Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VIII/Pseudo-Clementine Literature/The Clementine Homilies/Homily X/Chapter 5

by Anonymous

Chapter V.—The Fear of God.

“Therefore you shall be able to persuade yourselves with respect to the things that are profitable, if, like charmers, you say to the horrible serpent which lurks in your heart, ‘The Lord God thou shalt fear, and Him alone thou shalt serve.’^[1]  On every account it is advantageous to fear Him alone, not as an unjust, but as a righteous God.  For one fears an unjust being, lest he be wrongfully destroyed, but a righteous one, lest he be caught in sin and punished.  You can therefore, by fear towards Him, be freed from many hurtful fears.  For if you do not fear the one Lord and Maker of all, you shall be the slaves of all evils to your own hurt, I mean of demons and diseases, and of everything that can in any way hurt you.

Footnotes

1. Matt. iv. 10; [Luke iv. 8; Deut. vi. 13.—R.].