts 37.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · The virtue of the mature Christian is gentle, blessed, contemplative and practical, making him a divine image through love.
• Prophetic Extracts 37.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · The beautiful, contemplated above by wisdom, is practiced here through self-control and righteousness, as angelic service in the body.
• Prophetic Extracts 39.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · An elder taught that there are punishments for evil words, and that women who adorn their hair for immorality are punished by the power set over hair, which gave Samson his strength.
• Prophetic Extracts 41.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · Scripture says exposed infants are given to a guardian angel to be raised, and will be like the long-faithful.
• Prophetic Extracts 45.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · Patience is sweet for its fruit; the self-controlled struggle with passion, but when virtue becomes settled one is united with the Holy Spirit beyond mere self-control.
• Prophetic Extracts 46.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · Passions are called “spirits” by their tendency, not their substance.
• Prophetic Extracts 46.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · The soul that takes on various vices is said to take on spirits.
• Prophetic Extracts 47.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · Christ commands not giving up possessions but managing them without attachment; and God's providence extends beyond those living in the flesh.
• Prophetic Extracts 48.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · The Apocalypse of Peter says aborted infants are given to a guardian angel, to receive knowledge and a better dwelling.
• Prophetic Extracts 49.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · The Apocalypse of Peter says that the congealed milk of mothers who killed their children breeds beasts that devour them, teaching that punishments arise from sins.
• Prophetic Extracts 50.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · An elder taught that the unborn is a living being: an angel of birth brings the soul into the womb at conception.
• Prophetic Extracts 50.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · When angels announce births to barren women they introduce the souls in advance; John leaped in the womb as a living being.
• Prophetic Extracts 50.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · Barrenness occurs when no soul is introduced to make the seed conceive.
• Prophetic Extracts 60.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · Those turned by fear to faith and righteousness endure forever.
• Prophetic Extracts 61.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · “Your servant” means every saved person, God's servant by obedience.
• Prophetic Extracts 62.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · Hidden faults are thoughts contrary to right reason, alien to the righteous.
• Prophetic Extracts 65.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · “Coming up into the heart” means the good purpose wins out.
• Prophetic Extracts 9.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · God mixes fear with his goodness for our benefit, like a physician or a father.
• Prophetic Extracts 9.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · Scripture approves the rod; the Lord and apostles lived in fear and toil.
• Prophetic Extracts 9.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · A believer's illness may be God's correction for past sin, protection from future sin, or a permitted attack for his good or as an example to others.
• Excerpts from Theodotus 52.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · The flesh is the “adversary” of the Gospel, Paul's warring law, and the strong man to be bound.
• Excerpts from Theodotus 52.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · We should make peace with this adversary on the way, not feeding it with sin but putting it to death, so that it dissolves rather than enduring in the fire.
• Excerpts from Theodotus 73.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · Man, weak and inclined to evil, sides with his enemies, and so suffers more.
• Excerpts from Theodotus 85.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 200 · We must put on the Lord's armor, which quenches the devil's darts.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 1.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Those who flatter the rich with praise are servile.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 1.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Flatterers of the rich are impious, because they give to human beings the glory that belongs to God alone.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 1.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Flatterers are treacherous, because they inflame the pride that wealth already produces, when they should cut it away; the exalted will be humbled.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 1.4Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · The truly loving course is to help the rich toward salvation, by prayer to God and by teaching that leads them to the truth and to good works.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 1.5Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Prayer needs perseverance to the end of life, and conduct needs a steady will to keep all the Savior's commandments.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 10.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · “If you wish” shows that the man was not yet perfect and that he was free to choose; the choice is man's, the gift is God's.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 10.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · God does not force salvation but gives it to those who desire and ask for it.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 10.4Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · The man who had kept the whole law could not add the one thing Christ offered, and went away vexed.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 10.5Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · He did not truly want life, but only the appearance of good will.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 10.6Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Like Martha, busy with many things, the man could not attend to the one necessary thing, which Mary chose.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 10.7Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Christ told the rich man to leave his many concerns and hold to the grace that gives eternal life.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 11.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Why did the man abandon Christ and his own hope?
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 11.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · “Sell your possessions” does not mean throwing money away, but banishing from the soul its attachment and anxious desire for wealth.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 11.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Mere poverty is not a virtue; otherwise all beggars, even those ignorant of God, would be the most blessed.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 11.4Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Renouncing wealth is not new: pagan philosophers did it for leisure or fame.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 12.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · What Christ commands that is new is not giving up property, which others did, but stripping the soul of its passions and uprooting what is alien to it.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 12.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · The philosophers who gave up wealth often grew proud and vain, so their souls were worse, not better.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 12.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Christ would not command what harms the life he promises.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 12.4Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Someone can give up wealth and still crave it, suffering both its loss and regret.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 12.5Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · One who lacks necessities is inevitably distracted from higher things by the struggle to obtain them.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 13.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · It is better to have enough and to help others; if no one had anything, no one could share.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 13.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Complete renunciation would contradict the Lord's other commands.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 13.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · The Lord commands us to make friends with wealth and store up treasure in heaven.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 13.4Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · No one could feed the hungry or clothe the naked, as Christ commands on pain of judgment, if he had nothing himself.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 13.5Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Christ stayed with rich tax collectors like Zacchaeus and Levi without telling them to give up their money, but only to use it justly.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 13.6Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Christ declares salvation to Zacchaeus's house and commands the rich to share with the needy.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 13.7Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · If Christ commanded both giving to the needy and giving up all money, he would contradict himself; wealth that benefits others should not be discarded.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 14.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Possessions and money are prepared by God as material and tools for good use.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 14.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · An instrument is only as good as the skill of the one who uses it.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 14.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Wealth is an instrument.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 14.4Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Wealth serves either justice or injustice; the blame lies not with it but with the human mind that chooses how to use it.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 14.5Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · The mind has free will; one should destroy not one's possessions but the passions that prevent their good use.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 14.6Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · The command to sell all one's possessions refers to the passions of the soul.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 15.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Since outward things are good or bad according to the soul's use, Christ's command must refer to the inner passions, not to outward goods.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 15.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · One who gives up wealth can still be rich in passions, which continue to choke the reason.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 15.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Such a person discards what is indifferent and keeps the real source of vice, which poverty inflames.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 15.4Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Only harmful possessions must be renounced, not those that can be used well.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 15.5Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Wealth managed wisely and piously benefits; external things themselves do no harm.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 15.6Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Christ allows external goods and commands us to put away what misuses them.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 16.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · The passions are the deadly wealth; the soul stripped of them can hear Christ's call to follow him.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 16.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Christ is the way for the pure in heart; God's grace does not enter a soul full of worldly desires.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 16.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · The rich man who holds his wealth as God's gift for the sake of others, is not its slave, and could lose it calmly, is the “poor in spirit” whom Christ blesses.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 17.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · The one who carries wealth in his heart instead of God's Spirit, always wanting more, cannot desire the kingdom; where one's mind is, there is one's treasure.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 17.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Christ speaks of a good and an evil treasure in the heart.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 17.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · As there are different kinds of treasure among us,
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 17.4Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · 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.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 17.5Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Matthew specifies “poor in spirit” and hunger for righteousness; those poor in the other sense, without God, are wretched.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 18.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Salvation depends not on external wealth but on the soul's virtues: faith, hope, love, knowledge, gentleness, humility, and truth.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 18.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Bodily beauty does not save or condemn; using the body purely saves, and destroying God's temple destroys.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 18.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Neither beauty nor strength decides one's fate; the soul that uses the body is responsible.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 18.4Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · A strong man can obey the command to turn the other cheek, and a weak man can break it.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 18.5Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · The poor can be drunk with desires, and the rich can be sober and pure.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 18.6Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Since the soul lives by virtue and dies by vice, it is saved when poor in the passions wealth brings and killed when rich in them.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 18.7Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Our final destiny depends on the soul's disposition: obedience and purity, or transgression and vice.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 19.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · True wealth is wealth of virtues; counterfeit wealth is outward possession, which passes away.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 19.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · There is a genuine poverty, of spirit, and a counterfeit one, of worldly goods.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 19.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Christ, rich toward God, tells the one rich in passions to give up the alien possessions of the soul, so as to become pure in heart and see God.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 19.4Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · “Selling” them does not mean exchanging one kind of wealth for another.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 19.5Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · In place of the passions one must bring in the divine wealth of dispositions that follow God's commandments.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 19.6Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · By exchanging the passions for spiritual wealth, one gains treasure in heaven.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 2.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · There are several reasons why salvation seems harder for the rich.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 2.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Some rich people, hearing that a camel passes through a needle's eye more easily, despair of salvation and give themselves entirely to this world.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 2.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Others understand the saying rightly but neglect the good works needed for salvation.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 2.4Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Clement is speaking about rich believers, not about unbelievers; those who love the truth and the brethren have a duty toward them.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 20.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · The rich young man, not understanding that one can have wealth and not be possessed by it, went away, making the difficult impossible for himself.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 20.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · It is difficult but not impossible for the rich to be saved, if they turn to spiritual wealth and learn to use indifferent things well.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 20.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · The disciples were frightened too, though they had already left their few nets and boats.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 20.4Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · The disciples understood that the Lord spoke in a parable with deep meaning.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 20.5Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · The disciples, though poor, knew their passions were not yet mastered, so they despaired like the rich man.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 20.6Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Salvation belongs to souls free from passion and pure, which is why the disciples feared.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 21.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · What is impossible for man is possible with God: by one's own effort alone freedom from passion is unattainable,
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 21.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · but God gives strength to the willing, withdrawing his Spirit from those who grow slack; God saves by grace those who choose, not by force.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 21.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · The kingdom belongs not to the lazy but to those who seize it; God gladly yields to those who hold on to him steadfastly.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 21.4Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Peter, first of the disciples, for whom Christ paid the tax, quickly grasped the saying.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 21.5Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Peter says they have left everything; if he meant his few possessions, that would be little to boast of.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 21.6Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · But if they have given up the passions of the soul and follow Christ, they are among those enrolled in heaven.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 21.7Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · To follow Christ is to strive for his sinlessness and perfection, shaping one's soul by him as by a mirror.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 22.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Jesus promises a hundredfold to those who leave everything for his sake.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 22.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Nor should we be troubled by the harder saying about hating one's family.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 22.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · The God of peace, who commands love of enemies, does not command hatred of family.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 22.4Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · If enemies must be loved, family must be loved all the more; otherwise the two sayings would contradict each other.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 22.5Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · They do not conflict: the same disposition loves the enemy without revenge and puts Christ above one's father.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 22.6Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · One saying removes hatred; the other removes excessive deference to family,
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 22.7Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · if it hinders salvation: a godless relative who blocks one's faith must not be followed.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 23.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Picture a trial: a godless father demands obedience against the law of Christ.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 23.5Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Having heard both sides, choose salvation: whatever any relative says, let Christ, who fights for you, prevail.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 24.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · If one can master one's wealth, Christ does not take it away; but if it masters you, cast it off.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 24.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Whatever causes one to stumble, even an eye or life itself, must be given up for Christ's sake, to be saved in the life to come.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 25.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Christ does not call only the poor and homeless; he called rich men and pairs of brothers who were of one mind with him.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 25.4Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · The hardest persecution comes from within, from a soul tormented by godless desires and passions until it despairs of life and despises God.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 25.5Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Inner persecution is worse, since it is always present and cannot be escaped.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 25.6Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · One carries this enemy everywhere; outward fire tests, but inward fire kills.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 25.7Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · If possessions or family bring this inner war, leave them, find peace, and choose Christ, the advocate of the soul, above all.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 26.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Christ does not exclude the rich because of their wealth, if they obey God's commands and look to him like sailors to a good helmsman.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 26.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · There is no wrong in having earned a living before faith, or in being born by God's providence into a wealthy family.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 26.4Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · If birth into wealth excluded one from life, God would be unjust.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 26.5Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · If wealth caused death, why would God have made it grow from the earth?
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 26.6Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · The rich man who is modest, self-controlled, and seeks God alone
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 26.7Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · is truly poor and free before God; otherwise the camel will pass through the needle sooner than he enters the kingdom.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 27.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · The plain meaning of the parable teaches the rich neither to despair nor to throw their wealth away, but to learn how to use it and gain life.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 27.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Let us consider what hope Christ offers the rich and how it can be realized.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 27.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Christ names love of God with all one's soul and strength as the greatest commandment,
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 27.4Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · and rightly, since it concerns God the Father, through whom all things exist and to whom the saved return.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 27.5Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Loved by God first, we can repay him only with love, which gives incorruption; the more we love God, the more deeply we enter into him.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 28.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · is love of neighbor as oneself; so God is to be loved above oneself.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 28.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Asked who one's neighbor is,
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 28.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Christ answered with the parable of the Good Samaritan, not by defining the neighbor as a fellow Jew.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 28.4Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · The neighbor is the one who shows mercy; Christ says, “Go and do likewise,” for love produces good works.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 29.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Both commandments are about love: first to God, second to neighbor.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 29.5Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Christ must be loved equally with God, and he is loved by those who do his will and keep his commandments.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 29.6Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Christ requires not words but doing his will.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 3.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Christians should neither despise nor flatter the rich, but first free them from despair by showing that the kingdom is open to them if they obey the commandments.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 3.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Once freed from groundless fear, the rich should be taught what works and dispositions lead to the hoped-for salvation.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 3.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · The rich should think of their situation as athletes think of theirs.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 3.4Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · An athlete who despairs never competes, and one who hopes but does not train never wins.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 3.5Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · The rich believer should neither exclude himself from salvation nor expect it without effort.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 3.6Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · The rich believer should train under Christ, with the new covenant as food and the commandments as exercise, so as to win the crown of heaven at the last trumpet.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 30.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · After loving Christ comes caring for his disciples, since Christ counts what is done to them as done to him.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 30.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Christ blesses those who fed, gave drink to, and welcomed him in the needy.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 30.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · The righteous ask when they did these things for him.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 30.4Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · The King answers that what they did to the least of his brothers,
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 30.5Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · they did to him; and those who neglected them are condemned as having neglected him.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 30.6Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Whoever receives Christ's disciples receives him.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 31.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Christ calls his disciples children and little ones and forbids despising them, since their angels see the Father's face.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 31.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · The least disciple in the kingdom is greater than John the Baptist.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 31.4Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Whoever gives even a cup of water to a disciple will not lose his reward.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 31.5Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Christ says to make friends by means of unrighteous mammon,
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 31.6Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Wealth kept only for oneself is unrighteous, but it can be used righteously by relieving those destined for the Father's eternal dwellings.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 31.7Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Christ commands us not to wait to be asked, but to seek out the worthy,
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 31.8Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Paul says God loves a cheerful giver, who gives generously without grumbling.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 31.9Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Better still is the Lord's “Give to everyone who asks”; and beyond even this, to seek out the worthy without waiting to be asked,
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 32.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Giving buys an eternal dwelling: a divine exchange of perishable things for incorruption.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 32.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · The rich should spare no effort to buy the heavenly kingdom.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 32.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Why delight in jewels and houses, which fire, time, earthquakes, and tyrants destroy?
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 32.4Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · The poor believer, imitating God, gives the heavenly kingdom in return for small gifts.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 32.5Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Beg the poor to accept your gift, for the command is on the giver.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 32.6Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Christ says “make friends,” and friendship, like faith and endurance, needs long care, not one gift.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 33.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · The Lord gives the kingdom for the sake of his friends, and to the friends of his friends.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 33.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Do not judge who is worthy; it is better to help the unworthy too than to miss the worthy.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 33.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · By testing too closely one may neglect God's friends and incur punishment; by giving to all one surely finds some who can intercede with God.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 33.4Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Do not judge; the measure you give will be given back to you,
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 33.5Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · running over; be open-hearted to all God's disciples, without contempt for their bodies,
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 33.6Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Do not reject the poor, ugly, or weak: their body is only an outward form, and within them dwell the Father and the Son who died and rose for us.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 34.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · The redeemed rich man should enlist a different army: pious old men, orphans, and gentle widows.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 34.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · The poor believers helped by the rich become their bodyguards, whose prayers, laying on of hands, and exorcisms protect them.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 35.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Each of these poor believers serves: some pray for you, some comfort, teach, or admonish, and all love you sincerely.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 35.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Their loving service is sincere and truthful, for they believe they serve God and the King of the ages dwelling in the rich believer.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 36.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · All believers are noble, but some are more elect: hidden saints who shun recognition, whom Christ calls the light of the world and salt of the earth.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 36.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · These saints are God's seed, image, and heirs, sent into the world as sojourners.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 37.5Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Christ gave his life for each of us and asks us to do the same for each other; how then can we hoard perishable goods from our brothers?
