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Translated by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson.
Clement of Alexandria in Print
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This Part: 134 Pages
Page 46
I am weary and vexed at enumerating the multitude of ornaments; [1561] and I am compelled to wonder how those who bear such a burden are not worried to death. O foolish trouble! O silly craze for display! They squander meretriciously wealth on what is disgraceful; and in their love for ostentation disfigure God's gifts, emulating the art of the evil one. The rich man hoarding up in his barns, and saying to himself, "Thou hast much goods laid up for many years; eat, drink, be merry," the Lord in the Gospel plainly called "fool." "For this night they shall take of thee thy soul; whose then shall those things which thou hast prepared be?" [1562]
Apelles, the painter, seeing one of his pupils painting a figure loaded with gold colour to represent Helen, said to him, "Boy, being incapable of painting her beautiful, you have made her rich."
Such Helens are the ladies of the present day, not truly beautiful, but richly got up. To these the Spirit prophesies by Zephaniah: "And their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the Lord's anger." [1563]
But for those women who have been trained under Christ, it is suitable to adorn themselves not with gold, but with the Word, through whom alone the gold comes to light. [1564]
[1561] [The Greek satirist seems to have borrowed Isaiah's catalogue. cap. iii. 18-23.]
[1562] Luke. xii. 19, 20.
[1563] Zeph. i. 18.
[1564] Logos is identified with reason; and it is by reason, or the ingenuity of man, that gold is discovered and brought to light. [But here he seems to have in view the comparisons between gold and wisdom, in Job xxviii.]
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