During the first hundred years after the death of the apostles no important Christian writer wrestled with the question of how the followers of Jesus should use their money. The Lord had told his disciples not to worry about it, but to give it away freely. The Jerusalem believers obeyed this injunction by selling their excess property and sharing their goods. Later, Paul’s converts retained private ownership but systematically provided for the needy. Near the end of his life Paul warned Christians against the love of money and instructed wealthy believers to use their money for good deeds.

As Christianity spread through all classes of society thoughtful believers must have sensed the apparent tension between Jesus’ injunctions and Paul’s instructions about money. Clement was a late second-century thinker who set himself the task of clarifying the church’s understanding of wealth. His position as the tread of the famous catechetical school in Alexandria made him the most important theologian ...

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