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

Translated by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson.

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Page 17

Chapter IX.--The Connection of the Christian Virtues.

Such a fear, accordingly, leads to repentance and hope. Now hope is the expectation of good things, or an expectation sanguine of absent good; and favourable circumstances are assumed in order to good hope, which we have learned leads on to love. Now love turns out to be consent in what pertains to reason, life, and manners, or in brief, fellowship in life, or it is the intensity of friendship and of affection, with right reason, in the enjoyment of associates. And an associate (hetairos) is another self; [2243] just as we call those, brethren, who are regenerated by the same word. And akin to love is hospitality, being a congenial art devoted to the treatment of strangers. And those are strangers, to whom the things of the world are strange. For we regard as worldly those, who hope in the earth and carnal lusts. "Be not conformed," says the apostle, "to this world: but be ye transformed in the renewal of the mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God." [2244]

Hospitality, therefore, is occupied in what is useful for strangers; and guests (epixenoi) are strangers (xenoi); and friends are guests; and brethren are friends. "Dear brother," [2245] says Homer.

[2243] heteros ego, alter ego, deriving hetairos from heteros.

[2244] Rom. xii. 2.

[2245] phele kasignete, Iliad, v. 359.

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