The Second 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.

for if God should pay the recompense of the righteous speedily, we should immediately be training ourselves in commerce and not in godliness; for we should seem to be righteous when we were pursuing not

piety but gain. For this reason divine judgment punishes[*](This translation takes the aorist as gnomic, and regards spirit as meaning a human spirit. But Harnack prefers to take the aorist as historical and refers the passage to the fall of Satan.) a spirit which is not righteous and loads it with chains.