Clement of Alexandria · a new plain-English translation from the original language
How great, too, is his goodness! "Love your enemies," he says, "bless those who curse you, and pray for those who insult you," and the like; to which he adds, "that you may become sons of your Father who is in the heavens," hinting at the assimilation to God. And again he says, "Be well-disposed to your adversary quickly, while you are on the road with him"; and this opponent is not, as certain people suppose, our own flesh, but rather the devil (together with all who have taken on his likeness), who accompanies us along the road through those men who copy his deeds in this present life. It cannot happen, then, that men claiming allegiance to Christ, while still passing their days amid the devil's handiwork, will avoid meeting with the harshest possible dealing; since it stands written, "in case he hands you over to the judge, and the judge over to the officer answering to the devil's rule."
For I am persuaded that neither death, which comes by the assault of persecutors, nor life, as lived in this present existence, nor angels, the apostate ones, nor principalities (and the principality belonging to Satan is the life he chose for himself; for such are the principalities and powers of darkness that pertain to him), nor things present, in which we find ourselves during the time of this life, as the soldier has his hope and the merchant his gain, nor anything lofty, nor anything sunk in the depths, nor any other made thing, operating by its own proper force, shall have power, against a man who has chosen faith, to set itself against him (creation being termed, in the same sense, also "force," since it belongs to us as our own doing)—no such force shall have the power to sever us from God's love, the love found in Christ Jesus our Lord. There, then, you have the sum and substance of the gnostic martyr.
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