Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VIII/Pseudo-Clementine Literature/The Clementine Homilies/Homily II/Chapter 3

by Anonymous

Chapter III.—Forewarned is Forearmed.

“And let it not be said, Is it not, then, proper to present comforts and admonitions to those who are in any bad case?  To this I answer, that if, indeed, any one is able, let him present them; but if not, let him bide his time.  For I know^[1] that all things have their proper season.  Wherefore it is proper to ply men with words which strengthen the soul in anticipation of evil; so that, if at any time any evil comes upon them, the mind, being forearmed with the right argument, may be able to bear up under that which befalls it:  for then the mind knows in the crisis of the struggle to have recourse to him who succoured it by good counsel.

Footnotes

1. Eccles. iii. 1.