Clement of Alexandria: STROMATA (MISCELLANIES), Part V, Complete

Translated by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson.

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Page 114

In particular, the habit of liberality [3606] which prevails among us is called "righteousness;" but the power of discriminating according to desert, as to greater and less, with reference to those who am proper subjects of it, is a form of the very highest righteousness.

There are things practiced in a vulgar style by some people, such as control over pleasures. For as, among the heathen, there are those who, from the impossibility of obtaining what one sees, [3607] and from fear of men, and also for the sake of greater pleasures, abstain from the delights that are before them; so also, in the case of faith, some practice self-restraint, either out of regard to the promise or from fear of God. Well, such self-restraint is the basis of knowledge, and an approach to something better, and an effort after perfection. For "the fear of the Lord," it is said, "is the beginning of wisdom." [3608] But the perfect man, out of love, "beareth all things, endureth all things," [3609] "as not pleasing man, but God." [3610] Although praise follows him as a consequence, it is not for his own advantage, but for the imitation and benefit of those who praise him.

[3606] [The habit of beneficence is a form of virtue, which the Gospel alone has bred among mankind.]

[3607] hora: or, desires, hera, as Sylburgius suggests.

[3608] Prov. i. 7.

[3609] 1 Cor. xiii. 7.

[3610] 1 Thess. ii. 4.

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