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 37.6Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · John says that whoever does not love his brother is a murderer, a child of Cain, cut off from the vine and awaiting the fire.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 38.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Learn Paul's more excellent way: love, which does not seek its own but spends itself on the brother.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 38.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Scripture's praise of love: it covers sins, casts out fear, endures all things, never fails, and is the greatest of faith, hope, and love.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 38.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Faith and hope end when God is seen and promises are fulfilled, but love grows to fullness.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 38.4Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Whoever grows in love and repents sincerely can repair past sins.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 38.5Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · No one should despair after learning who the rich man is
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 39.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · who has no place in heaven; and one who has sinned after baptism, through ignorance or weakness, should not think God has condemned him forever.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 39.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · The Father gladly receives every truly repentant son; true repentance means uprooting the sins one has condemned in oneself.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 39.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · There is great joy in heaven over one repentant sinner.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 39.4Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · God desires mercy and the sinner's repentance, and will wash scarlet sins white as snow.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 39.5Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Only God forgives sins, and the Lord commands us to forgive our repentant brothers daily.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 39.6Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · God, the Father of mercies, patiently awaits those who turn back, which means ceasing from sin and not looking back.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 40.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · God forgives past sins; future ones each person must avoid; repentance is condemning past deeds and asking the Father, who alone can undo them, for forgiveness.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 40.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · The end is decisive: a good life that ends in vice is wasted, while a bad life can be redeemed by later repentance.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 40.4Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Recovery from sin, like recovery from long illness, needs great care.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 40.5Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Repentance means abandoning each sin, restoring what was stolen, and curbing the passions, so as to be reconciled before one's death.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 40.6Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Deep-rooted passions cannot be cut off at once, but with God's power, prayer, brotherly help, repentance, and practice they are overcome.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 41.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · The rich man should take a man of God as a spiritual guide, respecting and heeding one who speaks frankly to heal him.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 41.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · As eyes sometimes need stinging treatment, so the soul needs correction.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 41.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Continual pleasure blinds the soul that will not be moved by frank rebuke.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 41.4Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Heed the spiritual guide's anger, grief, and pleas.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 41.6Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · His intercession is pure if he is honored as God's messenger and grieves only for the rich man's sake; this is sincere repentance.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 42.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · To show that true repentance brings hope, Clement tells a true story about the apostle John.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 42.10Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · John mourned, reproached himself for his choice of guardian, and rode off at once to find the young man.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 42.11Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · The robbers' outpost captured John, who did not resist,
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 42.12Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · and demanded to be taken to their leader, who fled in shame when he recognized John.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 42.13Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · The aged John ran after him, pleading as a father, offering to die for him and assuring him of hope in Christ.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 42.14Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · The young man stopped, threw down his weapons, wept, and embraced John, baptized a second time by his tears, hiding his blood-stained right hand.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 42.15Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · John assured him of Christ's forgiveness, kissed his right hand, and restored him to the church through prayer, fasting, and teaching: an example of true repentance.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 42.18Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Whoever repents now will not regret it at death or fear the judgment; whoever refuses forgiveness has only himself to blame.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 42.5Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Left to himself too soon, the young man was corrupted by idle companions, first by feasts, then by robbery.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 42.6Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Like an unbridled horse he plunged into ever greater crimes.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 42.7Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Despairing of salvation, he formed a band of robbers and became its most violent chief; later John was called back.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 7.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · The first lesson for life is to know the one, eternal, good God.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 7.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Knowing God, who truly is and gives being to all, is the unshakable foundation of life.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 7.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Not knowing God is death; knowing, loving, and becoming like him is the only life.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 8.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · The rich young man had kept the law from youth, which is admirable, since it is easy for the old to be blameless but hard for the young.
• Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 9.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 190–210 · Jesus loves the man for keeping the law but says he is still imperfect with respect to eternal life.
• Miscellanies 1.1.6Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The teacher must examine his motives, seeking only his hearers' salvation, as Paul did; hearers too must not come from curiosity or for material gain.
• Miscellanies 1.1.9Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · A speaker can judge his hearers like the soils of the parable; a writer dedicates his work to God, seeking only the readers' salvation and no reward, giving freely as he has received.
• Miscellanies 1.10.46Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Christ spoke and gave thanks before breaking bread, so that we might eat “rationally”; good speech and good deeds belong together, and each person should serve by his own gift.
• Miscellanies 1.10.48Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Clement cares for meaning, not eloquence; Plato and Scripture warn against preoccupation with words; style is only clothing, and speech, like food, should nourish rather than merely please.
• Miscellanies 1.11.54Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Instruction needs loving reproof; the upright seek knowledge of God; God's kingdom is in power, not persuasive words; knowledge that puffs up is not truth, but love builds up.
• Miscellanies 1.17.82Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Against critics who say God is the cause of evil because he did not prevent it, Clement argues that a cause acts, while the one who does not prevent does nothing; otherwise the shield, not the arrow, would be blamed for a wound.
• Miscellanies 1.17.83Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The devil, free to repent or to steal, is the cause of the theft, not God; praise, blame, reward, and punishment are just only because the soul is free.
• Miscellanies 1.17.84Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Sin begins in choice and mistaken belief, and it is in our power to avoid it; “all who came before me are thieves” refers to the false prophets the devil mixed among the true, like tares among wheat.
• Miscellanies 1.17.85Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The false prophets stole the name of prophet; they served the devil, the father of lies, yet spoke some truths, as Hermas says; God orders all things for good.
• Miscellanies 1.17.86Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · God's providence steers even the apostates' evil to a good end; divine wisdom is shown above all in bringing good out of evil, as in martyrdom that arises from persecution.
• Miscellanies 1.18.89Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Better to read Paul as denying that God made worldly wisdom foolish: unbelief is chosen, not caused by God; the wise are outshone by the gospel as a lamp by the sun; all are called, and those who obey are the called.
• Miscellanies 1.18.90Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Isaiah shows that choice rests with us; God's wisdom is the teaching handed on through the Son; Paul exhorts those who think themselves wise to put on the new man, seek truth, and share it.
• Miscellanies 1.23.157Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The Egyptians ignored God's warnings; the Hebrews' taking of Egyptian goods at the Exodus was not greed but a just wage for years of unpaid slavery.
• Miscellanies 1.27.171Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The law's punishments are like a physician's surgery: they heal the soul and, when someone is incurable, protect the rest of the body politic.
• Miscellanies 1.27.172Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · God's judgments discipline us so that we are not condemned; he trained Israel in the desert as a father disciplines his son.
• Miscellanies 1.27.173Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Punishment deters others and even benefits the incurable; God's providence is both sovereign and good; one may rise from servant to faithful attendant to son and friend of God.
• Miscellanies 1.6.33Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Mathematical studies train the mind, purify the soul from the senses, and prepare it to see truth; good education improves good natures, as Proverbs' ant and bee show.
• Miscellanies 1.6.34Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Prayer and the care of the soul need knowledge: goodness comes by learning, not by nature alone; the gifted can fall through neglect, the less gifted rise by education; God made us sociable and just.
• Miscellanies 1.6.35Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · One can believe without letters, but understanding the faith requires learning; education makes virtue easier to attain and guards against deception by the sophists.
• Miscellanies 1.6.36Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Anaxarchus says much learning helps the wise and harms the babbler; wisdom knows the right moment; Hesiod's epithets describe the true sage.
• Miscellanies 1.8.42Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Plato followed reason alone and blamed those who trust opinion without knowledge; people lose the truth unwillingly through deception, force, or enchantment, but none of these can drive out real knowledge.
• Miscellanies 2.10.46Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The Christian philosopher holds to three things, contemplation, keeping the commandments, and forming good people; Leviticus 18 commands Israel to keep God's ordinances and live by them.
• Miscellanies 2.10.47Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Egypt and Canaan symbolize the world and the passions; “he will live in them” means life for Jews and Gentiles alike; the repeated “I am the Lord your God” calls us to seek and know God, a knowledge never separated from just action.
• Miscellanies 2.11.50Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The manna jar holding a tenth of three measures points to sense, speech, and mind; the one who knows avoids sins of all three, as the Lord teaches; the human being is a decad.
• Miscellanies 2.11.51Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Rising above the nine parts of the cosmos, the soul reaches the tenth, the knowledge of God, as the tithe and Passover signify; the one who knows stands firm in faith, while the self-wise drift like Cain into “tossing.”
• Miscellanies 2.12.53Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Faith looks to past and future, with memory and hope; fear grows into faith and then love, not the fear of a beast but a son's reverent fear of his father; blessed is the one in whom love and fear are blended.
• Miscellanies 2.12.55Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · All assent is a kind of faith; the Shepherd of Hermas makes faith the virtue that holds the church together, with the other virtues its daughters; fear God, not the devil; repentance is great understanding.
• Miscellanies 2.13.56Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Those forgiven must sin no more; the first repentance cleanses the life of ignorance; but the Lord foresaw human weakness and the devil's jealous schemes against the forgiven.
• Miscellanies 2.13.57Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · God in mercy allows one second repentance after baptism for those overcome by temptation; but repeated repentance followed by the same sins is no better than unbelief, since such a person sins knowingly.
• Miscellanies 2.13.58Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Converts receive forgiveness once in baptism; one who sins afterward and repents may be pardoned but should feel shame, since there is no second washing; the reborn must abandon their old works, not repent of the same sin again and again.
• Miscellanies 2.13.59Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Repeated requests for pardon for repeated sins are only a show of repentance; Scripture blesses those who fear the Lord; passions are excessive impulses disobedient to reason, and since obedience is in our power, voluntary acts are judged.
• Miscellanies 2.14.60Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Involuntary acts, done in ignorance or under necessity, are not judged; Clement lists examples of ignorance of self, act, person, instrument, manner, and purpose.
• Miscellanies 2.14.61Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The law distinguished involuntary from voluntary offenses; spiritually understood, the one who cannot restrain the generative word, the idle talker, is to blame; God judges the intention, as Lot's wife shows.
• Miscellanies 2.15.62Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Voluntary acts spring from appetite, choice, or thought; Clement distinguishes sin, mishap, and wrong; sin comes from ignorance or weakness, but accepting instruction and obeying the commandments are in our power.
• Miscellanies 2.15.63Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Giving ourselves up to anger and desire wrongs our own soul, as the tragic figures Laius, Medea, and Ajax confess.
• Miscellanies 2.15.64Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Desire ruins many in tragedy and comedy; a mishap is an unexpected sin, a sin an involuntary wrong, and a wrong is voluntary vice; for believers sin has no dominion, since by Christ's wound we are healed.
• Miscellanies 2.15.65Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The psalm distinguishes sins wiped out, covered, not counted, and forgiven; this blessing belongs to those chosen through Christ; love covers sins and God, who prefers repentance, wipes them out.
• Miscellanies 2.15.66Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Sins not arising from choice are not counted; God, who is both just and good, forgives sins, as Jeremiah says; John's first letter distinguishes sins unto death and not unto death.
• Miscellanies 2.15.68Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Another teacher applied Psalm 1 to evil opinions, the broad way, and fellowship with destructive powers; Peter's Preaching calls the Lord Law and Word; the food laws also teach avoidance of sins in word, deed, and thought.
• Miscellanies 2.15.69Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Psalm 1 says the ungodly will not stand in judgment; the unbeliever is already judged; through Ezekiel the Lord rebukes the shepherds who neglect the weak, since the Father rejoices over one sinner saved; Abraham obeyed.
• Miscellanies 2.15.70Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Greek maxims such as “Follow God,” “Pardon is better than punishment,” and “Give a pledge and ruin is at hand” come from Scripture; Enoch after Cain shows that repentance brings pardon, understood as healing; “Know yourself” means seeing God in one's brother.
• Miscellanies 2.15.71Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Knowing oneself leads to love of God and neighbor, on which the law and the prophets hang, and to Christ's command of mutual love; mercy and faithfulness purge sins, and the fear of the Lord turns from evil.
• Miscellanies 2.16.73Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · God makes our joy his own without being changed, as Christ is fed in the least of his brothers; God shows mercy richly through the law, the prophets, and the Son, and only God, the greater, truly shows mercy to us.
• Miscellanies 2.16.75Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · God's greatest goodness is to care for us though we are not related to him by nature, only as works of his will; he calls to adoption those who seek the truth; our sins, not God, ensnare us.
• Miscellanies 2.17.76Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Knowledge is a state unshakable by reason, ignorance a yielding impression; Clement defines the related terms: experience, cognizance, intellection, understanding, knowing, and truth.
• Miscellanies 2.17.77Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · We fail to act from inability, unwillingness, or both; we cannot become like the Lord in substance, since adoption is not nature, but we can become eternal sons who behold the Father; willing comes first; the one who knows lives consistently.
• Miscellanies 2.18.78Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The virtues recorded by Moses gave the Greeks the beginning of ethics; the law teaches godliness, justice, and prudence by forbidding idols and binding us to the Maker and Father.
• Miscellanies 2.18.79Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · God rejects the sacrifices of the lawless and accepts prayer, justice, and a broken heart; Pythagoras's “do not step over a balance” comes from Proverbs; Clement begins defining courage, self-restraint, and related virtues.
• Miscellanies 2.18.80Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Keeping the commandments secures life; the virtues imply one another, so the one who truly has one has all; self-control, joined with courage, prudence, and justice, makes us like the Lord as far as mortals can be.
• Miscellanies 2.18.81Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · God is without need or passion; we, subject to passion, need self-control to become like him and need little; the law forbidding men to wear women's clothing teaches manliness in endurance, even to martyrdom.
• Miscellanies 2.18.82Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The law exempts from war the man with a new house, vineyard, or bride, both so soldiers are undistracted and out of humanity, lest another enjoy his labors.
• Miscellanies 2.18.83Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The law's promises show that the hopes of the disciplined are not in vain; the Midianite women, by beauty and pleasure, led Israel from self-restraint into idolatry until fear restrained them.
• Miscellanies 2.18.84Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · True understanding of the law is not passionate fear; the fear of the Lord gives life, as Barnabas teaches; the law forbids lending at interest to a brother, and the generous receive the interest of virtue and good name.
• Miscellanies 2.18.85Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The law's humanity shows in paying the poor the same day, forbidding creditors to seize pledges by force, and leaving gleanings and uncut corners for the poor.
• Miscellanies 2.18.86Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The law shows God's justice and goodness in the gleanings, the tithes, the sabbatical year, and the jubilee restoring land to the poor; so it is good and a teacher of justice; mercy to the poor is blessed.
• Miscellanies 2.18.87Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Love shows itself in gentleness, patience, and freedom from envy and resentment; the law commands returning a stray animal, teaching us to treat what we find as a deposit and to bear no grudge.
• Miscellanies 2.18.88Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The law commands love of strangers as oneself, forbids abhorring an Egyptian, requires offering peace before war, and protects the captive woman, allowing intercourse only in marriage and for children.
• Miscellanies 2.18.89Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The law restrains the captor's desire by a waiting period and by cutting the captive's hair; if he no longer wants her, he may not sell her or keep her as a slave but must set her free.
• Miscellanies 2.18.90Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The law commands helping an enemy's burdened animal and returning his stray, training us not to rejoice at enemies' misfortunes but to pray for them; forgetting wrongs ends enmity and leads to concord.
• Miscellanies 2.18.91Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The law is humane, a schoolmaster to Christ, and the one God is good with justice; the Lord's saying on mercy and measure sums it up; the law protects servants, debtors, and suppliants, and God tests hearts.
• Miscellanies 2.18.92Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Pythagoras learned gentleness to animals from the law, which forbids separating the newborn from its mother for seven days; how much more does it condemn the Greeks' exposure of human infants.
• Miscellanies 2.18.93Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · There is no excuse for exposing children: one who does not want children should not marry; the law forbids killing an animal with its young, and the Romans spare pregnant condemned women, showing the law's humane concern.
• Miscellanies 2.18.94Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Those who kill pregnant animals for delicacies make the womb a tomb, against the law forbidding boiling a lamb in its mother's milk; the unmuzzled ox and the ban on yoking ox with donkey teach fairness to foreigners and, allegorically, discernment in teaching.
• Miscellanies 2.18.95Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The law forbids destroying fruit trees, even an enemy's, and commands tending young trees for three years, offering the firstfruits to God in the fourth.
• Miscellanies 2.18.96Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The farming law teaches us to prune away sins until faith is firm; the fourth year signifies the four virtues offered to God; God gives the strength and gifts that we, as ministers of grace, pass on to others.
• Miscellanies 2.19.100Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The good man becomes fellow citizen of the righteous of old and a king, as the Hittites said to Abraham; Plato's goal of likeness to God may come from Moses, whose law calls it “following” God; Christ bids us be merciful like the Father.
• Miscellanies 2.19.101Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The Stoics' “life according to nature” borrows from Moses but wrongly calls God nature; Scripture praises those who love the law; Clement lists three kinds of friendship: of virtue, of exchange, and of habit or pleasure.
• Miscellanies 2.19.102Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Friendship is of gods, men, or animals; the one who does good is God's image and receives good in giving; we should help friends and enemies alike; the image of God lies in mind and reason, not the body.
• Miscellanies 2.19.97Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The one who knows is the true image and likeness of God, imitating him in self-control, justice, and generosity; he who does and teaches is greatest; pride provokes God, and repentance must reach mouth, heart, and hands.
• Miscellanies 2.19.98Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Hands, heart, and mouth stand for action, counsel, and speech; God chooses the repentant as his people, and even one counts as the people; true nobility lies in choosing the good, which Adam, noblest of all, neglected, exchanging immortality for death, though not forever.
• Miscellanies 2.2.4Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Proverbs teaches that deeds must follow words and that we should take what is useful from all learning; the fear of God is turning from evil, and God disciplines those he loves.
• Miscellanies 2.20.103Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Endurance leads to likeness to God, as Daniel and his companions show; the king of Babylon threw Daniel to the lions, but the Lord, King of all, brought him out unharmed.
• Miscellanies 2.20.104Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The one who knows has the patience of Job, Jonah, Daniel, and the three young men, bearing witness by word and life, crucified to the world, carrying the cross and following the Lord.
• Miscellanies 2.20.105Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The law trains us in self-control, the foundation of the virtues, by forbidding the fattest foods, pork and fish without fins or scales, which serve luxury.
• Miscellanies 2.20.106Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The mysteries' food taboos also derive from the law, which teaches us to master the belly and cut out desire by condemning pleasure; Menelaus, overcome by Helen's beauty, could not kill her.
• Miscellanies 2.20.107Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The tragedians mock Menelaus for yielding to Helen; Antisthenes would shoot Aphrodite for corrupting women; pleasure, even if God-given for procreation, must not be admitted; Xenophon's Virtue rebukes pleasure's luxuries.
• Miscellanies 2.20.108Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Pleasure, grief, fear, and desire require hard training; pleasure nails the soul to the body; losing one's life for Christ, whether in martyrdom or by separating the soul from pleasure, is the meaning of the cross.
• Miscellanies 2.20.109Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The practice of death is to be content with natural needs; we must put on God's armor and take every thought captive to Christ, using wealth, health, and life without being moved by them, which requires much discernment.
• Miscellanies 2.20.110Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The passions are impressions stamped on the soul by the spiritual powers we wrestle against; some are thrown, but athletes of faith win the crown and the powers give up; things move by impulse or by being moved.
• Miscellanies 2.20.111Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Humans, unlike animals, can judge impressions; the evil powers dangle pleasures like branches before cattle and enslave those who cannot tell true from false; each deception leaves its image through our assent.
• Miscellanies 2.20.113Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The Basilidian man is like a Trojan horse full of spirits; even Isidore, Basilides' son, warns that the doctrine gives the wicked an excuse to say they were forced.
• Miscellanies 2.20.116Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Desires darken the mind; the soul, like gold, must be purified; Barnabas says that before faith the heart was a house of demons, full of idolatry.
