The First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians
Clemens Romanus (Clement of Rome)
Clement of Rome. The Apostolic Fathers, Volume 1. Lake, Kirsopp, editor. London: William Heinemann Ltd.; New York: The Macmillan Company, 1912.
How blessed and wonderful, beloved, are the[*](The reward of good works, and how it may be gained) gifts of God!
Life in immortality, splendour in righteousness, truth in boldness, faith in confidence, continence in holiness: and all these things are submitted to our understanding.
What, then, are the things which are being prepared for those who wait for him? The Creator and Father of the ages, the All-holy one, himself knows their greatness and beauty.
Let us then strive to be found among the number of those that wait, that we may receive a share of the promised gifts.
But how
shall this be, beloved? If our understanding be fixed faithfully on God; if we seek the things which are well-pleasing and acceptable to him; if we fulfil the things which are in harmony with his faultless will, and follow the way of truth, casting away from ourselves all iniquity and wickedness, covetousness, strife, malice and fraud, gossiping and evil speaking, hatred of God, pride and arrogance, vain-glory and inhospitality.For those who do these things are hateful to God, and not only those who do them, but also those who take pleasure in them.
For the Scripture says: But to the sinner said God: Wherefore dost thou declare my ordinances, and takest my covenant in thy mouth?
Thou hast hated instruction, and cast my words behind thee. If thou sawest a thief thou didst run with him, and thou didst make thy portion with the adulterers. Thy mouth hath multiplied iniquity, and thy tongue did weave deceit. Thou didst sit to speak evil against thy brother, and thou didst lay a stumbling-block in the way of thy mother’s son.
Thou hast done these things and I kept silent; thou didst suppose, O wicked one, that I shall be like unto thee.
I will reprove thee and set thyself before thy face.[*](The Syriac reads Set thy sins before thy face. This is no doubt a guess, but it gives the meaning.)
Understand then these things, ye who forget God, lest he seize you as doth a lion, and there be none to deliver.
The sacrifice of praise shall glorify me, and therein is a way in which I will show to him the salvation of God.