Clement of Alexandria · a new plain-English translation from the original language
He, then, is truly and rightly rich who is rich in the virtues and able to make holy and faithful use of every fortune, while the counterfeit rich man is the one who is rich according to the flesh and has transferred his life to external possession — possession that passes away and perishes, that becomes now one man's and now another's, and in the end belongs to no one at all. Again, in the same way, there is a genuine poor man, and another poor man who is counterfeit and falsely so called. The one is poor in spirit, and this poverty is properly his own; the other is poor in worldly goods, and this belongs to what is alien to him. To him, then, who is not poor in worldly goods but rich in the passions, the man who is not poor in spirit but rich toward God says: "Depart from the alien possessions abiding in your soul, so that, having become pure in heart, you may see God" — which is the very thing that in other words is called entering into the kingdom of heaven. And how are you to depart from them? By selling them. What then — are you to take money in exchange for your possessions, making an exchange of one wealth for another, turning your visible property into silver? By no means. Rather, in place of the things that formerly dwelt within the soul you long to save, you are to bring in instead another wealth, one that makes godlike and supplies life eternal — the dispositions that accord with the commandment of God. In exchange for these there will remain to you a reward and an honor: unbroken salvation and everlasting incorruption. Thus do you sell your possessions well — the many superfluous things that shut the heavens against you — exchanging them for what is able to save. Let the poor of the flesh, who have need of such things, keep them; but you, having received spiritual wealth in their place, would already possess treasure in the heavens.
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