• Miscellanies 2.20.117Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Barnabas speaks of sins, not indwelling demons, being removed when God comes to dwell in us; Clement tells of a heretic leader who claimed to fight pleasure by indulging it.
• Miscellanies 2.20.118Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Like Aristippus with Lais, the Nicolaitans misuse Nicolaus' saying “abuse the flesh” to justify indulgence, though he meant self-discipline; they are no better than Sardanapalus; pleasure merely accompanies natural needs.
• Miscellanies 2.20.119Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Pleasure is only a helper to natural needs, like salt to food; when it rules, it begets desire; Epicurus made it the goal; Diogenes mocks the soft lovers of luxury.
• Miscellanies 2.20.120Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The law threatens fear so that we may win peace by unceasing struggle against the passions, especially pleasure, which attacks even in dreams; the Greeks, like Socrates, teach the same, so they cannot fault the law.
• Miscellanies 2.20.121Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Greek philosophers too opposed pleasure: Antisthenes preferred madness, Crates praised the soul free of gold and love and prescribed hunger or the noose for lust, and the comic poets mocked Zeno's frugality.
• Miscellanies 2.20.122Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Even the Greeks admit the value of caution; true wisdom trusts not in words but in the divine commandments and receives divine power; Homer's aegis of Zeus is crowned with fear.
• Miscellanies 2.20.123Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The law and caution are precious to the discerning; the Lord seems too demanding only to those who refuse his yoke; those friendly to sin call truth harsh and the one who will not sin with them merciless.
• Miscellanies 2.20.124Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The law sets out the finest examples to nourish our love of freedom; the righteous of old were ordinary people who gave themselves wholly to God, and it was counted to them as faith.
• Miscellanies 2.20.126Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · We must avoid exciting foods and luxury; self-restraint is God's great gift, and he will not forsake those who choose it; Christ's kind yoke drives us from faith to faith to salvation.
• Miscellanies 2.21.127Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Clement begins a survey of philosophers' views of the goal of life: Epicurus and the Cyrenaics make it pleasure, others freedom from disturbance.
• Miscellanies 2.21.128Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Continuing the survey: the Cyrenaics make virtue serve pleasure; the Aristotelians make the goal life according to virtue but require the three kinds of goods, so the poor, the sick, and slaves cannot be happy.
• Miscellanies 2.21.129Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The survey continues with the Stoics (Zeno, Cleanthes, Diogenes, Antipater, Archedemus, Panaetius, Posidonius), Ariston, Herillus, the Academics, and Peripatetics such as Lycon and Critolaus.
• Miscellanies 2.21.130Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Clement lists the goals proposed by the natural philosophers: contemplation (Anaxagoras), cheerfulness (Democritus), self-sufficiency, and others; the Cyrenaics reject Epicurus's definition of pleasure as absence of pain.
• Miscellanies 2.21.131Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Metrodorus, Epicurus's disciple, locates the soul's good in a stable bodily condition and the hope of keeping it.
• Miscellanies 2.22.131Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Plato makes the goal twofold, the Good itself and likeness to it in virtuous men; happiness is likeness to God, being just and holy with prudence; so some Christians say the image is given at creation and the likeness at perfection.
• Miscellanies 2.22.132Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Plato teaches that likeness to God comes with humility, as Christ said the humble will be exalted; in the Laws, Justice follows God to punish transgressors, and only the humble and orderly, being like God, are dear to him.
• Miscellanies 2.22.133Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Plato calls the self-restrained God's friend and happiness flight from evil into likeness to God; Speusippus, Xenocrates, and Polemon give their definitions of happiness.
• Miscellanies 2.22.135Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Ezekiel describes the righteous man who avoids idolatry, adultery, and oppression, gives to the poor, and takes no interest; he shall live; Isaiah calls the wicked to seek the Lord and turn to him.
• Miscellanies 2.22.136Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · We wait in faith for the hope of righteousness, and Proverbs says the one who hears Wisdom will dwell confident; Paul bids us imitate him as he imitates Christ, and Christ God; the aim is likeness to God, the goal the fulfillment of the promise.
• Miscellanies 2.23.144Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Animals mate in season and depart; Polyxena, even when slain, fell modestly; yielding to the passions is the worst slavery and mastering them the only freedom; transgressors are sold to foreign sins until they repent.
• Miscellanies 2.23.147Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The law's death penalty for adultery agrees with the gospel, since one Lord gave both: the adulteress dies to the commandments, but the one who repents is reborn; more is required of those given more. Book 2 ends here.
• Miscellanies 2.4.12Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Christians, free to choose, rest on faith in God's word as an unshakable criterion; Hebrews 11 shows that faith justified the righteous even before the law.
• Miscellanies 2.5.22Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Christ, whose Father is God, is the truly noble; Plato too calls the wise man rich, free, beautiful, and king, agreeing with Scripture that riches lie in the soul and freedom comes from the truth.
• Miscellanies 2.5.23Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Plato holds that faithfulness is the greatest virtue, containing the others, and that peace is best; so faith is the mother of the virtues.
• Miscellanies 2.6.26Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Teaching needs a receptive learner, as fire needs dry wood and a magnet iron; God calls all, knowing who will refuse, since obedience rests with us; actions are judged by choice, and repentance is knowledge that comes late.
• Miscellanies 2.6.27Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Repentance and hope arise from faith; the faithful servant keeps what God has entrusted; God is faithful and worthy of belief; faith is not mere supposition but assent to what is strong.
• Miscellanies 2.6.30Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Faith is not cheap: if it were merely human it would have died out, but it grows everywhere; whether born of love or fear, it is divine; fear, the law's schoolmaster, itself depends on faith.
• Miscellanies 2.6.31Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Faith is the first step to salvation, followed by fear, hope, repentance, self-control, and endurance, leading to love and knowledge; as Barnabas says, faith is the foundation of knowledge, as breath is of life.
• Miscellanies 2.7.32Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · To attack fear is to attack the law and the God who gave it; without law, desire rules; the fear the commandments inspire is not irrational but rational, whatever the philosophers call it.
• Miscellanies 2.7.33Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Renamed “caution,” fear is rational, avoiding harm and leading to repentance; the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, so those who reject the law are without wisdom.
• Miscellanies 2.7.34Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The law threatens not outward misfortunes but real evils, such as adultery and the soul's death; it does not create sin but reveals it, as a good teacher shows what saves and what harms.
• Miscellanies 2.7.35Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The law revealed sin but did not create it; it is a good schoolmaster to Christ, leading through fear to repentance; the one near the Lord endures hardship for the truth; Barnabas too joins fear with keeping the commandments.
• Miscellanies 2.8.39Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Against the Marcionites, who call the law just but not good, Clement argues that the fear of the Lord destroys evil and so is good, bringing fearlessness and moderation; to fear sinning and keep the commandments honors God.
• Miscellanies 2.8.40Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Not all fear is a passion: superstition fears passionate demons, but fear of the passionless God is itself free from passion, since what one fears is falling away from God.
• Miscellanies 2.9.41Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Fear leads to repentance and hope, and hope to love; love is fellowship of life; hospitality, philanthropy, and affection accompany it; strangers to the world are our guests, friends, and brothers.
• Miscellanies 2.9.42Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Brotherly love binds those who share the Spirit, as Paul teaches in Romans 12; the Jews had zeal without knowledge, following the letter of the law and not the Christ it prophesied, the end of the law.
• Miscellanies 2.9.45Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The virtues follow one another from faith to love and knowledge; only God is wise by nature; philosophy begins in wonder, as Plato, the Traditions of Matthias, and the Gospel of the Hebrews say; godliness is following God.
• Miscellanies 3.1.3Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Isidore distinguishes necessary from merely natural desires; Clement quotes him to rebuke later Basilidians who claim that their election lets them sin, bringing blasphemy on Christ's name.
• Miscellanies 3.1.4Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Self-control covers the tongue, possessions, and desires, and is a gift of divine grace; the church blesses celibacy given by God, admires a single marriage, bears with others' weakness, and permits second marriage to those who burn.
• Miscellanies 3.10.69Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The triad may signify the called, the elect, and those of highest rank; the one who rises above anger and desire, uniting knowledge, faith, and love, becomes one, perfect in Christ's image, brother, friend, and son.
• Miscellanies 3.11.75Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Peter urges Christians as exiles to abstain from fleshly desires and not use freedom as a cover for evil; Paul teaches that those who died to sin cannot live in it.
• Miscellanies 3.11.77Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Paul attributes his evil deeds to indwelling sin, from which the law of the Spirit sets him free through the Son; the body, dead through sin, becomes a temple when the Spirit who raised Jesus dwells in it.
• Miscellanies 3.11.78Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Paul contrasts living by the flesh, which is death and enmity to God, with life in the Spirit; believers are sons of God by the Spirit of adoption, not free to indulge the flesh.
• Miscellanies 3.12.86Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Paul's letters never reject chaste marriage but accept both marriage and celibacy; a heretic reads “do not store up treasure on earth” as forbidding children, but Christ was urging the rich to share with the needy.
• Miscellanies 3.15.99Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The true eunuch is the one who begets no truth; by obedience he bears fruit; the apostles begot spiritual children; the eunuch barred from God's assembly is the barren in word and deed, but those who make themselves eunuchs from sin are blessed.
• Miscellanies 3.16.101Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Micah's “firstborn for ungodliness” refers to sinful habits, not birth; birth is also good, since in it we learn the truth; Paul disciplines his body like an athlete, using things with self-control; some prefer widows to virgins for self-control.
• Miscellanies 3.18.106Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Proverbs warns against the paths of the wicked, who destroy themselves and others; Paul commands cleaning out the old leaven and not associating with immoral “brothers”; the believer, crucified with Christ, lives by faith.
• Miscellanies 3.18.109Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · To the pure all things are pure; Paul lists those excluded from the kingdom, from which believers were washed; the libertines “baptize” into immorality under the name of false knowledge; Christians should think on what is true and pure.
• Miscellanies 3.18.110Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Peter too calls believers to holiness, not to their former desires; Clement ends Book 3, noting that the controversy with the false Gnostics has made it long.
• Miscellanies 3.4.28Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Such “fellowship” belongs in the brothel; Paul teaches Christians to put off the old man and put on the new, to imitate God in love, and not even to name sexual immorality among them.
• Miscellanies 3.4.30Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The followers of Prodicus claim to be sons of the first God, above all law, and live for pleasure; but they commit adultery in secret like slaves, and whoever sins is a slave.
• Miscellanies 3.4.31Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · One cannot live for God while giving oneself to every desire; if the Gnostics are strangers in the world, they should behave as good sojourners, not like adulterers the pagans themselves condemn.
• Miscellanies 3.4.32Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Lawless living is hateful to human and divine lawgivers, as Phinehas's zeal shows; John says those who walk in darkness cannot claim fellowship with God.
• Miscellanies 3.4.33Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Those who live like the worst of the worldly cannot claim a higher nature; Christ demands righteousness greater than the Pharisees', and Scripture teaches obedience and self-control.
• Miscellanies 3.4.35Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · False prophets are known by their works; if the commandments against shameful deeds are good, the “Opposers” are fighting the good and doing evil.
• Miscellanies 3.4.36Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Christ commands reconciliation and good works, not defiance and display of vice; if the Opposers truly defied the lawgiver, why only in matters of self-control, and not by overturning the seasons like Xerxes?
• Miscellanies 3.5.40Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Clement divides the heresies into two classes, the libertine and the harshly ascetic; against the first, if all lives are permitted to the elect, the self-controlled life is all the more permitted.
• Miscellanies 3.5.41Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · God gave us free choice; both the licentious and the self-controlled are free, but only the latter frees the soul; the libertines must either obey every desire, even the most unholy, or admit that some must be refused.
• Miscellanies 3.5.42Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · One enslaved to bodily pleasure cannot become like the Lord or know God; since the commandments show the blessed life and failure brings endless evil, we must purify ourselves, so that the divine image is restored in a pure mind.
• Miscellanies 3.5.43Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Those led by passion cannot know God, and conduct reveals ignorance of him; Paul tells believers, circumcised in Christ and raised with him, to seek things above and put to death sexual immorality and evil desire.
• Miscellanies 3.5.44Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Knowledge is tested by conduct, as a tree by its fruit; true knowledge is a divine light from obedience; true freedom is release from pleasure through Christ, and whoever claims to know God but disobeys is a liar.
• Miscellanies 3.6.54Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Christ's command to give and lend presupposes private property, refuting Carpocrates' “community”; he identifies himself with the needy, and the old covenant also commands giving to the poor.
• Miscellanies 3.6.55Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Scripture presupposes givers and receivers, as the world consists of opposites; Christ's call to the rich young man exposed his failure to love his neighbor and taught him to share out of love.
• Miscellanies 3.6.56Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Christ forbids not wealth rightly used but greed; the generous gain eternal riches by sharing, while the hoarder, like the rich fool, stores up treasure on earth and loses his soul.
• Miscellanies 3.7.57Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Greek self-control fights desire; Christian self-control, a gift of God's grace, aims not to desire at all, as Moses fasted forty days; desire that lingers inside still sins in memory.
• Miscellanies 3.7.58Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · In marriage, food, and all else we should act by will, not desire; the husband who marries for children should love his wife but beget them with a reverent will, walking decently as in the day.
• Miscellanies 3.7.59Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Self-control extends beyond sex to money, luxury, speech, and thought; even angels fell through desire; Valentinus claimed Jesus did not digest food; Christians embrace self-control out of love for the Lord, sanctifying the Spirit's temple.
• Miscellanies 3.8.61Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The libertines cite “you are not under law but under grace,” but Paul himself answers: “Shall we sin because we are under grace? By no means.”
• Miscellanies 3.8.62Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · All must appear before Christ's judgment for deeds done in the body; in Christ one is a new creation, washed from the old life; righteousness has no fellowship with lawlessness, so we must cleanse ourselves in holiness.
• Miscellanies 4.1.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Clement outlines Book 4 and beyond: martyrdom, the perfect Christian, the equal calling of slave and free, men and women, to philosophy, faith, the symbolic method, and a summary of Scripture against Greeks and Jews.
• Miscellanies 4.12.87Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · God does not cause afflictions but permits them and turns them to good as training, for others because of their sins, for the Lord and the apostles because of ours; God's will is our sanctification, for which the Lord was not prevented from suffering.
• Miscellanies 4.13.93Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Neither Valentinians nor Montanists should call other Christians “psychics”; the perfect practice love, which means loving enemies as God's creatures, not their sins, for sin lies in activity, not in substance.
• Miscellanies 4.13.94Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Sinners are God's enemies by rejecting his commands; “desire nothing” does not mean the world is evil or belongs to another god, but that worldly goods are ours only for use, not permanent possession, to be used well without excess.
• Miscellanies 4.14.95Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Christ commands love of enemies to make us like the Father; the “adversary” to be reconciled on the way is not the body but the devil, whose servants will hand over those who profess Christ while doing the devil's works.
• Miscellanies 4.15.97Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Knowledge about idol meat must yield to the weak; Paul's permission to buy market meat excludes what the apostolic decree forbade (idol meat, blood, strangled things, fornication); Paul renounced his right to a wife and food to set an example.
• Miscellanies 4.15.98Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Paul, free, made himself a slave to all; the knowing Christian abstains for the weaker brother's conscience, not his own, and does everything to God's glory within the rule of faith.
• Miscellanies 4.16.100Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The common faith is the “fragrance of knowledge”; the veil remains until one turns to the Lord; the pleasure-loving are “offspring of vipers”; John teaches love in deed, the perfect love that casts out fear, shown in keeping the commandments.
• Miscellanies 4.17.105Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Clement of Rome, whom Clement calls an apostle, praises the Corinthians' faith, godliness, hospitality, and knowledge, and holds up Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Lot, Rahab, and the prophets as models.
• Miscellanies 4.17.106Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Following 1 Clement, Abraham, Job, and Moses are models of humility: Abraham called himself dust and ashes, Job confessed no one is pure, Moses called himself slow of tongue; God gives grace to the humble.
• Miscellanies 4.17.107Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · David, chosen by God, still begged for mercy and confessed his sin; the Spirit searches the inner self, and the Lord Jesus, overseer of the heart, whose blood was offered for us, knows all our thoughts.
• Miscellanies 4.17.108Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Following 1 Clement: respect leaders and elders, instruct the young, lead wives to purity, gentleness, and impartial love, and teach children humility, pure love, and the fear of the Lord, who searches hearts.
• Miscellanies 4.17.109Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Following 1 Clement, faith in Christ confirms the psalm's call to fear the Lord, avoid evil, do good, and seek peace, which Clement reads as the mystery of the seventh and eighth: perfection in deed and word.
• Miscellanies 4.17.110Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Following 1 Clement: the Lord rescues the righteous and surrounds the hopeful with mercy; through Christ we taste immortal knowledge; the wise must show it in works, the humble not praise themselves, the chaste not boast; more knowledge means more danger.
• Miscellanies 4.18.111Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Following Clement of Rome: love of God and neighbor lifts us to God, covers sins, and perfects the elect; Paul says that even martyrdom without love, done from fear, is nothing.
• Miscellanies 4.18.113Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Love keeps one from sin, and if one falls, confession and a broken spirit please God; God is love, and love fulfills the law, as Christ does; the same deed differs as done from fear or from love, by faith or by knowledge.
• Miscellanies 4.18.114Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Rewards differ: the knower receives what eye has not seen, the simple believer a hundredfold; Clement recalls a self-styled Gnostic who taught that desire alone is not sin unless it is acted out, even in imagination.
• Miscellanies 4.18.115Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Clement tells of King Bocchoris, who, when a courtesan demanded pay for a youth's dream of her, had her take the shadow of the purse: an image of payment for an image of union.
• Miscellanies 4.18.116Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Looking with desire is sin even without imagined intercourse, if one admires flesh lustfully; but one who looks with pure love sees the soul's beauty and rises through it to the Creator, bearing the Spirit's anointing to the angels at the ascent.
• Miscellanies 4.18.117Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Moses' face shone with a glory the people could not bear; at the soul's ascent the heavenly toll-collectors hold back those laden with worldly passions but send on the one full of knowledge and righteousness, like the tree of Psalm 1.
• Miscellanies 4.19.118Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Perfection belongs equally to men and women: Moses offered to be blotted out for his people, and Judith, perfected among women, risked her life for her city and slew Holofernes.
