Clement of Alexandria · a new plain-English translation from the original language
Those who bring the rich gifts of encomiastic speeches would, I think, be justly judged not only flatterers and servile, since they pretend to be bestowing a great favor when in fact they bestow nothing gracious at all, but also impious and treacherous men — impious, because, neglecting to praise and glorify the only perfect and good God, from whom are all things, and through whom are all things, and unto whom are all things, they hang instead . . . . . . . . . . . the prize on men . . . . . . . . . . . wallowing in life . . . . . . the chief matter lying under the judgment of God; treacherous, because, when abundance itself is by its own nature sufficient to make soft and to corrupt the souls of those who possess it and to turn them aside from the road by which it is possible to attain salvation, these men further confound the minds of the rich, puffing them up with the pleasures of immoderate praises, and, save for the wealth on account of which they are admired, teaching them to despise absolutely everything else — piling, as the saying goes, fire upon fire, pouring vanity upon vanity, and heaping bulk upon wealth, a heavier burden upon a nature already heavy, wealth from which they ought rather to be taking away and cutting back, as from a treacherous and deadly disease; for to him who is lifted up and magnified there stands fixed, in reversal, a change and a fall into lowliness, as the divine word teaches. To me it seems far more humane to attend to the rich . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . than to join in bringing them to ruin . . . . . . . . . . . their salvation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . in every way possible — on the one hand asking these things of God, who steadily and gladly grants such things to his own children, and on the other healing their souls by the word, through the grace of the Savior, illuminating them and leading them on toward the possession of truth, which whoever attains and is also made radiant by good works alone shall carry off the prize of eternal life. And prayer needs a soul that is vigorous and rich, sustained evenly to the very last day of life, and the manner of life needs a disposition that is good and steadfast and stretched out toward all the commandments of the Savior.
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