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Translated by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson.
Clement of Alexandria in Print
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52 Pages
Page 3
And how shall one "judge" the apostate "angels," who has become himself an apostate from that forgetfulness of injuries, which is according to the Gospel? "Why do ye not rather suffer wrong?" he says; "why are ye not rather defrauded? Yea, ye do wrong and defraud," [3650] manifestly by praying against those who transgress in ignorance, and deprive of the philanthropy and goodness of God, as far as in you lies, those against whom you pray, "and these your brethren,"--not meaning those in the faith only, but also the proselytes. For whether he who now is hostile shall afterwards believe, we know not as yet. From which the conclusion follows clearly, if all are not yet brethren to us, they ought to be regarded in that light. And now it is only the man of knowledge who recognises all men to be the work of one God, and invested with one image in one nature, although some may be more turbid than others; and in the creatures he recognises the operation, by which again he adores the will of God.
"Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God?" [3651] He acts unrighteously who retaliates, whether by deed or word, or by the conception of a wish, which, after the training of the Law, the Gospel rejects.
"And such were some of you"--such manifestly as those still are whom you do not forgive; "but ye are washed," [3652] not simply as the rest, but with knowledge; ye have cast off the passions of the soul, in order to become assimilated, as far as possible, to the goodness of God's providence by long-suffering, and by forgiveness "towards the just and the unjust," casting on them the gleam of benignity in word and deeds, as the sun.
[3650] 1 Cor. vi. 7, 8.
[3651] 1 Cor. vi. 9.
[3652] 1 Cor. vi. 11.
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