• Miscellanies 4.19.120Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Pagan women too showed virtue: Lysidice and Philotera in modesty, Leaena who endured torture without betraying the tyrannicides, and the Argive women led by Telesilla who repelled the Spartans.
• Miscellanies 4.19.121Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Greek poets praised heroic women, and many women philosophized: Theano's modest sayings, Themisto the Epicurean, Myia and Arignote the Pythagoreans, the five dialectician daughters of Diodorus, and Hipparchia the Cynic.
• Miscellanies 4.19.122Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · More learned women: Arete who taught her son, Plato's women students, Aspasia who taught Socrates and Pericles, and women poets and painters.
• Miscellanies 4.19.123Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Noble women of old did humble work, like Sarah serving the angels; a wife should first try to win her husband to the way of salvation, otherwise pursue virtue alone, obeying him in all but what concerns virtue and salvation.
• Miscellanies 4.19.124Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · No one excels without learning and training; virtue is in our power as God's gift, which no one else can take away, so vice and virtue belong to each person's own choice.
• Miscellanies 4.2.5Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The reader must discover more for himself; virtue's path is steep, as Hesiod says, and the Lord's way narrow; “seek and you will find.”
• Miscellanies 4.20.128Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Paul tells older women to train the younger to love their husbands and children and live purely; Hebrews urges peace and holiness, warning against immorality like Esau's.
• Miscellanies 4.21.131Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The perfect Christian relies on God's power, enduring affliction and persecution without despair, commending himself to God by patience, purity, knowledge, and love, cleansing himself and perfecting holiness; godly grief leads to repentance and salvation.
• Miscellanies 4.21.132Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · God gave apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, and teachers to build up the church toward the perfect man, Christ's fullness; we must strive for perfection in the flesh; the one Spirit distributes varied gifts to each.
• Miscellanies 4.22.135Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The knower's work is neither mere abstention from evil, nor doing good out of fear or hope of reward, but doing good out of love, for the sake of the good itself.
• Miscellanies 4.22.136Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The knower seeks the knowledge of God for itself, not for any benefit; if knowledge of God and eternal salvation could be separated (though they are one), he would choose knowledge of God without hesitation.
• Miscellanies 4.22.137Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The perfect man does good constantly for its own sake, not for glory or reward, becoming like the Lord, good to just and unjust; his flesh has died, and his body, once a tomb, is now a holy temple.
• Miscellanies 4.22.138Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The perfect man has passed beyond self-control to freedom from passion; he gives and fasts in secret, doing good by settled habit; he must walk the narrow way, drawn by the Father through grace, and pities those who hate him.
• Miscellanies 4.22.139Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Knowledge loves and teaches others to honor all creation; the one who has learned to love God keeps virtue even in dreams, his mind unchanged; Christ's command to stay awake means keeping the soul pure by night as by day, which is likeness to God.
• Miscellanies 4.22.140Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The Greeks called night “the kindly time” because the soul then withdraws from the senses toward wisdom; Paul bids Christians, children of the day, to stay awake and sober, armed with faith, love, and hope.
• Miscellanies 4.22.142Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Outward washing before prayer symbolizes inner purity, holy thought; the image of baptism passed from Moses to the poets, as in Homer's Penelope and Telemachus; true purity is of mind, deeds, words, and even dreams.
• Miscellanies 4.22.143Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Firm repentance purifies; knowledge and faith make the soul stand firm; the truly righteous man is just not from fear of punishment or detection, unlike Epicurus's sage, who would do wrong if sure of not being caught.
• Miscellanies 4.22.144Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Doing right only for reward is no better than doing it from fear; yet the hope of reward and punishment after death is taught by Scripture and by Pythagoreans, Socrates, and Heraclitus.
• Miscellanies 4.22.145Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Paul says affliction produces endurance, character, and hope that does not disappoint; the true knower pursues knowledge not from fear or for gain but drawn by love of God, the truly lovable.
• Miscellanies 4.22.146Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The knower would do no wrong even with impunity, reward, or secrecy, having chosen the good for itself; food, marriage, or celibacy without knowledge do not commend us; abstinence from fear is no better than a dog's fear of the stick.
• Miscellanies 4.23.147Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · All created things, including marriage and childbearing with self-restraint, are good, though freedom from passion is better; those who abstain from fear or dislike slander the Creator; true obedience to “do not desire” comes from within.
• Miscellanies 4.23.148Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Obedience for reward is bait; the knower turns from sensible to intelligible things out of love, admiring creation and its Maker, and prays to be free of desire, content with little, near to God.
• Miscellanies 4.23.149Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Paul teaches choosing the better among goods, not rejecting marriage as bad; God made necessities easy to obtain; as Democritus says, teaching reshapes nature; God gave both nature and renewal; the one who trusts God finds peace and may become a god.
• Miscellanies 4.23.150Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Empedocles says wise souls become gods; man is formed by nature, but each person is shaped by what he chooses; Adam was perfect in formation but was to attain perfection by obedience; his fall was his own choice, and God is not to blame.
• Miscellanies 4.23.151Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Human courage and self-restraint master anger and desire, but God, without passion, needs neither; as the Pythagoreans said, man too must become one, like the one high priest and the one God.
• Miscellanies 4.23.152Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Christ removed anger with desire; the one deified into freedom from passion becomes one; like sailors pulling on an anchor who draw themselves to it, those who seek God are drawn to him; serving God is caring for oneself, and purity makes one like God.
• Miscellanies 4.24.153Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · What rests with us is choosing between opposites, such as believing or not; God forgives sins before faith, all of them, not only involuntary ones as Basilides held; punishment aims at preventing future sin, not undoing the past.
• Miscellanies 4.24.154Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · God disciplines to improve the sinner, warn others, and protect the wronged; correction is by teaching or by punishment; sins before baptism are forgiven, those after are cleansed by discipline; unbelievers are like chaff.
• Miscellanies 4.25.155Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Euripides blesses the contemplative, and Plato calls the one who contemplates the Ideas a god among men; the soul that rises above becoming becomes like an angel and dwells with Christ, while the rest are shadows and the dead.
• Miscellanies 4.25.158Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Only those who live purely are God's true priests; the priests' avoidance of the dead signifies avoiding sin, which is dead; their seven days of purification and eighth-day offering point to the promise.
• Miscellanies 4.25.159Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Perfect purification is faith leading through law and prophets to the gospel, and propitiation is obedient purity until the soul's release; whether the seven are periods or heavens and the eighth the fixed sphere, the knower must rise above becoming and sin.
• Miscellanies 4.26.163Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The body, made upright to see heaven and with senses for knowledge, is not evil but a fit dwelling for the soul and the Holy Spirit; wisdom, justice, and holiness go together; Isaiah's “all flesh is grass” is explained by Jeremiah as referring to the disobedient.
• Miscellanies 4.26.164Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Jeremiah shows that “flesh” means sinful living, not the body as such; the soul is better than the body, but neither is good or evil by nature; man is composed of different, not opposed, elements.
• Miscellanies 4.26.165Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The wise soul lodges in the body as a guest, respecting it but ready to leave; Basilides wrongly made the elect foreign to the world by nature, for all belongs to the one God; the elect lives as a stranger by choice.
• Miscellanies 4.26.166Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The knower uses bodily and external goods like a traveler uses inns, caring for them without attachment and leaving gladly, thankful for his stay and longing for the heavenly dwelling, as Paul says.
• Miscellanies 4.26.168Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Job, having gained knowledge, called himself earth and ashes; the ignorant are “earth,” while the knower, made like God, is spiritual and elect; Jeremiah calls the disobedient “earth.”
• Miscellanies 4.26.170Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Scripture proclaims that God hears the righteous and does no wrong, refuting the heresies that make God responsible for evil; God asks Israel to fear, love, and serve him, and we have the power to choose salvation.
• Miscellanies 4.26.171Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The Pythagoreans prayed aloud so that prayers would be just; Christians should let their works cry out as in daylight, imitating God; the poets' epithets “godlike” echo the image and likeness of God.
• Miscellanies 4.3.10Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Justice is known only where there is wrongdoing; Paul says love fulfills all the commandments; so the commandments that threaten fear aim at love, not hatred.
• Miscellanies 4.3.11Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The fear produced by the law is not a passion, for the law is holy and spiritual; death is not an evil; the end of sin is death, but God's gift is eternal life in Christ.
• Miscellanies 4.3.12Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Death is the soul's union with sin, life its separation; sinners are slaves and beasts; the philosopher who practices separation from bodily passions all his life can bear natural death easily, crucified to the world and living as a citizen of heaven.
• Miscellanies 4.3.8Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Both belief and unbelief can be good or bad depending on their object, as with abstaining; the Sabbath signifies abstinence from evil; man, lower than the angels by time and flesh, shares life with them but differs in contemplation and self-control.
• Miscellanies 4.3.9Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · God alone is wise, and the philosopher is his friend; man is like a centaur of soul and body, the body tending to earth, the soul to God; the law's fear exists because of sin, and the law is not for the righteous.
• Miscellanies 4.4.15Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Every soul that lives purely with knowledge of God and obeys the commandments is a martyr in life and word, however it dies; Christ's call to leave family for his name means detachment from worldly ties.
• Miscellanies 4.4.18Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Plato too taught care of the body for the soul's harmony; life and health are the path to knowledge, and the good life lived in the body leads to eternity.
• Miscellanies 4.5.19Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Against the Stoic indifference to the body, Job's endurance in poverty and sickness is our example; Paul's chains encouraged others to preach boldly; martyrdoms are sanctified examples written for our instruction.
• Miscellanies 4.5.20Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Pain distracts the soul from study and virtue; virtue itself does not suffer, but one not yet established in self-control may be overcome, which is as bad as flight.
• Miscellanies 4.5.21Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Poverty, like pain, distracts the soul with getting a living, while health and sufficiency leave it free for God, as Paul wishes believers free from anxiety.
• Miscellanies 4.5.22Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Health and means are for the body, and the body for the soul; pleasure is not the good, since some pleasures are bad; knowledge, which chooses among pleasures and pains, is the good.
• Miscellanies 4.5.23Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The martyr chooses the hoped-for pleasure through present pain; pain and pleasure are not evils in themselves; the poets disagree whether wealth is a good or a blinding evil.
• Miscellanies 4.5.24Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The poets call wealth blind and a bad teacher of manliness; poverty is akin to wisdom; love of money ruins cities; virtue is true currency.
• Miscellanies 4.6.25Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Christ's beatitudes apply to spiritual and material states; the one who is persecuted, poor, or hungry for righteousness' sake is a witness, a martyr, to righteousness.
• Miscellanies 4.6.26Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The beatitudes bless those who mourn, hunger, and are poor for righteousness' sake, choosing poverty to gain the good; true nobility is adoption as God's children, with authority over snakes and demons.
• Miscellanies 4.6.27Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The Lord's discipline separates the soul from the body; “whoever loses his soul will find it” means losing the sinful self in repentance and finding it alive by faith; to find the soul is to know oneself.
• Miscellanies 4.6.28Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Conversion is described by Stoics and Plato; the persecuting judge reveals who truly loves God; abstaining from evil deeds extinguishes vices; “sell your possessions … follow me” means following the Lord's words.
• Miscellanies 4.6.29Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Some allegorize the rich man's “possessions” as passions, but God distributes goods justly, and the command is to despise them and follow Christ; the rich man lacked love of neighbor; one should come to Christ for the good itself, not fear or reward.
• Miscellanies 4.6.30Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Those who seek incorruption for its own sake stand at the right; those who bargain are hired servants; likeness and image correspond to choosing by knowledge and by imitation; the parables of Lazarus and of the two masters warn against love of money.
• Miscellanies 4.6.31Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Those who refuse the supper are held back by passionate attachment to possessions; the foxes are the earthbound greedy, the birds the heavenly-minded; poverty too, badly borne, brings cares that choke the word like thorns.
• Miscellanies 4.6.32Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · We must learn to use every circumstance for eternal life; the exalted ungodly vanish, but the peaceful and upright have a future; God rejects those who honor him with their lips while their hearts are far from him.
• Miscellanies 4.6.33Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · God silences the boastful and rises for the poor; Christ belongs to the humble; the treasures of earth that thieves break into are possessions, anxieties, and bodily loves; the true treasure is with God, gained by sharing.
• Miscellanies 4.6.34Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The broad road to destruction is profligacy, lust, and ambition; the rich fool loses his soul; Christ warns against greed and anxiety and bids us seek first the kingdom, and the small things will be added.
• Miscellanies 4.6.35Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Christ counts the choice, not the size of the gift; Zacchaeus (or Matthias, some say) gave half his goods and was saved; the widow's two coins were more than the rich man's gift.
• Miscellanies 4.6.36Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The meek are those who have ended the war of anger and desire within; there are many rewards and dwelling places according to one's life; the laborers in the vineyard show both differing merit and equal salvation.
• Miscellanies 4.6.37Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The saved will serve in dwelling places proportioned to their merit; Plato describes the purified dwelling above; “blessed are those who mourn” refers to repentance, whether from fear or from conscience, here or hereafter.
• Miscellanies 4.6.38Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Mercy is not grief but a noble thing God desires more than sacrifice; those who wish to show mercy but cannot, through poverty, illness, or age, share the same honor as those who can.
• Miscellanies 4.6.39Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Works and knowledge are two ways to perfection; the pure in heart see God; knowledge purifies the mind, and good actions need the neutral things of life and health; those who come to know God must be pure in body and thought.
• Miscellanies 4.6.40Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · In contemplation the knower becomes knowledge itself; the peacemakers are those who have subdued the war of the passions against reason and will be adopted as God's children; perfect peace sees the world's order as good and brings others to faith.
• Miscellanies 4.7.43Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Dying for Christ, our nearest neighbor, is dying for our own salvation; those who keep Christ's commandments bear witness in every act, having crucified the flesh and living by the Spirit.
• Miscellanies 4.7.53Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Salvation proceeds from fear to hope to love; the Greeks submit unwillingly to blind necessity, as Euripides says.
• Miscellanies 4.7.54Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The foundation of knowledge is faith, hope, and love, love being greatest; Christian freedom yields to the weaker brother's conscience and does all to God's glory; our warfare is spiritual.
• Miscellanies 4.7.55Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Armed with spiritual weapons, the one who knows asks the Lord for occasion to prove his love; virtue is its own reward; Christians should put on compassion, humility, and love, the bond of perfection.
• Miscellanies 4.8.58Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The Getae's chosen envoy is sacrificed, and the rest grieve at being passed over; the church is full of men and women who practice the life-giving death for Christ; anyone, without letters, of any race, age, or sex, may philosophize.
• Miscellanies 4.8.59Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Man and woman share one human nature and so the same virtue; women, like men, free and slave, must pursue self-restraint and justice; they differ only in what belongs to sex, such as childbearing.
• Miscellanies 4.8.60Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Woman shares man's virtue in soul and differs in body; Paul teaches headship yet mutual dependence in the Lord; women, like men, must master pleasure by walking in the Spirit.
• Miscellanies 4.8.61Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Paul lists the works of the flesh and the fruit of the Spirit; flesh means sinners and spirit the righteous; Christian courage is endurance, turning the other cheek; women are not trained for war, for even men should be peaceful.
• Miscellanies 4.8.62Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Women of some nations fight and labor like men, and even female dogs work as males do; so women must philosophize like men, though men hold the first place.
• Miscellanies 4.8.65Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Paul's household code in Colossians sets out the duties of wives and husbands, children and fathers, slaves and masters, all under the one Lord in whom there is neither Greek nor Jew, slave nor free.
• Miscellanies 4.8.66Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The earthly church is an image of the heavenly, as we pray; Paul's call to compassion, forgiveness, love, and thankfulness is repeated to shame Marcion, who should be grateful to the Creator who called us in the body.
• Miscellanies 4.8.67Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Wives and slaves may pursue true philosophy even against husbands' or masters' threats, and free men even under tyrants; to die for virtue is noble for women as for men, for it belongs to the good, not to one sex.
• Miscellanies 4.8.68Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Old and young, slaves, children, and wives often become excellent despite opposition; opposition should increase their zeal, since serving God and serving demons admit no comparison; we act for our own salvation whether others approve or not.
• Miscellanies 4.8.69Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Virtue must be pursued regardless of others' opinion; as Epicurus wrote to Menoeceus, it is never too early or too late to philosophize, for young and old alike.
• Miscellanies 5.1.11Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Faith must advance with inquiry, for “seek and you will find”; but inquiry must be free of rivalry, envy, and strife, which Timon mocks in the philosophers' quarrels over sophisms.
• Miscellanies 5.1.12Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Inquiry about God aimed at discovery, not strife, is saving; the psalm promises those who seek the Lord knowledge and life; but we should not open our ears to everyone, lest faith's pure hearing be spoiled, like cups whose handles break.
• Miscellanies 5.1.13Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Love is learned through hearing, as children are taught to kiss relatives held by the ears; God is love, known to those who love; we must become pure and childlike, as the Epidaurus inscription and Christ teach, entering God's temple founded on faith, hope, and love.
• Miscellanies 5.1.2Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Faith is the ear of the soul; Paul speaks of faith growing “from faith to faith”: the common faith is the foundation, and the excellent faith built on it, like the apostles', is perfected through learning and obedience.
• Miscellanies 5.1.6Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · It is godless to demand proofs from God; some questions need sense, some rebuke, and some, like whether providence exists, deserve punishment; providence is plain from creation; the Word is not a spoken word but God's wisdom, goodness, and power.
• Miscellanies 5.1.7Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · We are saved by grace, but not without good works and a sound will; we need grace, right teaching, and the Father's drawing; God cannot be seen clearly in this life, as Paul, Plato, and Moses say, but the pure in heart will see him; so the Savior was sent as divine teacher.
• Miscellanies 5.1.8Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · God makes foolish the wisdom of the world; Jeremiah bids us ask for the good way; Numa founded a temple of Faith; Abraham believed, and his name change from Abram, “elevated father,” signifies his turn from natural philosophy to knowledge of the one God.
• Miscellanies 5.11.67Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The acceptable sacrifice is separation from the body's passions; Socrates' “practice of death,” Pythagoras' silence, and Moses' flaying of the burnt offering all mean that the soul must be stripped bare to contemplate God.
