Clement of Alexandria



Fragments

Collection IX
Fragment 5




Table of Contents

Catalogue of Titles




Logos Virtual Library



Catalogue

Clement of Alexandria (153-217)

Fragments

Translated by William Wilson

Collection IX

Fragment 5


Above all, Christians are not allowed to correct with violence the delinquencies of sins. For it is not those that abstain from wickedness from compulsion, but those that abstain from choice, that God crowns. It is impossible for a man to be steadily good except by his own choice. For he that is made good by compulsion of another is not good; for he is not what he is by his own choice. For it is the freedom of each one that makes true goodness and reveals real wickedness. Whence through these dispositions God contrived to make His own disposition manifest.





Collection IX
Fragment 4


Collection X
Fragment 1