Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 19.1

Summary: True wealth is wealth of virtues; counterfeit wealth is outward possession, which passes away.

Greek text · Stählin 3:171

Ὁ μὲν ἄρα ἀληθῶς καὶ καλῶς πλούσιός ἐστιν ὁ τῶν ἀρετῶν πλούσιος καὶ πάσῃ τύχῃ χρῆσθαι ὁσίως καὶ πιστῶς δυνάμενος, ὁ δὲ νόθος πλούσιος ὁ κατὰ σάρκα πλουτῶν καὶ τὴν ζωὴν εἰς τὴν ἔξω κτῆσιν μετενηνοχὼς τὴν παρερχομένην καὶ φθειρομένην καὶ ἄλλοτε ἄλλου γινομένην καὶ ἐν τῷ τέλει μηδενὸς μηδαμῇ.

English · Claude translation

The one who is truly and nobly rich, then, is the one rich in virtues and able to use every fortune in a holy and faithful way; the counterfeit rich man is the one rich according to the flesh, who has transferred his life to external possession, which passes away and perishes, belongs now to one and now to another, and in the end to no one at all.

About this passage

Source

Stählin 3:171 · 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

Cite this passage

Clement of Alexandria, Quis div. 19.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-quis-dives/19/1/).

Plain text

Clement of Alexandria, Quis div. 19.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-quis-dives/19/1/).