Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 3.1

Summary: Christians should neither despise nor flatter the rich, but first free them from despair by showing that the kingdom is open to them if they obey the commandments.

Greek text · Stählin 3:161

καὶ μήτε καταθρασυνομένους αὐθάδως τῶν πλουσίων κλητῶν μήτε αὖ πάλιν ὑποπίπτοντας αὐτοῖς διὰ οἰκείαν φιλοκέρδειαν, πρῶτον μὲν αὐτῶν ἐξαιρεῖν τῷ λόγῳ τὴν κενὴν ἀπόγνωσιν καὶ δηλοῦν μετὰ τῆς δεούσης ἐξηγήσεως τῶν λογίων τοῦ κυρίου διότι οὐκ ἀποκέκοπται τέλεον αὐτοῖς ἡ κληρονομία τῆς βασιλείας τῶν οὐρανῶν, ἐὰν ὑπακούσωσι ταῖς ἐντολαῖς·

English · Claude translation

neither insolently to treat the rich who have been called with arrogance, nor again to fawn on them out of their own love of gain, but first to remove from them by the Word their empty despair, and to show, with the needed interpretation of the Lord's sayings, that the inheritance of the kingdom of heaven is not entirely cut off from them if they obey the commandments.

About this passage

Source

Stählin 3:161 · 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. 3.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-quis-dives/3/1/).

Plain text

Clement of Alexandria, Quis div. 3.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-quis-dives/3/1/).