• Miscellanies 5.11.69Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Isocrates' description of the truly educated man shows that even the Greeks admired the life of the one who knows, though they did not know what knowledge is.
• Miscellanies 5.13.86Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Faith is a voluntary assent that produces good works; wrongdoing is voluntary, not necessary; and Christ is the door through which alone one rightly enters.
• Miscellanies 5.14.119Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Isaiah's rejection of sacrifices without repentance is echoed by verses ascribed to Menander, which say that God is not won by costly offerings but sees and requires an upright life.
• Miscellanies 5.14.120Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Verses ascribed to Menander, echoing the psalm's “sacrifice of righteousness,” teach that God delights in just deeds and is always near.
• Miscellanies 5.14.136Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Malachi foretells that God's name will be glorified among the nations; Plato and Bacchylides teach that virtue is freely chosen and that God is never the cause of evil.
• Miscellanies 5.14.141Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · God's goodness and justice toward all are everlasting and without beginning; each person shares in them as he chooses, and so ends the fifth book of the Miscellanies.
• Miscellanies 5.14.95Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The Stoic goal of living by nature and Plato's goal of likeness to God come from Moses' command to follow God; Zeno's teaching that the good are friends was taken from Plato.
• Miscellanies 5.14.96Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Plato's goal of becoming like God matches the saying that the seeker will find and reign and rest; Thales' sayings about God echo Scripture, and Moses' “choose life” teaches that only the good is to be chosen and that the end of life is to love God.
• Miscellanies 5.14.97Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Christ's two great commandments underlie Socrates' prayer for inner beauty and the Stoic view that only the noble is good; Aristobulus showed that Peripatetic philosophy depended on Moses.
• Miscellanies 5.2.15Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Plato speaks of the love that begets like, and of teachers begetting pupils, as Christians call instruction rebirth and Paul begot the Corinthians in Christ; Empedocles speaks of Love, and Parmenides of seeing absent things with the mind.
• Miscellanies 5.3.17Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Recognizing ignorance begins learning: seeking leads to the teacher, then faith, hope, love, and likeness to the beloved; the wise virgins' lamps are souls lighting the light in ignorance's night; few are chosen, as Plato and Cleanthes also say.
• Miscellanies 5.4.22Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The sayings of the Greek sages, like “spare time,” pack large meanings into few words.
• Miscellanies 5.4.23Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · “Know yourself” has many meanings: that you are mortal, of little account, whose image you bear, and how you are akin to God; Isaiah's hidden treasures are God's wisdom, hard to find.
• Miscellanies 5.5.27Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Pythagorean symbols depend on Scripture: “no swallow in the house” means shun gossips; “confuse the pot's mark in the ashes” means leave no trace of anger, as Scripture says not to let the sun set on anger.
• Miscellanies 5.5.28Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · More Pythagorean symbols: disturbing the bed means forgetting nocturnal emissions; “don't sail on land” means avoid tax-farming; “wear no ring with gods' images” agrees with Moses' ban on images, as the Hebrews' temple had none.
• Miscellanies 5.5.30Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Pythagoras's “do not step over the balance” summarizes Moses on justice; Christ's light yoke and call to be like children teach equality; in Christ there is no slave or free; the mysteries' ban on eating the heart means not consuming the soul with grief.
• Miscellanies 5.5.31Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The two ways of Scripture, narrow and broad, are echoed by Prodicus's fable and Pythagoras's ban on public roads; a Scythian king and Euphorion speak symbolically of war; the Egyptian sphinx signifies that God is to be loved and feared.
• Miscellanies 5.8.44Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Barbarians too used symbols: the Scythian king sent Darius a mouse, frog, bird, arrow, and plow, variously interpreted; Anacharsis slept guarding mouth and genitals, meaning the tongue is harder to master than pleasure.
• Miscellanies 5.8.51Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Moses' food laws are symbolic: the pig stands for greedy, unclean desire; as Barnabas explains, clean animals that part the hoof and chew the cud signify those who ponder God's word and live in this world while awaiting the next.
• Miscellanies 5.8.52Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The unclean birds stand for plunderers, the unjust, and the greedy, whom we must avoid; the Psalms, 1 Clement, and Theognis teach that companions shape us; the horse and rider cast into the sea are desire and the soul that gives it rein.
• Miscellanies 6.1.1Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Clement introduces books 6 and 7: after the Instructor's elementary training, he will show that the one who knows is not godless but alone truly devout, and then answer objections about Christ's coming.
• Miscellanies 6.11.95Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · All things were made through the Word, the cornerstone; the four cardinal virtues are already taught in Wisdom, so the Greeks received them from the Hebrews; we are born fitted to acquire virtue, not possessing it.
• Miscellanies 6.12.100Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The knower limits his desires, values living well above life, and puts no family bond before love for God; after childbearing his wife becomes like a sister, since souls are neither male nor female and do not marry in the resurrection.
• Miscellanies 6.12.102Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The knower prays at all times, first for forgiveness, then for power to do good and to understand creation, aiming at the face-to-face vision; fasting means abstaining from all evil, and righteousness must be complete on every side.
• Miscellanies 6.12.103Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Abraham's faith advanced toward perfect righteousness; true righteousness requires not only avoiding evil but doing good with knowledge, and it leaves a lasting mark on the soul, as the glory did on Moses' face.
• Miscellanies 6.12.104Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · As Moses' face shone from converse with God, so divine goodness marks the righteous soul with light; the knower becomes like God as far as humans may, for God himself is not idle but blessed in unceasing doing of good.
• Miscellanies 6.12.96Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Adam was created not perfect but fitted to acquire virtue by his own choice; all are made for virtue, but people advance unequally, and knowledge is the hardest thing to acquire.
• Miscellanies 6.12.97Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Man was made in God's image for incorruption, and the knower strives toward perfection; he is pure even in speech, understands the nature of sin itself, and so has the higher repentance that prevents sin rather than follows it.
• Miscellanies 6.12.98Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Sinners cannot blame demons: by choosing what demons choose, a person becomes demonic; some goods, like knowledge, are chosen for themselves, others, like faith, for their results, since most avoid sin from fear and obey for the promised reward.
• Miscellanies 6.12.99Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Knowledge is the highest good, to be embraced for itself; punishment corrects and warns; true wealth is abundance of virtuous deeds, and possessions harm only when used beyond measure.
• Miscellanies 6.13.105Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The one who moves from moderating the passions to freedom from passion and active goodness becomes equal to the angels and hastens to the holy dwelling, like the apostles, who were chosen not for their nature but because God foresaw their fitness, as with Matthias.
• Miscellanies 6.14.108Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The perfect will rest on God's holy mountain, the highest church, passing beyond the Sabbath rest to the eighth day; the Lord's other sheep have other folds, and “Your faith has saved you” does not mean salvation without works.
• Miscellanies 6.14.110Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Wisdom describes the astonishment of those who mocked the wise; God judges Gentiles justly, having given them philosophy and even the heavenly bodies to keep them from utter godlessness, but idolaters are condemned unless they repent.
• Miscellanies 6.14.111Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Those who fell from star-worship to idols are worthless as a drop from a jar; the knower's every act is a right action, the simple believer's intermediate, and the Gentile's sinful, since Scripture requires acting with a goal and with reason.
• Miscellanies 6.14.112Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Without knowledge one cannot rightly handle life; the fight for freedom from pleasure goes on everywhere, and those who do not do good do not know their own good, so they cannot pray rightly or use God's gifts well.
• Miscellanies 6.14.113Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · A good conscience keeps the soul holy toward God and just toward others; such a soul, empowered by the Lord, practices being godlike, gives thanks in reading, prayer, offering, and song, and is never separated from God.
• Miscellanies 6.15.115Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The knower bears the closer likeness, the Teacher's mind, teaching and living it; a Christian must master his inner passions and exceed the Pharisees, and only the knower understands the hidden sayings of the Spirit, keeping silent before the unworthy.
• Miscellanies 6.15.125Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Christ spoke all things in parables, including the law and prophets, which are understood by the church's rule, the harmony of the two covenants; knowledge leads to prudence and then self-restraint, and the perfect man's righteousness comes from love of God.
• Miscellanies 6.16.136Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The bodily spirit is the seat of perception and desire; “You shall not covet” means ruling that spirit, and man is God's image not in bodily shape but because, as God creates by the Word, the knower acts well by reason.
• Miscellanies 6.7.56Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The philosophers, knowing nothing beyond this world, imitate the truth as a painter creates an illusion of depth; self-love, the root of all sin, must give way to love of God.
• Miscellanies 6.7.60Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The righteous man is refined like silver; abstaining from evil is the perfection of the ordinary believer, but the one who knows goes on to a settled habit of doing good, in the likeness of God.
• Miscellanies 6.8.65Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The one who knows must be widely learned, able to answer arguments, faithful, wise, and humble; as a pruning hook serves several tasks, man, made to know God, also farms and studies.
• Miscellanies 6.8.69Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Knowledge precedes impulse and action, so it is the source of all rational action and the distinguishing mark of the rational soul.
• Miscellanies 6.9.71Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The one who knows feels only the bodily needs of hunger and thirst; Christ ate only to prove his real body, and the apostles, after the resurrection, rose above even the good emotions, needing neither boldness, cheer, anger, nor zeal.
• Miscellanies 6.9.72Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · United with God by love, the one who knows has no desires and strives to be like his teacher in freedom from passion; the mind is God's image in man, so sin against a man is impiety.
• Miscellanies 6.9.73Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Some claim the perfect man needs anger, boldness, cheer, and desire; but love is not craving, and the one who knows already possesses through love what he would desire.
• Miscellanies 6.9.74Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The one who knows is free from all passion, not merely moderate in it, and shares not even in the so-called good feelings that border on the passions.
• Miscellanies 6.9.75Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · One perfected by love and feasting on contemplation cannot return to petty pleasures; though still in the body, he has departed to the Lord, not by ending his life but by withdrawing his soul from the passions.
• Miscellanies 6.9.76Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The one who knows needs neither courage nor self-restraint, since he has no fears or desires to master; foreordained to adoption, he already grasps by faith what others only guess.
• Miscellanies 6.9.77Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Through love the future is present to the one who knows; he does not pray for earthly goods but to keep the faith and that many may become like him, for whoever resembles the Savior helps save others.
• Miscellanies 6.9.79Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The one who knows guides his life by the intelligible good as sailors steer by a star, enduring hardship, avoiding rashness and pleasure, and living simply, with knowledge as his first concern.
• Miscellanies 7.10.59Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Some people act bravely, even under torture, from mere temperament, but without the love that comes from knowledge; the one who knows acts rightly because he understands, in every virtue.
• Miscellanies 7.11.60Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The one who knows begins from wonder at creation, believes in God and providence, and eagerly learns, receiving the realities behind the words and understanding the commandments in a deeper sense.
• Miscellanies 7.11.61Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Taught by the Lord, the one who knows never prefers pleasure to what is right, resisting temptation as Joseph did, and remains unshaken by disease or death, which God uses as a saving medicine.
• Miscellanies 7.11.62Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The one who knows uses created things with thanksgiving and restraint, bears no grudge, prays for those who wrong him, and grows through love from faithful servant into God's friend.
• Miscellanies 7.11.65Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The one who knows fears nothing but evil; death, disease, poverty, and disgrace are not truly evils, and he plays well whatever part God gives him in the drama of life.
• Miscellanies 7.11.67Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Some endure martyrdom for glory, from fear, or for rewards, like children in faith; the one who knows endures out of love for God, which is chosen for its own sake, and his self-restraint likewise springs from knowledge, not from ambition, greed, or fear.
• Miscellanies 7.12.69Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The one who knows treats everyone alike, helping those in need, even enemies and persecutors, with wise discernment; like God, he is no one's enemy, though the disobedient make themselves his enemies.
• Miscellanies 7.12.70Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Self-control begins in fear of God and is perfected in love; the one who knows eats, drinks, and marries as need and reason require, and the married man who serves God amid family cares surpasses the solitary man, whose virtue is less tested.
• Miscellanies 7.12.71Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Knowledge is a kind of death to the passions that frees the soul to live for God; the one who pleases God does not seek pleasure in food, drink, or sex, for no one can serve God and the pleasures money buys.
• Miscellanies 7.12.72Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Only the Lord was free from desire by nature; his followers become so by discipline; the knowing souls are the wise virgins of the parable, who wait for the Lord with their lamps lit and pray for what is good, not what is pleasant.
• Miscellanies 7.12.74Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The one who knows labors in the Lord's vineyard, is tested only for the good of others, prays for those who hate him, shuns the cruel spectacles of the arena, and does God's will, holding future things more present than things at hand.
• Miscellanies 7.12.76Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The one who knows fasts from evil deeds and evil thoughts; he keeps the Lord's day whenever he casts off a bad thought, and he disciplines his eyes, seeing the beauty of others with the soul rather than with desire.
• Miscellanies 7.12.77Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Believers are true brothers who share the same faith, knowledge, and hope; the one who knows lives in the city as in a desert, takes the apostles' place in helping others, does good in secret, and goes without so that a brother in need may not suffer.
• Miscellanies 7.12.80Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The one who knows does good promptly, shares his goods and bears his brothers' burdens, keeps the Lord's commands day and night, teaches his children, and, like Job, is thankful and patient in every loss.
• Miscellanies 7.14.84Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Clement closes his sketch of the one who knows and turns to 1 Corinthians 6: going to law before the unjust is seeking revenge, praying for retribution is better but still imperfect, and the perfect pray for their enemies.
• Miscellanies 7.14.85Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · As God sends sun and Savior to the just and unjust alike, the one who knows forgives seventy times seven and asks forgiveness for his wrongdoers; to pray against them is itself to wrong and defraud them.
• Miscellanies 7.14.86Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · All human beings are God's work and should be treated as brothers; retaliation in deed, word, or thought is wrong, and those washed and sanctified must, like the sun, show kindness to the just and unjust and forgive as they hope to be forgiven.
• Miscellanies 7.3.14Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The true sacrifice God accepts is a humble, purified heart; Christians kill the old self and rise to the new, and they offer no animal sacrifices, since God needs nothing and delights only in our salvation.
• Miscellanies 7.3.17Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The one who knows, master of himself, studies both divine things (God, the Word, the order of creation) and human things (nature, virtues, vices), and uses courage to resist pleasure, desire, grief, and anger.
• Miscellanies 7.3.18Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The one who knows is courageous, indifferent to praise and blame, calm and self-controlled, rich in wanting nothing, and just in loving to live with his fellow believers on earth and in heaven.
• Miscellanies 7.3.19Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The servant of God obeys the commandments willingly, but the friend of God is pure in heart out of knowledge itself; virtue is not innate or picked up by habit, nor does knowledge come from trades or ordinary schooling.
• Miscellanies 7.3.20Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Laws and rhetoric cannot give firm hold on truth, but philosophy prepares the soul for faith; the one who knows is an athlete in the world's stadium, judged by God and the Son, who wins immortality by overcoming the passions.
• Miscellanies 7.3.21Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Our part is to obey God gladly and please him; the Savior counts good done to believers as done to himself, and harm done to them as dishonor to himself; like the sun, the Word sees even the smallest acts.
• Miscellanies 7.4.27Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · True purity is not ritual washing but a clear conscience and abstaining from sin; so souls must first be cleansed of false opinions before receiving the true teaching.
• Miscellanies 7.7.36Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The one who knows is a royal priest of God; he shuns the theater and luxuries, gives thanks to God for food and drink, rarely attends banquets, and knows that God hears even unspoken thoughts.
• Miscellanies 7.7.45Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Taught by the truth, the one who knows is gentle, patient, incorruptible, and unshaken by pleasure or pain; as a judge he is impartial, and he trusts that God governs all things for the best.
• Miscellanies 7.8.50Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The one who knows neither lies nor swears: his whole life is his oath, and he answers simply “yes” or “no,” as Christ taught.
• Miscellanies 7.8.51Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · A truthful life makes oaths unnecessary; the one who knows keeps faith by his deeds, needs only God's witness and his conscience, and will never deny the truth, even under torture.
• Miscellanies 7.9.53Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · The one who knows speaks as he thinks; like Paul circumcising Timothy, he may accommodate himself to others for their salvation without hypocrisy, but he never lies deceitfully.
• On Idolatry 1Tertullian · ca. 196–211 · Idolatry is the chief sin, containing murder, adultery, fraud, and every other vice, because it robs God of his honor and serves the demons.
• On Idolatry 10Tertullian · ca. 196–211 · Christians should not be schoolmasters, who must teach the myths of the gods and keep pagan festivals, but they may learn literature, rejecting the idolatry in it.
• On Idolatry 11Tertullian · ca. 196–211 · Trade breeds covetousness and lying, and trades that supply idol worship, such as selling sacrificial animals or incense, make a Christian the idols' agent.
• On Idolatry 12Tertullian · ca. 196–211 · The excuse “I have nothing to live on” is answered by Christ's words and examples: the disciples left everything, and faith does not fear hunger.
• On Idolatry 13Tertullian · ca. 196–211 · Christians must not share in pagan festivals or their gift-giving customs, for the world's rejoicing is not theirs, and to join in is to be ashamed of Christ.
• On Idolatry 14Tertullian · ca. 196–211 · The fear that refusing pagan customs will bring blasphemy on Christ's name is no excuse; Christians may live among pagans but not share their festivals, since they have their own Lord's day and Pentecost.
• On Idolatry 15Tertullian · ca. 196–211 · Hanging lamps and laurels on doors for public festivals honors the door-gods and demons; Christians owe obedience to rulers, but only within the bounds set by God.
• On Idolatry 16Tertullian · ca. 196–211 · Christians may attend family occasions such as weddings and coming-of-age ceremonies, which are clean in themselves, but not as participants in any sacrifice.
• On Idolatry 17Tertullian · ca. 196–211 · Christians in service to officials must not assist at sacrifices; whether a Christian could hold public office is doubtful, since he would have to avoid every idolatrous duty and every capital judgment.
• On Idolatry 18Tertullian · ca. 196–211 · The insignia of Roman office are bound up with idolatry, unlike the honors Joseph and Daniel wore, and Christ's own humility teaches Christians to shun worldly rank and power.
