Sophia Scriptura

Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 14.4

Clement of Alexandria · Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? · ca. 190–210 · Alexandria · Read in context

Summary: Wealth serves either justice or injustice; the blame lies not with it but with the human mind that chooses how to use it.

Greek text · Stählin 3:168–169

δύνασαι χρῆσθαι δικαίως αὐτῷ· πρὸς δικαιοσύνην καθυπηρετεῖ· ἀδίκως τις αὐτῷ χρῆται· πάλιν ὑπηρέτης ἀδικίας εὑρίσκεται· πέφυκε γὰρ ὑπηρετεῖν, ἀλλʼ οὐκ ἄρχειν. οὐ χρὴ τοίνυν τὸ ἐξ ἑαυτοῦ μὴ ἔχον μήτε τὸ ἀγαθὸν μήτε τὸ κακόν. ἀναίτιον ὄν, αἰτιᾶσθαι, ἀλλὰ τὸ δυνάμενον καὶ καλῶς τούτοις χρῆσθαι καὶ κακῶς, ἀφʼ ὧν ἂν ἕληται, κατʼ αὐτὸ τοῦτο αἴτιον ὄν. τοῦτο δʼ ἐστὶ νοῦς ἀνθρώπου.

English · Claude translation

You can use it justly: it serves righteousness. Someone uses it unjustly: again it is found a servant of injustice. For its nature is to serve, not to rule. We must not, then, blame what has in itself neither good nor evil and is not responsible, but what is able to use these things both well and badly, according to what it chooses, and is responsible for that very reason. And this is the human mind,

About this passage

Source
Stählin 3:168–169 · Otto Stählin, ed., Clemens Alexandrinus, vol. 3, Stromata Buch VII und VIII, Excerpta ex Theodoto, Eclogae propheticae, Quis dives salvetur, Fragmente, GCS 17 (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1909) · Greek text: Otto Stählin, Clemens Alexandrinus 3 (GCS 17, 1909), digitized by the First Thousand Years of Greek project (Open Greek and Latin), CC BY-SA 4.0
Text
As printed in Stählin, GCS 17. Manuscript variants and the editor's apparatus are not reproduced; no textual problem is noted in this passage.
Translation
Claude translation (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-27 · Translated by Claude from the Greek text of Stählin (1909); made independently of existing English translations.
Compare
Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 2 (1885) (an older public-domain English translation, whole volume at CCEL; checked against ours only after ours was made)
Topics
Ethics

Notes

Translation notes

  • The sentence continues in the next section.

Cite this passage

Clement of Alexandria, Quis div. 14.4 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-quis-dives/14/4/).

Plain text
Clement of Alexandria, Quis div. 14.4 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-quis-dives/14/4/).

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