After this they must walk and find out the rest for themselves. As, they say, when a certain slave once asked at the oracle what he should do to please his master, the Pythian priestess replied, "You will find if you seek." It is truly a difficult matter, then, as turns out, to find out latent good; since
"Before virtue is placed exertion,
And long and steep is the way to it,
And rough at first; but when the summit is reached,
Then is it easy, though difficult [before]."
"For narrow," in truth, "and strait is the way" of the Lord. And it is to the "violent that the kingdom of God belongs." [2680]
Whence, "Seek, and ye shall find," holding on by the truly royal road, and not deviating. As we might expect, then, the generative power of the seeds of the doctrines comprehended in this treatise is great in small space, as the "universal herbage of the field," [2681] as Scripture saith.
Clement of Alexandria in Print