• On Idolatry 19Tertullian · ca. 196–211 · A Christian may not become a soldier, nor may soldiers remain soldiers after believing, for the oath to Christ cannot be shared with the oath to Caesar, and Christ disarmed Peter.
• On Idolatry 2Tertullian · ca. 196–211 · Idolatry is not only sacrifice and incense, just as Christ taught that adultery includes lust and murder includes hatred; Christians must recognize its hidden forms.
• On Idolatry 20Tertullian · ca. 196–211 · Idolatry can creep in through words: Christians may mention pagan gods' names in ordinary speech, but must never call them gods or swear by them, even in common exclamations.
• On Idolatry 21Tertullian · ca. 196–211 · Keeping silent when someone swears or curses by the gods, or cursing back in their name, honors the idols; a Christian should answer with a blessing in God's name.
• On Idolatry 22Tertullian · ca. 196–211 · A Christian should not accept a blessing in the name of pagan gods but should make it known that his kindness was done for God; to let oneself pass as a pagan is to deny Christ.
• On Idolatry 23Tertullian · ca. 196–211 · Signing a written oath by the gods to secure a loan is a real denial even if nothing is spoken, since the soul dictates what the hand writes, as Zechariah “spoke” in writing.
• On Idolatry 24Tertullian · ca. 196–211 · Faith can steer safely through the dangers of idolatry by watchfulness; avoiding idolatry is the Christian's law, and just as no idolater was figured in Noah's ark, none should be in the church.
• On Idolatry 5Tertullian · ca. 196–211 · Idol-makers' excuses, that they must earn a living, that Paul told each to remain as he was called, or that Moses made the bronze serpent, do not excuse them.
• On Idolatry 6Tertullian · ca. 196–211 · Even apart from the law, the baptismal renunciation of the devil forbids making idols; one who makes them for others to worship offers them his own soul.
• On Idolatry 8Tertullian · ca. 196–211 · Craftsmen who build or furnish temples share the guilt of idolatry, but they can earn a living through the many other uses of their skills, and must refuse knowingly to make anything for idols.
• On Idolatry 9Tertullian · ca. 196–211 · Astrology was taught by the fallen angels and is a form of magic; the magi's visit to Christ ended its license, as the fate of Simon Magus and Elymas shows.
• Octavius 12.5Minucius Felix · ca. 197–250 · Romans prosper without the Christian God, while Christians shun public festivities connected with the gods.
• Octavius 12.6Minucius Felix · ca. 197–250 · Christians deny themselves life's pleasures and gain nothing hereafter.
• Octavius 23.7Minucius Felix · ca. 197–250 · Myths of divine adultery and lust give authority to human vice.
• Octavius 25.11Minucius Felix · ca. 197–250 · Temples are centres of vice more than brothels.
• Octavius 28.10Minucius Felix · ca. 197–250 · The obscene charges reflect the pagans' own sexual vices.
• Octavius 28.11Minucius Felix · ca. 197–250 · Pagans commit acts no one should have to endure.
• Octavius 30.2Minucius Felix · ca. 197–250 · Pagans expose infants and procure abortions.
• Octavius 30.6Minucius Felix · ca. 197–250 · Christians abhor bloodshed so much that they do not even eat animal blood.
• Octavius 31.4Minucius Felix · ca. 197–250 · Pagan promiscuity and child exposure make unknowing incest likely.
• Octavius 31.5Minucius Felix · ca. 197–250 · Christians keep to one marriage, sober meals, and many to lifelong virginity.
• Octavius 31.8Minucius Felix · ca. 197–250 · Christians know each other by virtue and love each other as brothers in God.
• Octavius 32.3Minucius Felix · ca. 197–250 · Christian sacrifices are innocence, justice, honesty, and rescuing others.
• Octavius 35.5Minucius Felix · ca. 197–250 · Even with their shortcomings, Christians live far better than pagans.
• Octavius 35.6Minucius Felix · ca. 197–250 · Christians avoid even sinful thoughts, and none are in prison except for their faith.
• Octavius 36.1Minucius Felix · ca. 197–250 · Fate is no excuse: the mind is free and people are judged by their actions.
• Octavius 36.3Minucius Felix · ca. 197–250 · Christian poverty is a glory, since frugality strengthens the mind.
• Octavius 36.4Minucius Felix · ca. 197–250 · The truly poor are those who always want more; Christians are rich toward God.
• Octavius 36.5Minucius Felix · ca. 197–250 · Like the birds, Christians possess everything by not coveting.
• Octavius 36.6Minucius Felix · ca. 197–250 · Life's journey is easier without the weight of wealth.
• Octavius 36.7Minucius Felix · ca. 197–250 · Christians prefer virtue to wealth, and their sufferings are a soldier's service, not punishment.
• Octavius 37.10Minucius Felix · ca. 197–250 · Office and noble birth mean nothing; only virtue distinguishes people.
• Octavius 37.11Minucius Felix · ca. 197–250 · Christians avoid the public games, rooted in idolatry and full of violence.
• Octavius 37.12Minucius Felix · ca. 197–250 · The theatre teaches adultery and dishonours the gods; pagans weep at fictional deaths but demand real ones.
• Octavius 38.1Minucius Felix · ca. 197–250 · Christians avoid sacrificial food not from fear but to make clear they do not honour demons.
• To the Nations 1.15Tertullian · 197 · Pagans who accuse Christians of killing infants themselves expose and drown their newborns in defiance of the law, and commit worse acts besides.
• To the Nations 1.16Tertullian · 197 · The charge of incest at Christian meetings is turned back on the pagans, whose exposed children and casual unions make incest common, as a recent case at Rome showed.
• To the Nations 1.4Tertullian · 197 · Christians are hated for their name, like Socrates for truth, even when their lives visibly improve, and their true marks are wisdom, self-restraint, chastity, compassion, truth, and freedom.
• To the Nations 1.5Tertullian · 197 · Some who are called Christians are wicked, but Christians disown them, and the wickedness belongs to the individuals, not to the name.
• On the Shows 1Tertullian · ca. 197–202 · Tertullian writes to catechumens and baptized Christians to show that the faith forbids attending the public shows, rejecting the pagan claim that such pleasures do God no harm.
• On the Shows 10Tertullian · ca. 197–202 · The theatre is a shrine of Venus and Liber, gods of lust and drunkenness, and the stage arts were inspired by demons who hide behind the names of their supposed inventors.
• On the Shows 12Tertullian · ca. 197–202 · Gladiatorial shows began as human sacrifices to the dead, and so remain idolatry, even when given in honor of magistrates; the amphitheatre is a temple of demons.
• On the Shows 13Tertullian · ca. 197–202 · Since the shows are idolatrous, Christians must abstain from them, keeping their eyes and ears as clean as they keep their mouths from food offered to idols.
• On the Shows 14Tertullian · ca. 197–202 · Scripture's condemnation of worldly lusts covers the lust for pleasure, and the shows are a form of pleasure.
• On the Shows 15Tertullian · ca. 197–202 · The Holy Spirit is to be kept in peace, but every show stirs up eagerness, rivalry, anger, and grief, and Christians must not keep company with those who do such things.
• On the Shows 16Tertullian · ca. 197–202 · The circus breeds frenzy, partisan passion, curses, and hatred, all of which contradict Christ's commands to love enemies and bless those who curse.
• On the Shows 17Tertullian · ca. 197–202 · The theatre is a school of unchastity; what is shameful to say or do is also shameful to hear and watch, for what enters through the eyes and ears defiles the spirit.
• On the Shows 18Tertullian · ca. 197–202 · Though Paul mentions the stadium, the violence and vanity of athletics disfigure God's image, and wrestling mimics the devil who threw the first humans.
• On the Shows 19Tertullian · ca. 197–202 · The amphitheatre delights in human blood; even when the guilty die, the innocent should grieve, and innocent men too are killed there.
• On the Shows 2Tertullian · ca. 197–202 · It is argued that the materials of the shows are God's good creation, but everything God made can be perverted by the devil, who corrupted man and his use of creation from the beginning.
• On the Shows 20Tertullian · ca. 197–202 · Some argue that God watches the shows without being defiled, but God watches as judge; what he condemns is never lawful anywhere.
• On the Shows 21Tertullian · ca. 197–202 · Pagans judge good and evil inconsistently: modest and gentle in daily life, they applaud nakedness, filth, violence, and killing at the shows.
• On the Shows 22Tertullian · ca. 197–202 · Pagans adore charioteers, actors, and gladiators yet strip them of civil rights, which confesses that their trade is shameful.
• On the Shows 23Tertullian · ca. 197–202 · God cannot be pleased by charioteers, masked actors, cross-dressing pantomimes, boxers, or beast-fighters, who deface his image and counterfeit what he made.
• On the Shows 24Tertullian · ca. 197–202 · The shows belong to the devil's pomp renounced at baptism, and even pagans recognize a Christian by his refusal to attend them; to go back is to desert to the enemy.
• On the Shows 25Tertullian · ca. 197–202 · No one can think of God at the shows, which stir lust and passion; the hands and mouth used in worship should not applaud actors and gladiators.
• On the Shows 26Tertullian · ca. 197–202 · Tertullian tells of a woman possessed by a demon at the theatre and another who died after dreaming of a shroud, as warnings that no one can serve two masters.
• On the Shows 27Tertullian · ca. 197–202 · Christians should shun the shows, where God is blasphemed and persecution is demanded, and should see their pleasant parts as honey on poison.
• On the Shows 28Tertullian · ca. 197–202 · The Christian's feast is still to come; for now believers mourn while the world rejoices, and their true pleasure is to depart and be with the Lord.
• On the Shows 29Tertullian · ca. 197–202 · Christians have their own better shows: forgiveness, freedom, victory over demons, the race toward the end, and the contests of virtue, in which they are crowned.
• On the Shows 3Tertullian · ca. 197–202 · Though Scripture does not forbid the shows by name, the first psalm's blessing on the man who does not sit in the council of the ungodly applies to the crowds of the theatre and circus.
• On the Shows 4Tertullian · ca. 197–202 · At baptism Christians renounce the devil, his pomp, and his angels, and since the shows are bound up with idolatry, that vow covers them too.
• On the Shows 8Tertullian · ca. 197–202 · Every part of the circus is dedicated to some god, yet places defile no one of themselves; what defiles is taking part in what is done there, as a spectator or worshipper.
• On Prayer 11Tertullian · ca. 198–206 · Before praying we must be reconciled with our brothers and put away anger, as Christ and the apostle commanded.
• On Prayer 20Tertullian · ca. 198–206 · Tertullian turns to women's dress, following Peter and Paul, who both forbid ostentatious clothes, gold, and elaborate hairstyles.
• On Prayer 21Tertullian · ca. 198–206 · Tertullian takes up the disputed question whether virgins must be veiled, beginning with the argument of those who say Paul's command applies only to married women.
• On Prayer 22Tertullian · ca. 198–206 · Tertullian argues that Paul's command to veil “women” includes virgins, from the use of the word in Genesis and in Greek, from “every woman,” from the angels, and from nature; at the least, betrothed girls and consecrated virgins should be veiled.
• On Repentance 1Tertullian · ca. 198–206 · Pagans know repentance only as a natural feeling of regret, without reason, and so they even repent of their good deeds.
• On Repentance 10Tertullian · ca. 198–206 · Many avoid public penance out of shame, but among fellow Christians the sinner is before Christ himself, who prays for him; hiding sin from men does not hide it from God.
• On Repentance 11Tertullian · ca. 198–206 · Tertullian mocks those who shrink from the discomforts of penance, comparing them to candidates for office who endure worse for a single year's honor.
• On Repentance 12Tertullian · ca. 198–206 · The fires of volcanoes foreshadow Gehenna; since exomologesis is the second remedy after baptism, the sinner should use it, like Nebuchadnezzar, and not reject it, like Pharaoh.
• On Repentance 2Tertullian · ca. 198–206 · God himself instituted repentance after Adam's fall, calling Israel to it through the prophets and John the Baptist, so that the heart might be cleansed for salvation; it belongs to sins only, never to good deeds.
• On Repentance 3Tertullian · ca. 198–206 · Sins are both bodily and spiritual, of deed and of will; body and soul share guilt and need repentance alike, and Christ taught that sinful desire is itself sin.
• On Repentance 4Tertullian · ca. 198–206 · God promises pardon to all who repent and even swears to it; the sinner should cling to repentance like a plank in a shipwreck, obeying because God commands.
• On Repentance 5Tertullian · ca. 198–206 · Repentance once made must not be undone by returning to sin: this is contempt and ingratitude toward God and a triumph for the devil; nor may anyone claim that inward fear of God excuses outward sin.
• On Repentance 6Tertullian · ca. 198–206 · Catechumens must not put off repentance, presuming on baptism to wash away sins committed meanwhile; true repentance must come before baptism, which seals a faith already changed.
• On Repentance 7Tertullian · ca. 198–206 · After baptism, God has left open one further repentance for grave sin, but only once; the sinner should not abuse it, nor despair, but gratefully accept the remedy.
• On Repentance 8Tertullian · ca. 198–206 · The letters to the seven churches, the prophets, and the parables of the lost coin, the lost sheep, and the prodigal son show that God welcomes the sinner who repents and confesses.
• On Repentance 9Tertullian · ca. 198–206 · The second repentance must be shown outwardly in exomologesis, public confession with sackcloth, ashes, fasting, weeping, and kneeling before the presbyters and the faithful, through which God pardons.
• On Patience 1Tertullian · ca. 198–206 · Tertullian confesses that he, an impatient man, writes on patience as a sick man speaks of health; patience is necessary to every Christian virtue and is praised even by pagan philosophers.
• On Patience 10Tertullian · ca. 198–206 · The desire for revenge is a chief form of impatience; it makes the one provoked as guilty as the provoker and usurps God's right to judge and avenge.
• On Patience 11Tertullian · ca. 198–206 · Whatever the source of our troubles, the devil, ourselves, or God's discipline, we must bear them patiently; the Beatitudes promise happiness to the patient.
• On Patience 12Tertullian · ca. 198–206 · Patience makes peace and forgiveness possible, waits for the repentance of sinners (even a separated spouse), and is the source of the love Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 13.
• On Patience 13Tertullian · ca. 198–206 · Patience is also exercised in the body: in fasting and penance, as Nebuchadnezzar showed, in continence and celibacy, and above all in enduring persecution and martyrdom.
• On Patience 14Tertullian · ca. 198–206 · Isaiah, Stephen, and above all Job are models of patience; Job, stripped of everything, only thanked God and was restored double.
• On Patience 15Tertullian · ca. 198–206 · God rewards patience, which supports every virtue; Tertullian pictures Patience as a serene figure sitting on the throne of the gentle Holy Spirit, who cannot dwell in us without her.
• On Patience 16Tertullian · ca. 198–206 · Pagan “patience” in pursuit of money and pleasure is a devilish counterfeit; Christians should repay Christ's patience with patience of spirit and body, believing in the resurrection of both.
• On Patience 2Tertullian · ca. 198–206 · The model of Christian patience is God himself, who bears with ungrateful and wicked humanity and gives his gifts to just and unjust alike.
• On Patience 3Tertullian · ca. 198–206 · Christ showed divine patience throughout his life, from his birth and baptism to his gentle ministry, his refusal of the sword at his arrest, and the insults of his passion.
• On Patience 4Tertullian · ca. 198–206 · Just as servants follow their master's character and even animals obey us, we ought to obey God, and obedience itself springs from patience.
• On Patience 5Tertullian · ca. 198–206 · Impatience was born in the devil, who could not bear God's favor to man; through it Eve and Adam sinned, Cain murdered, and Israel repeatedly rebelled; every sin springs from impatience.
• On Patience 6Tertullian · ca. 198–206 · Patience proved Abraham's faith; Christ, bringing faith to the nations, replaced the law's “eye for an eye” with patience, commanding love of enemies.
• On Patience 7Tertullian · ca. 198–206 · Christians should bear loss of property patiently, since nothing is truly theirs; patience in loss trains them to give freely, whereas pagans value money above the soul.
• On Patience 8Tertullian · ca. 198–206 · Christians should bear blows and insults patiently, as Christ commanded; patience blunts every injury, so that the one who inflicts it loses his aim and is himself the one who grieves.
• On Patience 9Tertullian · ca. 198–206 · Christians should not grieve impatiently for the dead, since, believing in the resurrection, they know that death is only a departure to Christ, whom they too will soon follow.
• Prescription against Heretics 43Tertullian · ca. 203 · Heretics associate with magicians and astrologers and deny that God is to be feared; but where God is feared there is order, discipline, and a united church.
• Against Marcion 1.23Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · True goodness is rational and just: it serves its own first and never wrongs another; Marcion's god, stealing the Creator's man like a kidnapper stealing another's slave, shows a goodness that is irrational and unjust.
• Against Marcion 1.26Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · A god who forbids sin but never judges or punishes it in effect permits it; true goodness must hate and punish evil in order to protect the good.
• Against Marcion 1.27Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · A god who forbids sin but never punishes it invites every vice; the Marcionites themselves still fear sin, and their teaching that sinners are “cast away” implies a judgment after all.
• Against Marcion 2.13Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · Once evil entered the world, God's justice became the guardian of goodness: the fear of judgment keeps people from evil, and a God who can both reward and punish is to be loved as Father and feared as Lord.
• Against Marcion 2.17Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · The Creator's judgments serve his goodness: he sends rain on good and evil, spares the repentant (Nineveh, Hezekiah, David), and gave laws of justice and kindness long before any pagan lawgiver.
• Against Marcion 2.18Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · The law of “eye for eye” was meant to restrain violence by the fear of immediate requital; the food laws taught self-control and prepared for fasting; and the sacrifices kept an idolatry-prone people bound to the true God.
• Against Marcion 2.19Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · The law kept Israel mindful of God in every part of life, and the prophets taught justice, mercy, and care for the poor, while the Psalms promise blessing to the righteous: proof of a supremely good God.
• Against Marcion 2.5Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · To the Marcionite charge that a good, all-knowing, all-powerful God would have prevented the fall, Tertullian answers that God's works prove all three attributes, and that the fall came from the free will God gave man as the very mark of his image.
• Against Marcion 2.6Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · God rightly made man free: only a free being could truly be God's image, possess goodness as its own, resist evil, and deserve reward or punishment; so the fall is man's fault, not God's.
• Against Marcion 2.7Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · Having given man free will, God rightly did not snatch it back to prevent the fall; had he done so, Marcion would have called him fickle and faithless.
• Against Marcion 2.8Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · God made man for life, not death; man fell not because he was too weak, since God's image was stronger than the tempting angel, and the same free will today lets believers defeat the devil.
• Against Marcion 2.9Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · The soul is God's “breath,” not his Spirit: an image of God, free and rational, but not incapable of sin as God is; so its sin comes from its free choice, not from God, who forbade sin and warned of death.
• Against Marcion 4.12Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · In the sabbath controversies Christ did not destroy the Creator's sabbath but fulfilled it, allowing the relief of hunger as David did and doing God's work of saving life, as Elisha had done.
• Against Marcion 4.14Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · The Beatitudes on the poor, the hungry, the weeping, and the persecuted echo the Creator's constant care for the lowly in the Psalms and Isaiah, and fulfill Isaiah 61, so they belong to the Creator's Christ.
• Against Marcion 4.15Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · The woes on the rich, the full, the laughing, and the praised are the Creator's own warnings from the law and prophets; the same God who blesses the poor rebukes the rich, so there is one God, not two.
• Against Marcion 4.16Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · Love of enemies, turning the other cheek, giving to all who ask, and the Golden Rule are the Creator's own law brought to fulfillment by Christ; a god who does not avenge would command patience in vain.
• Against Marcion 4.17Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · Tertullian argues that Christ's teaching on lending, mercy, judging, and being called “Lord” in Luke 6 continues the Creator's law and prophets, and mocks Marcion's god as a eunuch who forbids marriage yet claims sons.
• Against Marcion 4.27Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · Christ's own apparent inconsistencies and his rebukes of the Pharisees and lawyers over washing, tithes, honors, burdens, the prophets' tombs, and the key of knowledge show that he upheld the Creator's law rather than attacking it.
• Against Marcion 4.33Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · Christ's sayings on God and mammon, on the Pharisees' self-justification, and on the law and the prophets lasting until John show one God, the Creator, whose law is fulfilled rather than destroyed.
• Against Marcion 4.35Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · Christ's warnings about causing stumbling, his teaching on rebuke and forgiveness, the healing of the ten lepers, and his sayings on the kingdom and the days of Noah and Lot all follow the Creator's law and prophets.
• Against Marcion 4.37Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · Zacchaeus fulfilled Isaiah's commands of mercy and was saved, Christ came to save the whole man, flesh as well as soul, and the parable of the entrusted money shows a God who judges.
• Against Marcion 4.9Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · The call of fishermen fulfills Jeremiah; Christ's cleansing of the leper and his command to show himself to the priest confirm the law, as Elisha's cure of Naaman prefigured.
• Against Marcion 5.14Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · Christ came in the likeness of sinful flesh, not in a phantom body; God will raise mortal bodies as he raised Christ; and Paul's lament over Israel's ignorance, his praise of God's riches, and his moral precepts in Romans 8–14 all come from the Creator's Scriptures.
• Against Marcion 5.18Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · Marcion altered Ephesians 3:9 to make the mystery hidden from the Creator, but the context, Paul's spiritual allegories, his moral commands, his teaching on marriage as a great mystery, and the powers of darkness in Ephesians 3–6 all point to the Creator.
• To Scapula 1Tertullian · 212 · Christians do not fear persecution; Tertullian writes out of love for his enemies, as Christ commanded, to warn them of what is coming.
• To Scapula 4Tertullian · 212 · Tertullian urges Scapula not to fight against God, citing lenient governors, Christian healings of pagans, the favor of Severus, the rain miracle under Marcus Aurelius, and the blameless life of Christians.
• Refutation of All Heresies 1.19.15Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · For Plato only goods of the soul are truly good; bodily and external goods are only so called.
• Refutation of All Heresies 1.19.16Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · Plato's four virtues each lie between two vices, and possessing them brings happiness.
• Refutation of All Heresies 1.19.17Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · Plato defines happiness as becoming as like God as possible, holy and just with wisdom.
• Refutation of All Heresies 1.19.18Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · Plato held that the virtues always agree while the vices are many and conflicting.
• Refutation of All Heresies 1.19.19Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · Plato admitted fate but also human freedom and responsibility.
• Refutation of All Heresies 1.19.20Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · Plato taught that wrongdoing is involuntary, arising from ignorance of the good.
• Refutation of All Heresies 1.19.21Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · Hippolytus cites a passage he attributes to the Republic that wrongdoing is involuntary.
• Refutation of All Heresies 1.19.22Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · Plato said punishment is good because it purifies the wrongdoer and deters others.
• Refutation of All Heresies 1.19.23Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · For Plato evil is not made by God but is a falling away from the good.
• Refutation of All Heresies 1.20.5Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · Unlike Plato, Aristotle held that the wise man also needs bodily and external goods.
• Refutation of All Heresies 1.22.4Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · Epicurus made pleasure the goal of wisdom, understood variously by his followers.
• Refutation of All Heresies 1.24.6Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · Only those who conquer bodily passions, the Brahmins say, reach God.
• Refutation of All Heresies 10.33.10Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · The giving of the law proves human free will; God gave it through righteous men and finally through Moses.
• Refutation of All Heresies 10.33.13Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · Christian faith rests not on eloquence but on words spoken by divine power, through which the Word calls humans freely back from disobedience.
• Refutation of All Heresies 10.33.15Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · The Word took a body from the virgin and lived through every age of life, showing in his humanity that God made nothing evil and that humans are free.
• Refutation of All Heresies 10.33.7Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · God made the human being from all the elements to rule creation; he made a man, not a god, but one who obeys him may become a god and be entrusted with greater things.
• Refutation of All Heresies 10.33.9Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · Humans were made with free will; evil is not a created thing but arises when a free being chooses it.
• Refutation of All Heresies 6.19.5Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · Hippolytus charges Simon's followers with promiscuity, which they call perfect love, claiming that the redeemed cannot sin.
• Refutation of All Heresies 6.19.7Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · Simon's followers reject the prophets as inspired by the world-making angels and claim freedom to do as they wish.
• Refutation of All Heresies 6.19.8Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · They teach that evil is only a convention of the world-making angels and expect the world's dissolution.
• Refutation of All Heresies 6.27.4Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · Hippolytus explains several Pythagorean maxims: do not provoke anger, despise small things, stir up strife, or take up menial work.
• Refutation of All Heresies 6.41.1Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · Marcus was thought to prophesy and taught his disciples that, belonging to the perfect power, they could sin without danger.
• Refutation of All Heresies 7.36.3Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · Hippolytus blames Nicolaus, one of the seven deacons, whose followers John rebuked in Revelation for sexual immorality and eating idol sacrifices.
• Refutation of All Heresies 9.12.1Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · Callistus, a Christian slave of Carpophorus, ran a bank in Rome and lost the deposits of widows and fellow Christians.
• Refutation of All Heresies 9.12.20Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · Hippolytus charges that Callistus founded a rival school and was lax, promising forgiveness to any sinner who joined him.
• Refutation of All Heresies 9.12.21Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · Hippolytus says Callistus's rule drew people with bad consciences and excommunicates, and that he refused to depose bishops even for mortal sin.
• Refutation of All Heresies 9.12.23Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · Callistus likened the church to Noah's ark, with clean and unclean animals together, and crowds flocked to him.
• Refutation of All Heresies 9.12.24Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · Hippolytus charges that Callistus allowed unmarried women of rank to take a slave or free man as a partner, regarded as a husband without legal marriage.
• Refutation of All Heresies 9.12.25Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · Hippolytus says that as a result some Christian women used contraceptives and procured abortions, and he calls Callistus's teaching adultery and murder.
• Refutation of All Heresies 9.15.6Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · He vows before the seven witnesses to avoid sin and is baptized in his clothes.
• Refutation of All Heresies 9.18.3Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · The Essenes live in self-control and mutual love, abstain from marriage themselves without forbidding it, and adopt others' children.
• Refutation of All Heresies 9.19.1Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · The Essenes share all property; newcomers sell their goods for a common fund distributed by need.
• Refutation of All Heresies 9.19.2Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · No Essene is in want; they avoid oil, elect stewards, and always dress in white.
• Refutation of All Heresies 9.20.1Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · Essenes live in many towns and welcome traveling members as family; they travel carrying only a weapon.
• Refutation of All Heresies 9.20.2Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · Each town has an Essene steward; they own no spare clothing and exchange goods freely without buying or selling.
• Refutation of All Heresies 9.21.5Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · Their meals are quiet and orderly, and they are always sober and moderate.
• Refutation of All Heresies 9.22.1Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · Essenes obey their leader, show mercy, avoid anger, and refuse oaths, since their word is stronger than an oath.
• Refutation of All Heresies 9.23.3Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · The initiate swears to revere God, wrong no one, hate no one but pray for enemies, and be faithful to rulers, since authority comes from God.
• Refutation of All Heresies 9.23.4Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · He also swears to rule humbly, love truth, not steal, keep nothing from members and reveal nothing to outsiders, and pass on the teachings unchanged.
• Refutation of All Heresies 9.30.3Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · Their laws produce a dignified and temperate life, admirable to any reader.
• On Prayer 19.2Origen · ca. 233–234 · Jesus condemns praying for human glory; those who pray or give to be seen already have their reward, as the rich man had his good things in this life.
• On Prayer 19.3Origen · ca. 233–234 · Those who follow the broad, crooked road of pleasure, even praying at feasts while drunk, are the ones who pray “at the street corners,” not on Christ's narrow and straight way.
• On Prayer 22.3Origen · ca. 233–234 · Only true children of God, whose lives and hearts agree with their words, can rightly call God “Father,” just as only a life of obedience truly says “Jesus is Lord.”
• On Prayer 28.1Origen · ca. 233–234 · The petition on debts recalls Paul's teaching that we owe others not only money but kind words, deeds, and above all love.
• On Prayer 28.2Origen · ca. 233–234 · We owe duties to fellow Christians, to family, to fellow citizens, to all people, and even to our own body, soul, mind, and speech.
• On Prayer 28.3Origen · ca. 233–234 · Above all we owe God wholehearted love, Christ the price of our redemption, the Holy Spirit fruit that does not grieve him, our guardian angels their due, and the watching world a worthy performance.
• On Prayer 28.6Origen · ca. 233–234 · Remembering our own unpaid debts to God and others should make us gentle toward those who fail in their duties to us.
• On Prayer 28.7Origen · ca. 233–234 · Whoever will not forgive will be treated like the unforgiving servant in the parable; we must forgive the repentant even seven times a day and seek the healing even of the unrepentant.
• On Prayer 29.18Origen · ca. 233–234 · Examples from Genesis show that temptation reveals what was already in the heart: Eve's weakness, Cain's wickedness, Ham's impiety, Esau's profanity, and Joseph's self-control.
• On Prayer 29.5Origen · ca. 233–234 · No condition of life is free from temptation: the poor may steal, the rich grow proud, and even Paul and Hezekiah were in danger of pride.
• On Prayer 29.6Origen · ca. 233–234 · Poverty, wealth, and moderate means each bring their own temptations.
• On Prayer 29.7Origen · ca. 233–234 · Health and sickness both bring temptations: the healthy to sins of the body, the sick to impure thoughts, impatience, and shame at bearing Christ's name.
• On Prayer 29.8Origen · ca. 233–234 · Honor among men is also a temptation, leading the high born to pride and the low born to flattery that counterfeits love.
• On Prayer 6.2Origen · ca. 233–234 · Denying free will is absurd: we experience ourselves choosing, and everyone praises and blames others as responsible for their acts.
• On Prayer 9.3Origen · ca. 233–234 · Coming to prayer free of grudges, as the prophet and Jesus command, already gives us the best of gifts.
• Exhortation to Martyrdom 43Origen · 235 · Christians must show their knowledge by pure and patient lives, bearing dishonor and slander as Paul did, disciplined but not killed, rejoicing though seeming sorrowful.
• Against Celsus 1.26Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus falsely says the Jews worship angels and practice sorcery; and the swift spread of Christ's teaching, which has transformed many lives, shows that it is from God.
• Against Celsus 1.4Origen · ca. 248 · Christian ethics resembles philosophy's because God wrote the moral law on every heart; the broken and rewritten tablets symbolize sin and renewal.
• Against Celsus 1.5Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus notes that philosophers also rejected idols; Origen agrees, because God wrote this truth too on human hearts.
• Against Celsus 1.64Origen · ca. 248 · Philosophy too reformed a few wicked men like Phaedo and Polemon, but Christ has transformed multitudes, as Paul's words to Titus describe.
• Against Celsus 1.68Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus likens Jesus' miracles to street magic, but magicians never call anyone to moral reform or the fear of God, as Jesus' works and life did.
• Against Celsus 2.41Origen · ca. 248 · Origen answers that poverty and persecution are not true evils, as the examples of Socrates, Democritus, Crates, and Diogenes show; Celsus cannot point to any wickedness in Jesus.
• Against Celsus 2.79Origen · ca. 248 · Origen closes Book 2 by arguing that no mere man could have spread his teaching across the world against all opposition and transformed so many lives, since Christ is the power and wisdom of God.
• Against Celsus 3.29Origen · ca. 248 · Origen explains that demons opposed the spread of the gospel because it ended their sacrifices, but God made churches arise everywhere, which even at their worst are better than the civic assemblies around them.
• Against Celsus 3.30Origen · ca. 248 · Origen compares the churches of Athens, Corinth, and Alexandria, and their councils and leaders, with the civic assemblies and magistrates of those cities, finding the church's members, even the weaker ones, morally superior.
• Against Celsus 3.38Origen · ca. 248 · Origen reflects that what people believe often depends on the “fortune” of their teachers and upbringing, whose causes lie hidden in providence, and that faith in Jesus is well-founded, whether lucky for the many or tested by a few.
• Against Celsus 3.44Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus claims Christians invite only the ignorant; Origen answers that the ignorance of a few Christians must not be blamed on the teaching itself, which invites people to wisdom.
• Against Celsus 3.49Origen · ca. 248 · Christ is Savior of all, the wise as well as the simple; true education is a road to virtue and helps, rather than hinders, the knowledge of God.
• Against Celsus 3.54Origen · ca. 248 · Christians seek to heal the souls even of the foolish, as Wisdom invites them in Proverbs, just as philosophers like Pythagoras and Zeno taught slaves.
• Against Celsus 3.56Origen · ca. 248 · Christian teachers draw women away from licentiousness, the theater, and superstition, and train boys in chastity, rather than leading them into evil.
• Against Celsus 3.57Origen · ca. 248 · Christians do not draw people away from good teachers; they openly promise blessedness to those who live by God's word as in his sight.
• Against Celsus 3.58Origen · ca. 248 · Christians speak freely before good fathers and teachers; they turn youths away only from immoral teachers, and they build on a good philosophical education to lead students to the deeper wisdom of the prophets and apostles.
• Against Celsus 3.60Origen · ca. 248 · Origen adapts the formulas of the mysteries: those with clean hands, wise speech, and a long-purified soul are admitted to Christianity's deeper mysteries, while the wicked are first called to healing.
• Against Celsus 3.61Origen · ca. 248 · Christians call the wicked not to the mysteries but to healing, as a physician calls the sick; unlike a robber, they call sinners in order to bind up their wounds.
• Against Celsus 3.62Origen · ca. 248 · Christ came as physician to sinners and as teacher to the purified; no one except Jesus has been sinless from the beginning, and God receives the sinner who repents and lives well.
• Against Celsus 3.63Origen · ca. 248 · God is not swayed by flattery; the penitent's humble confession turns sinners back, and since all sin, Christ calls all who labor to find rest in him.
• Against Celsus 3.64Origen · ca. 248 · A repentant sinner is preferred only to a self-satisfied man who thinks himself righteous, as in the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector.
• Against Celsus 3.65Origen · ca. 248 · Origen denies that Christians attract only the worst people: most converts come from decent lives, while hardened sinners, held by conscience and habit, find conversion harder.
• Against Celsus 3.66Origen · ca. 248 · Both philosophy and Scripture record people who were completely changed, like Heracles, Odysseus, Socrates, and Musonius, so Celsus is wrong that habitual sinners cannot change.
• Against Celsus 3.67Origen · ca. 248 · Philosophy itself refutes Celsus: Phaedo, once forced into a brothel, became Plato's narrator of Socrates' death, and the drunken Polemo became head of Xenocrates' school.
• Against Celsus 3.68Origen · ca. 248 · The apostles' simple preaching, powered by the Spirit, changed whole multitudes from vice to virtue and even to contempt of death, far beyond what philosophy achieved.
• Against Celsus 3.69Origen · ca. 248 · All rational souls share one nature and none was created evil; habits of vice can be changed through God's word, as practice enables even rope-walkers' feats, and no one becomes sinless without the Word.
• Against Celsus 3.7Origen · ca. 248 · Origen denies that Christianity arose from rebellion, since Christ forbade his followers to kill anyone and they accepted death like sheep; and he suggests the Hebrew language was God's gift at the Exodus.
• Against Celsus 3.70Origen · ca. 248 · God can do all things consistent with being God, good, and wise; he cannot do injustice, just as sweetness cannot make bitter or light cannot darken.
• Against Celsus 3.71Origen · ca. 248 · God does not pardon the wicked out of mere pity; he accepts those who condemn their sins and truly change, as virtue or real progress drives out their former wickedness.
• Against Celsus 3.75Origen · ca. 248 · The only “physicians” Christians turn people from are philosophers with harmful doctrines, such as Epicureans, Peripatetics, Stoics, and believers in transmigration; Christians never despise knowledge and point pupils to God and Jesus, not to themselves.
• Against Celsus 3.76Origen · ca. 248 · Christian teachers are not drunkards accusing the sober; rather, those who pray to lifeless images and worship statues or animals are drunk, and even mad.
• Against Celsus 3.77Origen · ca. 248 · Those truly blind are not Christians but those who fail to rise from the beauty of creation to worship its Creator alone, and who turn to temples, statues, and festivals.
• Against Celsus 3.78Origen · ca. 248 · Christianity attracts mainly simple people, not the wicked; moved by fear of punishment, they practice self-control, generosity, and even endure torture and death, which no wicked will could produce.
• Against Celsus 3.8Origen · ca. 248 · Origen argues from Hebrew names that the Israelites were not Egyptians, and says that Christians, forbidden to fight, have been protected by God, who has allowed only a few martyrs as examples while preserving the church.
• Against Celsus 3.9Origen · ca. 248 · Against Celsus's claim that Christians would not want everyone to become Christian, Origen points to missionaries who travel through cities and villages without seeking wealth or glory.
• Against Celsus 4.24Origen · ca. 248 · Human greatness is not measured by bodily size, or elephants would surpass humans; rational beings excel by reason, and angels by perfected reason and virtue.
• Against Celsus 4.25Origen · ca. 248 · If wickedness makes one a worm, then wicked pagans, even famous orators, are as much worms as wicked Christians; but no rational being, bearing the seeds of virtue from God's Word, should be likened to such animals.
• Against Celsus 4.26Origen · ca. 248 · If anyone deserves to be called worms, it is idolaters and the sexually licentious, not Christians who rise from creation to the Creator, pray to him, endure death, and keep their bodies chaste as temples of God.
• Against Celsus 4.27Origen · ca. 248 · True Christians who share in the church's common prayers are free of the vices common elsewhere; only those who are pure in heart, gentle, peacemakers, and willing to suffer may say God has revealed all things to them.
• Against Celsus 4.29Origen · ca. 248 · Christians know that angels and heavenly powers surpass humans, though the righteous hope to become like angels and like God; if anyone says “after God come we,” it can only mean rational and virtuous beings.
• Against Celsus 4.3Origen · ca. 248 · Christ came to call back the lost sheep of Israel and give the kingdom to others; God does not correct people by force, since virtue must be freely chosen, and he always corrects the willing through his Word.
• Against Celsus 4.31Origen · ca. 248 · Against Celsus's claim that the Jews were insignificant runaways, Origen praises ancient Israel as a shadow of heavenly life: worshiping one God, banning images, prostitutes, and effeminacy, with just judges and Sabbaths devoted to hearing God's law.
• Against Celsus 4.45Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus calls Lot and his daughters worse than Thyestes; Origen, noting that Scripture neither praises nor blames them, observes that the Stoics defend such an act in a hypothetical end of the world, which Lot's daughters believed had come.
• Against Celsus 4.46Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus picks out the discreditable family stories of Genesis but ignores Joseph's chastity, which surpasses Bellerophon's, as he chose prison rather than sin and silently left his cause to God.
• Against Celsus 4.53Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus contradicts himself in calling the dialogue worthy of both pity and hatred; Scripture's writers were sincere witnesses, and no teaching improves people as effectively as faith that God sees every word, deed, and thought.
• Against Celsus 4.59Origen · ca. 248 · Just as buildings differ according to their use, so bodies differ according to the souls that dwell in them; no wise person would bury Socrates and his accuser Anytus with equal honor.
• Against Celsus 4.62Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus claims the amount of evil in the world never changes, paraphrasing Plato's Theaetetus, but Plato's Timaeus implies that evils diminish after the earth is purified by flood.
• Against Celsus 4.63Origen · ca. 248 · Origen rejects Celsus's claim that the amount of evil is fixed, citing Chrysippus's history of how prostitution spread step by step into the cities.
• Against Celsus 4.64Origen · ca. 248 · Though the nature of the universe is one, its states vary, as a man's moral state varies, so evils increase and decrease, and providence cleanses the world by flood and fire.
• Against Celsus 4.65Origen · ca. 248 · Against Celsus's claim that philosophers can explain evil, Origen says its origin can be known only by God's revelation, including the fall of the devil and his angels.
• Against Celsus 4.66Origen · ca. 248 · Evil does not come from God, but neither from matter: the only true evil is the vice each person's own mind produces, and the deeds that flow from it.
• Against Celsus 4.67Origen · ca. 248 · If history repeats itself exactly in cycles, as Celsus claims, free will and moral praise and blame disappear, and Celsus himself must write his book endlessly again.
• Against Celsus 4.70Origen · ca. 248 · God may use the wicked for the good of the whole, as a city uses condemned criminals for public works, but they remain blameworthy, as Paul's vessels of honor and dishonor show.
• Against Celsus 4.82Origen · ca. 248 · The bees' orderly 'wars' may teach humans to wage only just wars, but bees exist for humanity's sake, and it is man who works together with God's providence.
• Against Celsus 4.83Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus's praise of ants that share burdens would undermine human compassion and imply that human and animal souls are alike, but Christians hold that the human soul is made in God's image.
• Against Celsus 5.27Origen · ca. 248 · If every nation's customs are right as Celsus says, then parricide, incest, human sacrifice, and animal worship would all be holy, and holiness would be mere convention, which is absurd.
• Against Celsus 5.28Origen · ca. 248 · If holiness depends only on local custom, all virtues become relative, which is absurd; Origen now turns to a deeper, mystical account of how the nations were allotted to angelic overseers.
• Against Celsus 5.36Origen · ca. 248 · Ammon's ban on eating cows is arbitrary, unlike the Jewish laws about animals, which carry a deeper meaning; and Celsus's principle would excuse Scythian cannibalism and Indians who eat their fathers.
• Against Celsus 5.37Origen · ca. 248 · When a city's law contradicts God's natural law, God's law must be obeyed even at the cost of death; so Christians reject the local gods, and Christ, unlike the newly invented Sarapis, is older than all creation.
• Against Celsus 5.40Origen · ca. 248 · Pindar's 'law is king of all' is true only of the natural law of God, not of the many laws of cities; Christians live by God's law and reject laws that are no laws.
• Against Celsus 5.42Origen · ca. 248 · Against Celsus, Origen praises the ancient Jewish commonwealth: no games or prostitution, children taught to seek God beyond the material world and to believe in the soul's immortality and judgment, and prophecy instead of divination.
• Against Celsus 5.43Origen · ca. 248 · The Jewish law, such as its release of slaves after six years, is far better than other nations' laws; even the least Jew worships the one God while philosophers bow to idols, and had Israel not killed the prophets and plotted against Jesus it would model the heavenly city Plato sought.
• Against Celsus 5.49Origen · ca. 248 · The Jewish food laws were symbols until Christ declared all foods clean; Christians, unlike Pythagoreans who fear eating reincarnated kin, abstain from meat only as a discipline to master the body.
• Against Celsus 5.63Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus says Christian sects curse and hate one another; true followers of Jesus bless those who revile them, try to win back those in error, and only avoid a persistent heretic, as Paul commands.
• Against Celsus 6.15Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus says Christian humility is a garbled borrowing from Plato's Laws, but Origen shows it is older, from the Psalms, and was taught above all by Christ, who humbled himself to death on a cross.
• Against Celsus 6.16Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus claims Jesus garbled Plato's saying about the rich, but Origen finds it absurd that the unlettered Jesus read Plato, and hints at the deeper meaning of the camel and the needle.
• Against Celsus 6.54Origen · ca. 248 · In Scripture, good and evil in the proper sense are virtue and vice of the soul, as the Psalm “Turn away from evil and do good” shows.
• Against Celsus 6.55Origen · ca. 248 · Scripture sometimes calls hardships “evils” sent by God, but God does not make moral evil; at most, some evils follow incidentally from his good works, as shavings fall from a carpenter's work.
• Against Celsus 6.56Origen · ca. 248 · When God sends suffering, it is like a parent's discipline or a surgeon's knife, meant to correct and heal those who would not learn otherwise.
• Against Celsus 6.57Origen · ca. 248 · God does admonish and persuade through Scripture and teachers, but being persuaded requires the hearer's own free consent, as Paul, Isaiah, and Deuteronomy show.
• Against Celsus 7.18Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus sets Moses' promises of wealth and conquest against Jesus' teaching on poverty and non-retaliation, but Origen replies that the law's promises were never meant literally, since the righteous prophets lived in poverty.
• Against Celsus 7.21Origen · ca. 248 · The law's promise of wealth and rule is fulfilled spiritually in people like Paul, rich in knowledge, who “lent” the gospel to many nations and ruled them by the Word.
• Against Celsus 7.22Origen · ca. 248 · The commands to kill enemies are to be read spiritually: the righteous destroy sinful thoughts, and the “infants of Babylon” dashed on the rock are the first stirrings of sin crushed against Christ.
• Against Celsus 7.23Origen · ca. 248 · Jesus' warnings against wealth, power, and wisdom refer to wealth that distracts, domineering rule, and worldly wisdom, not to the spiritual riches and wisdom that the law promises.
• Against Celsus 7.24Origen · ca. 248 · Scripture's warnings against seeking glory and its promises that the righteous will be fed do not contradict Jesus' teaching on not worrying about food and clothing, since the promised food is nourishment of the soul.
• Against Celsus 7.25Origen · ca. 248 · Jesus' command to turn the other cheek is not opposed to the Old Testament, which already teaches it in Lamentations; the same God speaks in both.
• Against Celsus 7.26Origen · ca. 248 · The law of Moses suited a nation with its own state and wars, while the Gospel suits people from all nations under Roman rule; providence ended the temple worship and has made Christianity grow despite persecution.
• Against Celsus 7.33Origen · ca. 248 · God is known not by bodily eyes but by the mind made in his image, and seen by a pure heart, which God himself must create in us.
• Against Celsus 7.46Origen · ca. 248 · Origen accepts what is well said by outsiders, but warns that those who revile humble worshippers maim their own souls; Christians bless when reviled, and rise from creation to God's invisible power, while some philosophers suppress the truth they know.
• Against Celsus 7.47Origen · ca. 248 · Paul's words in Romans 1 describe the philosophers who knew God through such doctrines yet worshipped images and fell into impurity.
• Against Celsus 7.48Origen · ca. 248 · Many simple Christians keep complete chastity without the hemlock used by the Athenian hierophant, and Christian virgins keep virginity not for honour or pay but out of devotion to God.
• Against Celsus 7.49Origen · ca. 248 · Scripture contains all the best Greek teaching and more, and even simple believers in God and his Son often live more purely than philosophers who practise vice with boys.
• Against Celsus 7.52Origen · ca. 248 · Those who run to temples made by craftsmen are the lame ones; Christians run the race and fight the fight, living by the Spirit and not by the dead body.
• Against Celsus 7.58Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus claims the command to turn the other cheek is an old teaching better stated by Plato's Socrates in the Crito, that one must never return wrong for wrong.
• Against Celsus 7.61Origen · ca. 248 · Jesus' plain words on turning the other cheek teach patient endurance more usefully for ordinary people than Plato's Crito, and they do not corrupt the teaching as Celsus claims.
• Against Celsus 7.63Origen · ca. 248 · The same act can spring from different doctrines, as Stoics, Epicureans, and the uneducated all avoid adultery for very different reasons, so Christians' refusal of images must be judged by its reasons.
• Against Celsus 8.10Origen · ca. 248 · Honour to God and to his Son consists in a sound life, since breaking the law dishonours God; only the wise belong to God, which answers Celsus's claim that honouring all God's beings cannot grieve him.
• Against Celsus 8.17Origen · ca. 248 · Christians do have altars, images, and temples: the righteous soul is the altar whose incense is prayer, and the virtues formed by the Word are images of God, far surpassing Phidias's Zeus, and best of all in Christ.
• Against Celsus 8.18Origen · ca. 248 · The virtues formed in Christians are living images in which God's Spirit dwells, as God promised to dwell in the righteous; unlike statues, they last as long as the soul wills.
• Against Celsus 8.24Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus says that eating sacrificial meat is harmless or that demons belong to God and should be honoured; Origen answers from 1 Corinthians that eating idol offerings harms weaker brothers and that one cannot share both the Lord's table and the table of demons.
• Against Celsus 8.28Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus says Christians should either abstain from all meat like Pythagoras, or admit that all food, drink, and air come from demons; Origen notes that Scripture itself commends abstaining from meat for a brother's sake.
• Against Celsus 8.29Origen · ca. 248 · Jesus set aside the Jewish food laws so as not to hinder anyone from coming to God, teaching that defilement comes from within, while the apostles forbade Gentile believers only idol offerings, strangled meat, and blood.
• Against Celsus 8.30Origen · ca. 248 · The apostles forbade idol offerings and blood because they feed demons; Christians may abstain from meat for self-control, not because of Pythagorean transmigration, and they honour the bodies of the dead with burial because of the resurrection.
• Against Celsus 8.35Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus warns that the demons, like imperial officials, will harm those who neglect them; Origen replies that even Lycurgus and Zeno did not take revenge, and Jesus taught love of enemies.
• Against Celsus 8.38Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus imagines Christians mocking statues, but God's law forbids reviling even the gods; the real harm to atheists who deny providence is not bodily but blindness to the Creator.
• Against Celsus 8.41Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus taunts that the gods punish blasphemers while Jesus' executioners went unpunished and his Father abandoned him; Origen answers that Christians revile no one, not even statues or demons.
• Against Celsus 8.50Origen · ca. 248 · Christians long only for what God promises the righteous, including the resurrection; the body is honoured when it suffers for virtue and dishonoured by vice, and a true lover of mankind would reason even with the simple rather than despise them.
• Against Celsus 8.52Origen · ca. 248 · Christians try to win everyone to their whole teaching, but at least try to persuade outsiders of reward and punishment, since all can see the Creator's order in the world and all share common notions of right and wrong.
• Against Celsus 8.55Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus says Christians must either leave life altogether or honour the demons who govern it; Origen answers that the only reasonable death is martyrdom, that Christians may marry and must raise their children, and that they resist the demons with God's armour.
• Against Celsus 8.56Origen · ca. 248 · Christians will live in God's world by his laws, may marry and have children, and will bear hardships as trials; but they will not honour the demons, since they worship God alone, as Christ did, and cannot serve God and mammon.
• Against Celsus 8.61Origen · ca. 248 · God accepts the simple person devoted to him, not one who dabbles in demons' names, spells, herbs, and engraved stones for bodily benefit; such demons cannot even be trusted to keep faith with those who serve them.
• Against Celsus 8.62Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus finally admits that oracles are works of earthly demons bound to blood and incense, as Christians said; Christians would rather be sick and unfortunate with a pure conscience than healthy through serving demons.
• Against Celsus 8.65Origen · ca. 248 · Christians will not win rulers' favour by sin or servility, but neither do they provoke them, obeying Paul's command to be subject to the authorities; yet they will die rather than swear by the emperor's Fortune, which is either nothing or a demon.
• Against Celsus 8.73Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus urges Christians to serve in the emperor's army; Origen answers that Christians help the emperor more by praying for him and for just wars, like pagan priests who keep their hands free of blood, forming an army of prayer against the demons who cause wars.
• To Donatus 10Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 246 · Even the law courts are corrupt: advocates cheat, judges take bribes, and the innocent are condemned.
• To Donatus 11Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 246 · Worldly honours and offices are bought with humiliation and end in ruin when flatterers leave.
• To Donatus 12Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 246 · The rich are tormented by fear for their wealth, possessed by it, and share it with no one.
• To Donatus 6Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 246 · From a mountain top Donatus should view the world's violence, where murder is called valour when done by nations.
• To Donatus 7Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 246 · The gladiatorial games teach killing as an art and make spectators accomplices in murder.
• To Donatus 8Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 246 · The theatre keeps ancient crimes alive, teaches adultery and effeminacy, and makes vice religious by showing the gods' immorality.
• To Donatus 9Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 246 · In private, people commit shameful acts, including men with men, which they condemn in public.
• On the Lord's Prayer 11Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 252 · Those who call God Father must live as his sons, as temples of the Spirit.
• On the Lord's Prayer 15Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 252 · God's will is the life Christ lived and taught: humility, faith, justice, mercy, peace, love, and steadfastness to death.
• On the Lord's Prayer 16Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 252 · Since we are both earth (body) and heaven (spirit), we pray that God's will may bring the flesh into harmony with the spirit.
• On the Lord's Prayer 19Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 252 · 'Daily bread' also means that disciples who have renounced the world ask only for today's food.
• On the Lord's Prayer 20Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 252 · Riches are dangerous, like the rich fool's; the perfect give to the poor and store up treasure in heaven.
• On the Lord's Prayer 32Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 252 · Prayer must be joined with good works, fasting, and almsgiving, like that of Cornelius.
• On the Lord's Prayer 33Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 252 · Prayers joined with good works rise quickly to God, as with Tobit, as Isaiah teaches, and as Paul calls gifts to him a sacrifice.
• On the Lapsed 11Cyprian of Carthage · 251 · Love of property kept many from fleeing and made them fall; Christ's call to sell all and follow him would have kept them free.
• On the Lapsed 12Cyprian of Carthage · 251 · Those possessed by their wealth cannot follow Christ; Scripture warns against the love of money and promises great reward to those who lose everything for Christ's sake.
• On the Lapsed 30Cyprian of Carthage · 251 · Cyprian rebukes lapsed men and women who live in luxury, bathing, feasting, and adorning themselves, instead of mourning their spiritual death with true penance.
• On the Lapsed 35Cyprian of Carthage · 251 · The lapsed must do long and earnest penance with prayer, fasting, mourning, and generous almsgiving, spending on the poor the property that caused their fall.
• On the Lapsed 6Cyprian of Carthage · 251 · Cyprian lists the sins that provoked the persecution: greed, vanity, fraud, marriage with unbelievers, perjury, quarreling, and bishops who neglected their people for business and usury.
• On the Unity of the Catholic Church 15Cyprian of Carthage · 251 · Miracles do not save without obedience; Christ summed up the law in love, which schismatics destroy.
• On the Unity of the Catholic Church 2Cyprian of Carthage · 251 · We gain immortality by keeping Christ's commandments, building on the rock; otherwise we are blown about like dust.
• On the Unity of the Catholic Church 24Cyprian of Carthage · 251 · Christ left peace as our inheritance; the sons of God must be peacemakers.
• On the Unity of the Catholic Church 26Cyprian of Carthage · 251 · Christians now give less than the first believers, showing that faith has weakened, as Christ foretold.